- Work hard, career, friendship,
don't need a man or babies, like blah.
(percussive music)
Hey guys, welcome to episode eight
of the Hormone Diaries,
this is a very special episode because
it has been six months since I came off the pill.
Woooo!
I don't know why I'm celebrating.
But it just seems worthy it's like a good marker.
And so, because I am six months into this journey
and I promised you guys I would talk about this,
I'm going to discuss the changes
that I have noticed happening to my mind, body and soul.
Some of the things that have been happening
are a direct result of coming off the pill.
Others, I'm not sure about.
I don't know if they would've happened anyway.
I don't know if there are other factors involved.
But, I've still noticed some changes and so
I wanna talk about them.
The first, most obvious change,
is that I have periods again.
Shockcara, I bleed now.
I did a whole video on the return of my first period.
But, I haven't really updated you on
how they've been going since.
So I've had three periods in six months.
Which is kind of what I expected.
Before I came on the pill, my periods
were quite irregular and I had a really long cycle.
And I assume that coming off the pill
it would take a while for my body
to kind of get back into the swing of
a 28-ish day cycle.
That still hasn't happened yet.
I've been using the app, Clue, to track my cycle, so
when I came off the pill, it took about
six weeks for my first period to come.
And then my first cycle
that I had was 52 days.
And then, the cycle that I had after that
was 40 days, and the cycle that I'm currently on
but my period has not come yet but
it should be due any minute,
is currently on day 45.
The day I'm filming this.
I assumed that my assumed that my cycle
would be getting shorter.
So from 52 to 40 and then maybe somewhere in the thirties.
But no, we're now on day 45,
and my period still hasn't arrived.
So, who knows what my body is doing?
Because my cycle is so long, and
my period is pretty irregular,
I don't really know when I'm going to come on my period.
And it means that I haven't been fully prepared
to try out new products that I would like to.
So, so far on each of my periods,
I've just used tampons and pads.
But I really want to start to move away
from those and start the menstrual cup
and the period underwear that you can get too.
Strive for a more sustainable period.
Another thing that I've learned about my cycle,
is that my boobs hurt before I'm about to come on.
But not just like a day or two before I'm about to come on,
so like I said, I'm on day 45 now
which means my period should be coming
any minute like please, God.
Because my boobs have been hurting for like
a solid week and a half.
Like everyday, they ache.
And it's painful, I can't hug people
because the pressure is just like "oww".
Every time I take my bra off in the evening,
just the, you know, when the fall,
like, so much pain.
Walking up and down stairs,
I have to hold them.
When I was on the pill, I had none of this.
I had no symptoms, I couldn't feel any form of a cycle
whatsoever and now it's like,
my body is getting revenge and
I can just feel so much.
The other thing I've learned about my cycle,
is that I get horrible cramps on day one.
But then after that, I'm usually fine.
But day one, it's like
I can't stand up, I can't like talk to other people
because all I'm thinking about is how much pain I'm in.
So far, I've learned that pain killers and
a hot water bottle, is the best way
to kind of soothe me and just like,
help me live that day.
Here's another thing that I've noticed
but I'm not entirely sure how much of it
is hormone related.
About a week before my last period,
and a few days before the period before that,
I had like one day where I just felt like shit.
I was absolutely miserable, hyper emotional,
just down, I just felt so down.
But, on both of those days,
there were some like, external factors
as to why I was feeling so down,
but it did still feel weird like,
I was like, I shouldn't be reacting this much.
Or like, I shouldn't be reacting in this way.
And then within a few days to a week,
my period came.
I don't know like,
everyone has down days, even when I was on the pill.
I would have the odd down day.
But, I'm trying to figure out if there's a pattern there.
As to why it happens just before my period,
maybe it's PMS, maybe it's not, I'm not sure.
For instance, on one of the days,
I decided to torture myself by listening to
some voice memos sent to me by this guy that I fancied,
who didn't fancy me back,
and I started listening to these voice memos
and just burst into tears whilst cooking.
That's just an indication of the mental state
I was in on one of those days.
But, my period is due imminently, and I've not
had one of those down days in the last week or so.
But my tits have hurt, so much.
So those are all the changes that I've noticed so far,
with my cycle, now onto emotional changes, oh boy.
And these are the ones that I'm not sure
how directly they're caused by me coming off the pill.
But, there's definitely a pattern in the time frame.
Like, I can pin point the time when I started
feeling these emotions
to when I came off the pill.
I don't know if that's a good enough indicator.
But here we go, thought I'd share.
So, by contrast to the last seven years,
in the last six months, I have been
craving a relationship, and I'm incredibly broody.
For the last six months, all I've wanted
is a boyfriend but not just any boyfriend,
like a really good one.
