Birth Control

Bad News Bears.

Disclaimer: I'm not on birth control in case you were wondering.

I feel like everyone is on birth control lately, and it kind of sucks from an outsider's perspective. I'm a bit terrified for when I have to take it. I almost don't want to take it at all.

STOP. This does not mean I am one of those "19 Kids and Counting" people on TLC who don't believe in birth control. I do believe in birth control. It is a very useful thing (and absolutely necessary for some people who shouldn't reproduce). There are just a lot of sucky side effects that you have to sift through until you find the right brand, which may not exist. I don't want to get fat, get a larger chest (not a plus for a runner/dancer), lose my sex drive (which is not in gear of course, but you know, someday...), break out uncontrollably, become overly emotional, etc.--all things I have heard from people. Yikes.

I think the overly emotional side effect is what bothers me the most. It just makes me raise a lot of questions about the concept of the 'self.' If I am a naturally laid-back person, but birth control makes me cry or get upset at things that normally wouldn't upset me, am I just a victim to the chemicals in my body? How can I claim a personality, if it can be manipulated by one swift swallow of a pill? Do I have more control than I think or am I helpless to my hormones? Who or what am I really? A person with a soul and self-control or a beautiful mess of chemical compounds reacting with one another?

This is why neuroscience and endocrinology fascinate me. But it is disheartening at the same time knowing that everything that makes you you is simply (yet, not so simply) a series of electrical impulses and chemicals. And somehow the synergy of all that makes a human being with thoughts and feelings and beliefs and passions and questions and worries and joys.

I don't get it.

But when the day comes, birth control will only control my ovaries damnit!