In April of 2017, after being on the pill for almost 5 years, I went off of it. 

I went on the 28-day pill at the age of 16--in my junior year of high school. My acne was at an all-time worst at that age and my period was so so heavy that I had to change my tampons every single hour. Trust me, I had the absolute worst periods on this earth with the whole shebang--cramping, headaches, heavy flow--all of it. 

Thus, I did what every high schooler who started realizing puberty was hitting them hard--I went on the pill.

Now, don't get me wrong, the pill treated me well for close to 5 years. It made my periods lighter, my boobs bigger, and basically made cramps a thing of the past. 

Now, what do you say changed in me that made me want to go off of it? I have one answer for that. A podcast. One day I was listening to the amazing Melissa Ambrosini on The Melissa Ambrosini Show. The particular podcast episode I was listening to was episode 14, "The Pill, Periods and Fertility with Dr. Nat Kringoudis." I highly recommend listening to this episode if you're thinking about going off the pill. 

Pretty much she opened my eyes to the fact that I have NO clue what my body is like without synthetic hormones inside of it. I have been on the pill for so long and through so much of my womanly development that I have no clue what it is like to just be me off the pill. 

I started to think more into this about how my body is like on the pill. One of my main reasons for going off of this pill had to do with my digestion. From listening to the podcast and also doing some side research, I learned that being on the pill can greatly affect your gut health. I wondered if my gut health was being affected due to the pill because I've had digestions issues for a long time. I always bloat after meals and have had trouble with constipation in the past. 

Likewise, it can affect your fertility. Now, I am not saying that I care about fertility at the age of 21 in the normal way of thinking of fertility. In the podcast, Dr. Nat talked about how regardless of whether you are looking to have kids or not, fertility is the way in which to tell if a woman is healthy or not. Basically, if you are infertile, you are not healthy as a woman. (Now I know there are special circumstances to this where perfectly healthy woman are infertile, so I am not talking about these women as there are other factors at play there). 

In the podcast, Dr. Nat talked about how if your period is completely synced and consistent on its own, then you are considered healthy and fertile. It is when your period doesn't come for months at a time or a ton at once that you need to be concerned. 

I realized from this that I have no clue how healthy I am because I am on the pill, and my body is in a state of reliance on the pill. 

Therefore, for the reasons of getting in tune with my fertility and getting my digestion back on track, I went off the pill. 

So, I made the decision and I did not order another pack of my birth control. I took this time as a little experiment. I really tried to get in tune with my body and figure out what I am like as a 21-year-old woman off the pill. 

Over the course of the next several months, I learned a lot about my body as well as what the pill did to my body. I used the "Clue" app on iPhone to track my periods, mood, sex drive, period symptoms, etc. (I highly recommend this app even if you are on the pill or another form of birth control). 

From this experience, these are the pros and cons of going off the pill.
I will start with the cons: 

I never knew when my period was going to come or if it was going to come or how heavy it would be or how long it would last. It was so random that I never knew what to expect.

When I was on the pill, I always knew when I was going to get my period so I never had to worry about carrying tampons and panty liners with me until the week of my placebo pills. That pretty much went out the window because when I went off the pill, I had to carry them with me at all times because I never knew when I would spot or get a full blown period. 

Now I went through quite the dry spell when I decided to go off the pill so it seemed like a logical time to go off of it because I wasn't being consistently sexually active. However, within that time period of going off the pill, I started dating my current boyfriend. Although we always used condoms I started becoming EXTREMELY paranoid as I had never had sex without the pill before this. Meanwhile, my period was so inconsistent--even though I tried to track it with my Clue app, that I never knew if I just wasn't getting my period because it was inconsistent or because I was pregnant. FYI I never became pregnant, but it was a real fear of mine. 

Now, it hasn't returned full force like high school--I think this is because I eat a lot healthier now that I did in high school--but it has returned. I break out much more than I did when I was on the pill. However, this is something I was actively prepared for when I went off of it. 

Now onto the pros of going off the pill--which I find to outweigh the cons in my opinion. 

This is my favorite outcome of going off the pill. For the longest time, I remember being constantly bloated. I would eat breakfast and instantly my stomach would go from flat to round in about a half an hour. I tried everything to cure this problem. However, going off the pill seemed to work for me as my bloated as decrease tremendously. 

Not much to say here, but it is nice to have an existent libido. 

Now with previous partners, I never ever had sex that wasn't painful. I always had trouble with being dry regardless of the fact that there was foreplay involved. However, since going off the pill, I do not have an issue with being dry and sex is no longer painful. Yay!

Since being on the pill, I never knew really what it felt like to have a synthetic-hormone-free cycle. I finally felt what it was like to ovulate. I also felt what it was like to have varying hormone levels throughout my cycle since when you're on the pill you are pretty much on a homogeneous level of hormones at all times. It felt good to finally feel what my body was like off of the pill. 

I don't know about you, but remembering to take the pill at exactly 9:30pm every night became a struggle and a chore. If you were out with friends and you forgot to bring your pack, then you already knew you were going to be taking it inconsistently. It got to the point where I stopped caring about taking it exactly on time and simply just taking in within a 3-hour window. This is obviously not how it is supposed to work. It is super nice to not have to worry about taking the pill anymore.

Now, to each their own, but I hope that if you are on the pill, that you simply ponder the idea of going off of it if you have any of the issues I mentioned. I hope this helped you learn a little more about what it's like going off the pill!