The Day I Quit the Pill, I Bought a House

This is my documentary.
A story of what actually happened.
I am recording this so that when I look back someday, I can remember it as vividly as possible.

Chapter 1: I Quit the Pill

To start with the conclusion, this is the story of how I decided to quit the pill I had been taking for 10 years.
And the story of why you should avoid Yaz Flex.
(*Note: This is a personal opinion and has no medical basis.)

I was a sophomore in college, maybe 20 years old.
At the time, I didn't yet know that my periods were menorrhagia and that my PMS was severe.
A college class is 90 minutes. A tutoring job session is 80 minutes. My sanitary napkin wouldn't even last an hour.
Every time, I would get my favorite dress covered in blood,
I would get the toilet bowl covered in blood,
and I would get my chair covered in blood at both college and my tutoring job.
Blood washes out with water, and I could somewhat prevent it by laying a handkerchief on the chair, so I didn't think it was that much of a problem.
More than that, the anemia was severe.
Thinking back, it was menorrhagia, so of course it was.
To show how bad it was, my hemoglobin was in the single digits. (Apparently, it's usually in the double digits.)
It was right on the edge of needing a blood transfusion.

There was a day I called an ambulance due to anemia on the day of my college final exam.
My vision literally turned into black-and-white static, I had no strength in my body, so I ran to a nearby supermarket, collapsed near the stairs, and called an ambulance myself.
On another day, I had made it to the college gate but suddenly couldn't walk due to dizziness, so I had the security guard at the entrance arrange a wheelchair and went straight to the infirmary.
Since it was a private university, the infirmary had about four decent-sized beds, and my mother came to pick me up by car, and I lay down in the back seat to go home.

I had a blood transfusion on the day I was taken by ambulance.
At the time, I loved black coffee and would always drink two cups a day from the 108-yen coffee machine at the convenience store that ground the beans, but from the day I had the transfusion, I couldn't drink it anymore. I didn't want to drink it.

It might just be my imagination, but since a blood transfusion is someone else's blood, not my own, I wonder if my tastes changed a little. My friends around me said they were very surprised that I stopped drinking coffee.

I started taking iron supplements, and I also took stomach medicine or something along with it so the iron wouldn't rust in my stomach.
I just thought of it as a period that was a little heavier than other people's.
Even when I was in high school, I borrowed a hot water bottle from the infirmary every time to put on my stomach, and I thought the intense sleepiness was because of mixi, which I was obsessed with night after night.

I probably started going to the gynecologist around this time.
I learned that I could reduce the amount of blood with the pill (Yaz), so I started taking the medicine.
The amount of blood dropped significantly. I was moved.
The sanitary napkin that wouldn't last an hour started lasting 3 to 4 hours.
I stopped leaking from my overnight sanitary napkins,
and I stopped staining my sheets and clothes.
It wasn't cheap, but I felt the cost-effectiveness.
Besides, my irregular periods were also resolved.
With the pill, I could visualize when my period would come and, conversely, when it wouldn't, so it became easier to plan trips and outings.
I felt like my period had become lighter.
But the only thing that changed was the amount of blood.
I was abnormally sleepy, had headaches, had period pain unless I took herbal medicine for my stomach, and my mental state was unstable.
But the benefits were great, so I kept taking it.

The amount of blood had certainly decreased, but the second day was still tough, my appetite would go haywire before my period, my body temperature would rise, I would feel kind of floaty, and I would suddenly want to punch a wall.
Somehow, heavy months and light months came alternately.
Even so, I would take time off work, and when it was bad, I couldn't get up in the morning and couldn't go to work, couldn't even contact them, and there were times I was absent without notice.
My boss contacted my mother, who was my emergency contact, and even though she was at work, she came home,
and I remember being yelled at severely.

As a member of society, being absent without notice is not good. But my period had reached its limit, so I couldn't face it. I couldn't support my own period.
I heard from my gynecologist about the possibility of eliminating periods altogether. But originally, I refused because I was afraid to control the natural flow of the body that comes once a month with medicine and to control the natural mechanism any further.

Whether I had no luck with companies or because I was in the venture field due to the recklessness of youth, I was laid off by company convenience at three consecutive companies, and I spent most of my 20s changing jobs, making it easy to get caught in the filter of the number of job changes, and every time it became a battle where I thought, 'Maybe full-time employment is tough now...'
Even so, if I lowered my annual income, there were plenty of jobs, but I still couldn't keep a job due to my period or the stress of a new environment, and in order to stabilize my work, I needed to stabilize my period, so I decided to switch to Yaz Flex.
With Yaz Flex, you can stop your period if you keep taking the medicine for up to 120 days.
Honestly, the price is no different from Yaz.
And you can eliminate your monthly period.
So that I could continue working for as long as possible,
I wanted to take every measure I could with my own power,
so I started relying on Yaz Flex.

