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May is Mental Health Awareness Month. As ads encourage all of us to take stock of our stress levels, priorities, and overall well-being, we encourage women to also assess their mental health as influenced by hormonal birth control. Some women take birth control and experience few notable physical or emotional side effects. Many others, however, are reporting increased anxiety, depression, anger, fear, even fits of rage, and suicidal thoughts that they have directly tracked to their hormone birth control. These reports are from personal stories shared with our office by clients and women in the community. At first, we believed the incidents to be the exception rather than the rule. Still, the more women we have talked to, the more we have discovered that having no side effects might be the exception and strong adverse mental/emotional effects the rule. It’s not surprising that a pill affecting hormones would also impact feelings, which are often intensified by hormones. Most women who have shared concerns also report that they weren’t warned about the possible emotional side effects of hormone-based birth control. In fact, a few said that their doctors dismissed or even ridiculed their emotional symptoms, blaming other factors. Yet, each woman said that after she stopped taking the hormone birth control, she started to feel more in control of her emotions within a few days or weeks. This is in no way a formal study on the impact of hormone-based birth control. This is women telling women what they wished they had known sooner. If you are experiencing out-of-control feelings and are on hormone birth control, please consider investigating the impact those hormones could have on your mental health. Talk to a doctor willing to consider you as an individual and your reactions to various hormones. Better mental health could be close.
Over the years, as our Center has served many struggling families and individuals, we’ve come to understand the nuances of kindness. There are two distinct forms: one focuses on feelings, and one focuses on actions. Kindness based on feelings seeks to keep people happy in the moment. Sometimes, this is fine and even motivational. A sincere compliment, encouragement, or even a smile can brighten someone’s day and make them feel better. However, while it feels good to make people happy, it's also important to recognize that long-term “feel-better” kindness, while well-intentioned, can inadvertently hinder independence. “Feel-better” kindness will avoid addressing the root causes of struggles because it feels unkind to bring up anything that could be perceived as negative or difficult. “Do-better” kindness focuses on today's decisions that lead to the best future tomorrow. This kindness teaches, supports, and empowers. Sometimes, that can mean difficult conversations that don’t feel happy in the moment but are necessary for long-term success. Understanding the difference between “feel-better” and “do-better” kindness is a powerful tool for positive change. In our fast-paced, instant gratification world, it's easy to mistake short-term feelings for long-term stability. But by breaking this pattern, we can help our clients build a better future. This requires a shift towards long-term focused kindness that equips clients with skills such as discernment, boundaries, and communication, enabling them to rise above their current circumstances. Ideally, “feel-better” and “do-better” kindness work together to encourage, teach, and raise up a stable generation, fulfilled, and, yes, even happy.
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