5 Months In…

It’s half way through May.. where has the time gone?! I don’t know about you, but these past 5 months have been hectic for me. Two jobs, finishing up my last semester of school and starting my own business has kept me busy to say the least! I feel as though I was on an emotional roller coaster and I have finally gotten off the ride.

It is time to bring everyone up to speed with some true honesty for how life has unfolded for me in 2016. I have been rather quiet for the past few months as I have been navigating through my own struggles since coming off of the pill back in January. For what ever reason I thought it was going to be smooth sailing.. just ditch the pill and voila my life body would be back to its all natural state. Uhhh… not so much.

Here is the honest truth.. Over the past few months I have seriously contemplated going back on it simply because of all the rapid changes in my body which I was not expecting. Lets start first with the fact that I was ridiculously tired, completely exhausted for the first 3 weeks of coming off the pill. I mean, I was going to bed at 7:30pm and waking up at 6am still tired with no motivation to get out of bed.

Then as if feeling tired wasn’t enough of a drag, I realized I had gained 10lbs of stubborn fat that was not budging. Not cool. Everyone seems to think you will gain weight when going on the birth control pill but funny thing is 1 and 3 girls actually gain weight when coming off of it, not going on it. (Yay me for being 1 of the lucky ones..*eye roll*)

So these were just some of the emotional/mental things I was struggling with.. and then my period came. Omg – lets just say it was awful. Excruciating pain to the point that I couldn’t stand; I could barely talk, never mind get up and move.

At this point, I started to doubt my decision.. I mean, for the past 8 years I’ve been pretty lucky with a nice short & light period.. but since going off the pill it’s almost unbearable. So naturally, everyone tells me to just ‘go back on it’ but the issue here is that people don’t stop and think WHY is this happening? This isn’t normal… my hormones are completely out of whack and instead of taking the easy route and popping some pills I am choosing to LISTEN to my body and work with it to balance out my hormones naturally.

At first I was afraid to let other girls know about this after I was so excited to ditch the pill and had many talks with other girls eager to do the same.. but I think that what is lacking in society is the ability to have real conversations that allow us to know that YOU ARE NOT the only one struggling. What ever you are going through, someone else has been there to and they are able to help guide you.

After putting all my knowledge from school to test on myself, I can confidently say I am SO happy I continued to work at this the natural way. My last period was tolerable and I am starting to see my weight come back down.. slowly but surely. Most importantly, for the first time in a LONG time I feel like myself. I feel like I did when I was younger.. the world seems a little brighter, my days feel longer and I feel as though I can seriously do anything. It is ALL ABOUT the self care. Give your body the time it needs to heal.

I can tell you there has been some incredible positive changes in my body as well! I can say my appetite came back, I feel much more stable emotionally with few mood swings and I have more energy. I think my favourite part is that I am 100% free from medications. Filling out a medical history and writing N/A besides medications just makes my heart sing. I am no longer a part of supporting big pharma!

This may sound silly to some, but really think about that for a second. How many people do you know who take ZERO medications? I guarantee you can count on one hand. This is what our western world has come to.. pills and quick fixes are the answer to everything. You choose what you want to do with your body. You can deal with your symptoms and find the root cause of them, or you can pop a pill and deal with the long list of side effect… the choice is yours!

If you have any questions about my experience coming off the pill, feel free to reach out! I would love to chat and help you on your journey.

Until next time,

xo

Cassidy