The last thing Jana wanted was to go back on hormonal birth control. But after Roe v Wade was overturned, prompting abortion bans in her state and ones around her, she felt she didn’t have a choice.
Jana, who asked to go by a pseudonym because she doesn’t want her politically conservative family to know her story, started using birth control at 13. For nearly a decade, she tried different kinds of hormonal contraception to find the one that least exacerbated anxiety and depression. Her weight fluctuated, making her eating disorder even worse. After nearly a decade, her therapist suggested she get off birth control altogether. It worked. She felt in touch with her adult body for the first time in her life, and her mental health was finally in a good place. She started using apps to track her menstrual cycle, to tell her when she was ovulating and should avoid sex or use a condom.
