This piece originally appeared onFacebook.
A slightly edited version is shared here with the author’s permission.
Planned Parenthoodsaved my life.
Courtesy of Olivia Sod
I wasdepressed, anxious, and crying to the point of uncontrollable sobbing on an almost weekly basis.
Soon, it started to make sense: I had started takingbirth controlthe day before I left for Vienna.
This was scaryscarier than I can even begin to put into words.
I would sometimes start sobbing the second I woke up, and I would continue to for several hours.
I was overcome withanxietyand felt a sadness deeper than I ever have.
But it was an adjustment period, so I carried on.
And I came home.
And I made an appointment with my gynecologist’s office shortly after to explore other options.
I expressed hesitation about going back on the pill, and she told me to try a different brand.
“There’s hundreds of brands, you have to try a few to get it right.”
So I began another birth control.
And, again, the same thing happened.
This time, I wasn’t abroad, I was in Ithaca.
I had a great job and was around great people daily.
And, again, I was sobbing uncontrollably.
I called the office again, and they put me on a DIFFERENT pill.
And, you guessed it, the same thing happened again.
So I called the office back.
They transferred me to speak with a male ob/gyn I had never spoken to or met with before.
He told me, “It’s obvious, stop taking the pill.”
He said, “Well you’d have to make an appointment to talk about anything else.”
(Side note: I am not at all bashing the birth control pill as an option.
In that moment, I felt lost and abandoned by my gyno office.
Finally, I made the decision to go toPlanned Parenthood.
Every nurse and PA I met with listened to me.
They REALLY listened to me.
They sympathized with me.
I was not interrupted and my problems were not trivialized.
For the first time, I felt understood and cared for by a women’s health provider.
They helped me make sense of everything I had gone through over the past year.
They also helped me understand the emotionally intense periods I had been having my entire life.
Finally, finally, finally, I was beginning to understand myself and my body.
They inserted myIUDand then responded compassionately when, weeks later, I had severe cramping.
Again, they didn’t dismiss my issues.
Instead, they respected that I knew my own body well enough to know when something was wrong.
So they removed it and inserted a new one.
They cared about me and my health.
They saved my mental health, they saved my quality of life, and they saved my life.
I#StandWithPPbecause every woman deserves the level of quality and care they offer.
Learn more about PMDDhere.
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