AIBU to ask if the pill has caused / exacerbated mental health issues?

[Dobbyhasnomaster]

So I’ve just started taking microgynon after various experiments with other pills that made my hair shed amongst other problems. After not taking any pills since last August, I’m 3 weeks in with microgynon and I’ve become an anxious, stroppy, tearful mess. I feel like I’m always about to make a massive speech or waiting to hear some dreadful news - but for no reason, and nothing has changed in my life over the past month except taking these pills. In the past, doctors have been very dismissive of ‘mental health side effects’ caused by the pill, so thought I would open it up the general consensus to see if anyone else has struggled with this, or whether this is just coincidental and I need to get some help for my anxiety?!

Yup, definitely affects my MH. I only realised how rubbish it made me feel when I stopped taking it! I tried to go back on it but it made me a total mess and my DH told me to stop again.

I stopped taking Yasmin after 18 months because I went into a ragey angry mess when I was on it , I put on weight rapidly when I came off it but I felt so much better

Yes and it's very well documented, but young teenage girls still have these thrown at them like sweets.

Microgynon had a terrible effect on me, it was awful. I saw a GP to ask to change pills and she told me that when she herself was on it she tried to insist her husband get out of bed as he was wrinkling the sheets.

Marvellon was much better for me, it evened out moods, I felt better on it. I cried when they refused to keep prescribing it for other reasons, although I ended up a mirena which was also good.

The same pill gave me horrendous mood swings.

Wow it has affected so many people! The guardian article is fascinating - I think they should warn you before you start taking it that anxiety and depression are well known side effects. Let you make an informed decision before you put the hormones in your body, and also you’d be aware if you started to experience mental health problems that the pill could be causing it. It must completely fly under the radar for thousands of women.

I feel like I’m always about to make a massive speech or waiting to hear some dreadful news - but for no reason

After I had an abortion the doctor basically forced me onto the pill. This is exactly how I spent the next two months feeling until I suddenly had a light bulb moment that it might be the pill causing the feelings. I stopped taking it and felt much better, although it was still months until I felt 'normal'. I honestly believe the pill was responsible for most of my post-abortion struggles.

I would never touch another form of hormonal contraception ever again.

Microgynon was terrible for me, sent my moods swinging and raging! Put me off pumping hormones into my body for any reason. I use barrier method now and luckily it works for me. You have my sympathy OP x

Should've said, it was also Microgynon for me.

Cerazette nearly destroyed my relationship with DH, my GP wouldn't believe it was anything to do with the pill, but reluctantly agreed to change it. Immediate improvement, in that I wasn't having crazy mood swings and being a complete cow anymore. When I came off hormonal contraception altogether when we were ttc I was amazed at how much it had been flattening my mood, and how low I'd been feeling without realizing it.

Oh, I later found out they don't recommend prescribing cerazette to people with a history of mental illness. So I should never have been on it in the first place.