PLAYING WITH FIRE

A couple of years ago I had the completely insane idea to "go off birth control" to "see how my body felt" without artificial hormones.  It was a raging disaster as chronicled in this post and I quickly went back on my pills within 2 weeks of my "experiment."

Well, sometimes we don't pay attention to how many refills we have left, especially when the only males I speak to are either related to me or legally bound to my friends, and sometimes I run the fuck out.  I had a nice solution last time - since I had graduated and couldn't use the health center but still   had insurance, I asked my shrink to call in a refill since he's a doctor and can technically prescribe anything.  When I tried to refill it this time, I pulled up to the pharmacy drive through only to be told that they needed some sort of "authorization" for MediCal (yes I'm on poor person insurance, screw you) as to why I need birth control.

Whoa whoa whoa.  A week ago I showed up, gave you my brand new poor person insurance card, and you turned right around and handed me all my crazy meds FOR FREE.  Now you're wanting a reason I need birth control?  How about I don't want to have babies?  Or more importantly, I need the hormones or I turn into some batshit crazy sobbing little schoolgirl who can't watch people hug without having a breakdown of some form.  They literally handed me a bottle of benzos FOR FREE after asking no questions nor requiring ID of any kind (if you don't know what benzos are, google "Xanax" or watch any number of episodes of "Intervention") just a week prior.

Fine, I thought.  I'll just go to Planned Parenthood when I have some time.  Which sadly now that I'm employed is never.  I sucked it up and prepared for the worst - who knew how long I was going to be sans supplemental hormones.  Last time I broke at 2 weeks - could I go longer this time?

For those of you wondering, me not having hormonal birth control is ironically a form of birth control in itself since I can't do anything without crying or acting completely insane, but really I'd prefer to just feel normal and have my damn pills.

This time it was a little different.  I went through the first week just fine, and as I reached the beginning of the second week, I felt no different.  This worried me, because what if it came all at once and didn't build up from a little crazy but instead exploded as UBER crazy without warning?  I was trying to be cautious, so when a Robin Williams tribute special aired Tuesday I debated about whether or not to watch it while I was "unmedicated."  I took a risk and surprisingly I only cried minimally, and in a way that I could stop when it was over - not the normal "cry for hours because I got sad and can't stop the sad."

While I still planned on getting an appointment for pills, I was less worried.  That is until Thursday.  I was scrolling through Facebook at work and passed a photo of a kitten from one of the rescue organizations I follow, and it was asking for someone to adopt him.  Suddenly I started feeling weird.  It was building up, slowly, quietly - so that I didn't know what it was at first.  Oh god oh god oh god no no nononononoNONONONOOOOOOOOO!  I thought of the kitten, he needed a home, I could take him, wait no I couldn't, my cats would try to kill him... then I thought of my own cats, oh how sad I'd be if they died, oh I miss them so much, they're my furry children, I rescued them when they were babies, look what a good life they had, WHAT IF I HADN'T TAKEN THEM?!  WHERE WOULD THEY BE? 

As the crazy was building, I tried to distract myself.  Think about baseball!  Look at baby pictures - ewww, that should do it.  I tried to get as far away from sad homeless kittens as I could and luckily I could feel the impending disaster subside but I'd had quite a scare.  I wasn't immune as I thought - I needed those hormones NOW. 

The next day a similar kitten post got me on the same track, and it almost overtook me, but I calmed down again.  But I can't keep this up forever.  Someday I'm going to have to trade $32 for an appointment to get my damn pills back - which is hard as I'm trying to get as many hours as I can at work since I'm taking half of Thurs and all of Friday off.  Planned Parenthood needs to be open at midnight on Saturday.  I guarantee I wouldn't be the only one there.

It's a little scary that I need my birth control more for crazy control than my other meds - but other than brain zaps and feeling shaky (that happens to everyone, right?) I don't have problems when I miss my crazy pills.  Also I apparently can't blog an actual narrative, since I don't think this post has a real end to it.  Seriously me, wtf.