Before I started the pill, my periods had been irregular anyway. My mom took me to a stern gynecologist who said birth control was the only way to protect me from myself, the disordered eating habits she accused me of “courting.” “You could kill yourself,” the doctor said, and I felt my brain go static. The rest reached me like a far-off channel, voices through the snow. Early osteoporosis, infertility, heart problems.