Indeed, my period stopped coming every month.
For some reason, I was scared, so I chose the 90-day period-stopping course, where my period would come once every three months, and I would repeat the process of seeing the gynecologist and getting another three months' worth of pills.
Even so, the period once every three months was still tough, and I continued to take time off work.
But since it wasn't every month, the pace of taking time off was also once every three months, and I thought it was better mentally than taking time off at the same time every month.

If you've read this far, it sounds like a story where I started taking the pill because my period was painful, but switched to Yaz Flex to keep working, and it's going well, right?

The main point is actually from here.
For nearly 15 years since my period started at age 12,
my period always came once a month.
So my body somehow remembered that it was about time for my period, and although I wasn't prepared at all, I could accept it because it was a monthly event.
That changed after I switched to Yaz Flex.
First of all, the body cannot remember a period that comes once every three months.
You can't suddenly change the body's mechanism that has been ingrained for 15 years. But if you keep taking the medicine, it changes on the surface.

In other words,
・When a period doesn't come for three months, the time you can enjoy forgetting about your period increases, but when it finally comes, your body is surprised, you feel a fresh sense of fear at the blood coming out, and you need to accept the period pain and PMS with a fresh feeling.

I haven't fully digested this yet, but
・The gynecologist said, 'The severity of the period does not add up for the time you stopped it.'
In other words,
・A period after three months is not three times as painful.

But while this is true in terms of mechanism, it was quite different in my personal experience.

First of all, since my period doesn't come every month, strangely, my body forgets the pain of period cramps, the color of the blood soaking into the napkin, and the sensation of blood coming out of my crotch—at least in my case.
It was a life plagued by the period itself, so I imagine my brain deletes all period functions as soon as the period ends so I can forget about it as quickly as possible.
That lasts for three months, and I don't have to worry about my period for three months, so my body is at its best, healthy and free.
I had completely mastered the real thrill of Yaz Flex.

On the other hand, just before my period comes in the third month, I've forgotten whether the last one was a heavy period or a light one, so I feel a vague anxiety about my period, like I'm having my first period all over again. And then, while my body is blissfully ignorant, having forgotten about the period, a war suddenly begins.

I repeat this once every three months. Four times a year.
It might just be spring, summer, autumn, and winter.
It might just be that the monthly event has changed into a seasonal, Japanese-style event.

But if it came every month, I could predict to some extent that it was like this last month, so maybe it will be like this this month, and people around me would just brush it off, saying, 'Well, it's a monthly thing, right?'
But precisely because there are three months of being undeniably healthy and stable, the meaning of that sudden day becomes heavier. The doctor would never say that, but the pain becomes three times worse.

And because I was a person who could do anything last month because I didn't have a period, I can't stand myself for not being able to do anything because of my period. It's natural to have perfect attendance last month, but then the next month is full of absences. Even among women, people who take Yaz Flex are still a rare case, so it's hard to empathize.
I think taking time off at the same time every month is completely different from taking time off every three months, where the frequency is lower but the feeling and the way you perceive the pain are three times as hard.
Both can be taken as menstrual leave, and although it is the same menstrual leave in name, there probably isn't a company that understands menstrual leave due to Yaz Flex yet, so even for me, it's the same menstrual leave, but it's still very different.

The period-free time I gained with Yaz Flex was certainly a wonderful experience. But when it came time for my period to arrive, I was terrified. The task of reawakening that fear and suffering from zero, which my body had finally forgotten, was something I couldn't bear.

That is why I decided to stop taking the pill.
I couldn't handle the healthy body the pill gave me and the price I had to pay for it, so I decided to face my natural menstrual cycle.
For ten years, the pill really took care of me, and it let me see both wonderful dreams and nightmares.

Finally,
As someone who suffered from heavy periods, I started to wonder what this period was for, why I had to endure it, and that the price of this pain must be rewarded.
I don't want to go through menopause with a system that is just painful.
I want to experience pregnancy and childbirth so that I can properly understand if this is what my period was for in my life.
This is also one of the reasons I am stopping the pill.

I want to properly understand my own natural period and use it for its intended purpose. I believe that is the only way to save myself.

Since this has become quite long, I will write about Chapter 2: The Story of Buying a House another time.