Did The Pill Kill My Creativity?
I lost my voice when I found relief
I swear I have the best of intentions when it comes to writing for pleasure.
The problem is my neurodivergent brain gets really excited about things and then loses interest/stamina/focus rather quickly.
This tendency leaves a well-meaning but chaotic trail of projects, blogs, dates, and words in its wake (sorry!!) so here I am, revisiting my ultimate passion-project-that-will-one-day-be-a-memoir-maybe-if-people-actually-read-it: Sex, Drugs & Endometriosis. Everything else be damned.
If you’re new here — welcome. You’ve entered the mildly offensive, fairly twisted, definitely NSFW world of my mind, an exploration of intimacy, growth, loss, emotions, chronic illness, mental health, sex, queerness, and more (is there more?!)
Who am I?
I’m Maia, a queer, nonbinary, nonmonogamous, chronically ill pothead who loves to talk about the shit we’ve been taught not to. That’s why I started this blog - to have conversations we don’t want to have and tell the stories that people are afraid to tell.
Whether because of shame, stigma, or fear I’m here to bust those fuckers apart and do the hard shit of telling the truth. While throwing in some sexy sex now and then, 'cause I’m a grown-ass adult.
With your consent, I’ll resume sliding into your (in)boxes with bi (like me!) weekly stories about all of our favourite things: sex, drugs and endometriosis.
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I’ll admit, I’m feeling like a bit of a fraud on the endo front since going back on hormones nine months ago.
It wasn’t an easy decision given my rocky history with birth control and its side effects. However, life with debilitating endo symptoms, accepting that my depression is like Dexter’s Dark Passenger (ever-present), and a surprise pregnancy made it easier to consider it more seriously.
So, thanks to that, a carefully calibrated cocktail of meds for the ol’ noggin (I’m still unmedicated for ADHD, which is a story for another time), and weekly therapy I decided I was in a stable enough place to try hormones one more time.
Before you ask, I’ve been offered an IUD again and again and my choice is no. My pelvis is royally fucked and the idea of adding a foreign object into the mix terrifies me. Have you watched The Bleeding Edge on Netflix? 🤢 I couldn’t stand being pregnant for the short period that I was, knowing there was something inside me that didn’t belong, a parasite, so an IUD is out of the question. I know. Make it make sense. Maybe I’ll write about that one day.
I take the pills consistently to avoid having periods because they’re excruciatingly painful and I likely have adenomyosis. I’m on the wait list for a hysterectomy that will confirm this but for now, there’s no more whiteout pain waking me up in the middle of the night making me wish I could stop existing just to take it away.
The first 3-4 months back on birth control were a depressive, spotty and crampy hell I wasn’t sure I’d escape alive.
But I persevered in search of the elusive “symptom management.”
For a long time I believed there was nobility in my suffering with endo. That being an advocate was about how much chronic illness content I could churn out, which meant accepting a life of misery in service of the greater good.
If it was a choice between physical pain and mental pain, I chose physical. I never really knew if I’d survive the mental pain of the depressive episodes that consumed me when I was on birth control. But the desire to end it all in the throes of my worst endo flare-ups gave it a run for its money. Suicidal ideation is just something I live with no matter what, hovering beneath the surface, waiting for a vulnerable opening to strike.
I was vocal about how hormonal medications weren’t a cure for endo, that they often came with more problems than they solved, and that doctors needed to stop pushing them on us and get to the root of the problem (little excision joke for my fellow friendos).
But just because something isn’t a cure doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the potential to improve our quality of life. The choice to take medication of any kind is incredibly personal and can evolve over a lifetime.
I shared intimate, intense moments of suffering in the hopes that others would relate and feel less alone. It helped me, to lay myself bare and ease the chokehold that endometriosis had on my life.
But then, I started to feel better.
Suddenly I could walk 10,000 steps in a day and not trigger a flare-up.
I could have penetrative sex (with toys or humans!) without intense cramping.
I could go for a full day of paddling and be sore from exertion, not endo.
I could wake up in the middle of the night from run-of-the-mill anxiety instead of pain.
How could I continue to talk about the devastating toll that endo takes on someone’s life if I was actually managing my physical symptoms? I stopped working for the endo organization I was with and essentially stopped sharing my experience altogether. I felt like I didn’t belong anymore in a community that was such a massive part of getting back my quality of life.
I felt ashamed for choosing hormones and guilty when they started to effectively manage my worst symptoms. There were so many people still suffering - how dare I go about living my life unencumbered by the symptoms that once brought us together?
I know there are other ways to advocate, other ways to be creative, and maybe this is a learning experience. I advocate by telling stories and I let my lack of creative energy stop me from doing just that.
I blame the pill.
Not to mention I moved into my own apartment and am living alone for the first time ever and it’s overwhelming and I got a new full-time job so shit has been hectic I guess but I haven’t been able to work a full-time job in a long time so thank you birth control for helping me do that. To say it’s been a period of adjustment is an understatement. What was I talking about?
Oh — I think the pill killed my creativity.
I always noticed a cycle of creativity that flowed with my menstrual cycle. It wouldn’t be unusual for me to stay up all night writing or creating something only to be plagued with a period within days if not hours.
Continuous pill means no period which means no cyclical bursts of creative energy. Luckily for that, there’s weed.
I could make the case for the pill killing my creativity by showing you one study from 2012 that suggested a relationship between levels of sex hormones (aka estrogen) and creativity. Another study from the 90s noted improved creativity when estrogen levels were highest - like right before bleeding. Considering endometriosis involves excess estrogen, logic follows that I was more creative when my estrogen was unregulated, especially before a period when estrogen levels spike.
When I say logic I mean my personal logic based on the minimal research I’ve found that desperately needs to be updated. Yay reproductive health.
So, yeah.
Being back on the pill (this one), regulating my estrogen has a lot of pros and cons.
Pros like:
no periods!
less cramping
no more blinding pain episodes
less-to-no fainting from pain
having a social life!
enjoying safe sex with multiple people!
no surprise pregnancies (see above)
no PMDD!
And cons like:
migraines
crushing depressive episodes
spotting and cramping if I miss it by AN HOUR literally that’s all it takes to fuck up the puss with bloody discharge did I mention I have unmedicated ADHD so sometimes even though I have alarms set I dismiss them because I’m hyperfocused on a thing and forget to take it also I’m a pothead so I forget things so really I’m fucked
So it’s a trade-off.
For now, I like the life these hormones are affording me, even when depression makes me want to end it or I feel a lack of creativity. It’s a life I used to write in my journals about wanting when I was stuck in an unfulfilling monogamous relationship. And I’m living it. And there’s so much more I want to do with it. I’m excited to squeeze the fruit of my creativity and release some juicy stories from that life.
Let me know what juice you wanna drink!
Sex? Drugs? Endometriosis? Nonmonogamy and Relationship Anarchy? Queerness? Mental health? Gender?
Sure this is my creative outlet (pill be damned!!) but it’s more fun when everyone has a say 😉