How I Reclaimed My Felt Sense After 20 Years on the Pill

I want to talk to you about something that feels obvious to me now, but for most of my adult life, I couldn’t feel at all.

I was on the pill for 20 years.

Starting Young: Silencing My Body Before It Could Speak

I was only 14 when I started. My body didn’t even get a chance to learn her own rhythm. She never had the opportunity to find her natural cycle, to experiment, to adapt, to communicate with me. Before she could speak, I silenced her.

Like so many of us, I didn’t go on the pill after a long conversation about hormones, nervous systems, or long-term effects. It was just normal. Responsible. Sensible. Almost expected. No one framed it as a significant intervention in my developing body. It was simply… what you do.

And honestly, getting it couldn’t have been easier.

In my 20s, I didn’t even need a proper doctor’s visit. I’d tap a few buttons on my phone, and it would arrive at my door in a pretty pink box, covered in stickers and soft branding. Convenience dressed up as empowerment. Cute. Almost fun. A perfect distraction from the thousand-page warning booklet inside.

No one asked how connected I felt to my body.
No one asked about my libido, my intuition, my creativity, or my emotional range.
No one said, “Hey, this will switch off your natural hormonal rhythm.”

So I took it. Every day. Like clockwork. For 22 years.

Understanding the Rhythm I’d Lost

And the thing is I didn’t know what I was missing, because I’d never given myself the opportunity to listen to my body in the first place.

Years later, reading In the Flo by Alisa Vitti finally gave language to what I had felt but couldn’t articulate. Women aren’t meant to live on a 24-hour cycle. We run on a 28-day infradian rhythm, tied to our menstrual cycle. This rhythm influences everything: energy, mood, productivity, metabolism, immunity, libido, creativity, and cognition.

The pill doesn’t regulate that rhythm … it replaces it.

It flattens the natural rise and fall of estrogen and progesterone, holding the body in a dull, synthetic state. No inner seasons. No cyclical intelligence. Just sameness.

That sameness seeped quietly into everything.

I functioned. I worked. I was productive, capable, “fine.” But my inner world was muted. My intuition quiet. My libido disconnected from me. My energy had no texture, no rhythm; just good days, bad days, all flattened under the chemical pause.

Losing My Relationship With My Cycle

The biggest thing I lost? My relationship with my cycle. Because I didn’t actually have one.

No follicular creative spark.
No ovulatory tingle.
No luteal truth-telling.
No menstrual reset.

Just a body doing her best in a chemically paused state.

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Coming Back to Myself

I’ve been off the pill for almost three years now. And let me tell you it wasn’t instant magic. Coming off required patience, nourishment, nervous system care, and learning to work with my hormones instead of overriding them. I still wrestle with body acne and random aches. But slowly, sensation returned. Not just physically, but emotionally, creatively, intuitively.

I started to feel my yeses and nos again. I noticed my energy rising and falling in ways that were predictable, trustworthy. I stopped forcing productivity when my body wanted reflection. I stopped shaming myself for needing rest. Living cyclically transformed how I eat, work, plan, relate, and experience pleasure.

There’s a grounded confidence that comes from knowing where you are in your cycle and honouring it — from letting estrogen open you, progesterone soften you, and menstruation strip you back to truth. Not dramatic. Deeply stabilising.

As Alisa Vitti writes: “We can’t access our full potential when we’re living by someone else’s rules and not listening to the wisdom within.” That line landed in my body like a remembering.

If you want to explore this further, In the Flo is packed with practical tools and exercises to help women track, honour, and work with their cycles. You can check it out here.

Choice, Not Regret

I’m not here to demonise the pill. For some women, at certain times, it’s supportive, necessary even. This isn’t about shame or regret. It’s about choice. Informed choice. Embodied choice.

I just wish someone had told 14-year-old me that her cycle wasn’t an inconvenience — it was intelligence to partner with.

If you’re on the pill or any form of hormonal contraception and it works beautifully for you, I’m genuinely glad. But if you’ve ever felt flat, foggy, numb, or disconnected from your body — consider this an invitation to get curious.

Your body has a language.
Your cycle is part of it.
And when you listen, life gets a lot more alive.

P.S If you’re ready to explore your cycle, your desire, and your sexual energy with more gentleness and truth, CYCLICALLY SEXY is waiting for you.
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