Coming Off the Pill? Here's What Nobody Tells You (and How to Prepare)
You went on the pill at 16 for your skin, or your cramps, or because your cycle was "all over the place". Ten years later you are curious what your body is actually like without it. And honestly, a little scared of what might come back.
That fear makes complete sense. The good news is that coming off the pill does not have to be a leap into the unknown. With a bit of preparation, it can be a gentle return to your own rhythm.
What's in this post
What actually happens when you stop
The skin and nutrient fallout
Why preparing first changes everything
How I work with women coming off the pill
Your Period Is Trying to Tell You Something. Here's How to Listen.
You have taken three pregnancy tests this year that you knew would be negative. You keep a spare pad in every bag because you genuinely never know. Or you have a week each month where you barely recognise yourself: snappy, teary, swollen, wide awake at 2am.
What's in this post
When your period keeps you guessing
When your period goes missing
Too heavy, too long, too much
The two weeks before your period
Getting to know your cycle
How I work with period problems
"It's Just a Bad Period." Why Your Pain Deserves More Than That.
If you have spent years being told this is normal, I want you to hear something different. Pain that rearranges your life is a signal, not a personality trait. And there is more that can help than you have probably been offered.
What's in this post
Pain this bad is not normal
What actually helps endo pain
Endo belly and the gut connection
After surgery, and why pain can come back
How I work with endometriosis
Your guide to PCOS/PMOS
You cut the sugar. You bought the inositol. You downloaded the app, tracked the macros and did the 6am walks. And still your period is a no show, your chin is breaking out and you are tired in a way sleep does not touch.
If that is you, I want to say this first: you are not doing it wrong. PCOS is not one problem with one fix. It is a body managing several pressures at once, and when the plan only targets one of them, progress stalls.
What's in this post
The real reason PCOS feels so stubborn
Food, weight and the inositol question
Getting your period (and your options) back
The symptoms nobody warns you about
How I work with PCOS
Be the villager
substack
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Essays on community, the body, and why healing has never been a solo project. Because healing has always happened in the village.
Healing has always happened in relationship — in the kitchens and gatherings and recurring presence of people who know your name and notice when something shifts. Be the Villager is where that belief lives in writing. Once a month, an essay arrives in your inbox exploring the body, the nervous system, hormones, gut health, and the science of why community is not supplementary to good health but the very condition it grows in. It is slow, evidence-informed, and written from the inside — not from a place of having figured it out, but from the ongoing practice of learning to live in a village rather than just tend one from a careful distance.
It is free. It is yours. The first essay is already waiting.
Held by Nobody — On Illness That Doesn't Show
01.
The Woman Who Never Asked for Help
02.
What the Body Does When the Light Changes
03.