I'm like, I am ready, I am ready for commitment.
I've got this, let's go.
And then the broodiness,
I just want kids?
Like, I really want kids.
That's not a shock to me though,
'cause when I was younger, I really loved
being around children.
I'm the oldest out of all of my cousins,
and a lot of my mum's friends had kids
much later than my mum,
so I was like, the resident babysitter.
And so growing up in my teenage years,
I just loved kids, loved babies,
I just knew that I wanted to be a young mum.
Not like really young, but like,
I think I wanted kids before I was 30.
And then I went on the pill when I was seventeen,
and I think all of those feelings just got like, subdued.
But I also don't know if that's about the time
when I started learning about feminism,
and things like that, and my brain was like,
"No, Hannah, you don't want children,"
"that's not a feminist thing,"
like, "focus on your career."
Obviously, you can have both, but
Hannah then, was just like,
"Work hard, career, friendship, don't need a man,
or babies, like blah."
And so now, I'm suddenly like,
"Oh my God, I want babies."
Like, I want to have kids before I'm 30 again.
And that is interesting to me
because I don't know whether it's a
coming off the pill thing, or I've just
gotten to that age, that age where
suddenly you start actually, seriously
thinking about these things.
'Cause I'm like, okay, I'm 24 nearly 25.
If I meet someone now, and they're together
for X amount of years, and we move in together.
And then we have kids and like, uhhhhhhh.
Why am I thinking about this?
But I am, and I do now, this is something
that I think about.
About a month after I came off the pill,
it was summer in the city,
and I met these Youtubers, Adanna and David
who are parents and they had their baby, Kian with them
and they let me hold him at this party,
and I realised that it was the first time
that I'd held a baby in years.
And they just gave me to him,
and I was holding him and I cried.
I just started crying.
So there's that.
Also my friend Kitty, is a nanny,
and she lives down the road and so sometimes
she comes over with the baby that she looks after
for like half an hour and me and Lauren
get to play with this baby every now and then.
And it's great.
So, I'm not going to be having kids any time soon.
I've got Kitty and the baby to kind of
keep those urges at bay.
But hey, this series is all about
being completely honest about
where I'm at, and hormones, and periods,
and emotions and all of those things.
So, this is just the truth that I'm living right now.
Which is that I'm incredibly broody.
And then there's one more thing
that has changed in the last six months.
Which again, I'm not sure how much of that
is due to coming off the pill, or just other
general life changes.
In the last six months, I've put on some weight.
And I don't want to say how much,
because I don't think it's really healthy
to get into exact numbers, or anything like that.
But, I will tell you that I am the heaviest
that I have been my whole life.
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that yet?
I'm still overall, really happy with my body,
and my body confidence is generally really good.
The only thing is that when I put on weight,
it always goes to my boobs first.
And so, I'm not fitting into any of my bras.
And so, just on a practical level,
I would like to lose the weight so I don't
have to go out and buy loads of new bras.
And because of my bra size, they're really expensive.
And so, there's that.
I don't feel really physically fit,
and so I started exercising a bit more.
Be at, it's a weird one for me because
I don't own any scales,
I don't ever weigh myself personally.
But because of my Ulcerative Colitis,
I go to the doctors every six months.
And that's when they weigh me.
When I went a month ago,
they weighed me and the number was
so much higher than what I expected.
For the first time ever in my life
I was shocked at my weight,
and then when I spoke to the doctor,
I asked if she would check my records
and tell me how much I weighed at the last appointment
which was six months ago.
And she told me and I was like, whoa.
Because I'd gained the weight gradually over six months.
I hadn't really noticed.
Except for the spilling out of my bra.
I did notice that.
I don't know if this does have anything to do
with coming off the pill.
Because I know that a lot of people experience
gaining weight when they go on the pill.
So, I don't know.
But, it's something that has changed to my body.
And I know hormones can effect weight.
So I thought it would be worth mentioning.
I'm not continuing to monitor my weight.
Because I don't really think that's gonna be
the best thing for my mental health.
'Cause, I just don't want to know.
For me, it's always more about how I feel on the inside.
And if I feel healthy rather than like,
this arbitrary number that means nothing to me.
Except clearly it does mean something to you, Hannah.
Alright!
There we go, that is my six month update
after coming off the pill.
Thank you for watching.
Please give the video thumbs up if you enjoyed it.
And I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
I know from a lot of you tweeting me
and commenting on other videos
that you've also come off the pill so,
if you would like to share any of your experiences.
If you feel, similar things to me,
or have noticed similar things,
or completely different things,
that would be really great to hear
other people's experiences.
Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss
another episode of the Hormone Diaries.
And I will see you soon.
Bye!
(percussive music)