At that point, Abi was in her early 20s and had been taking the combined contraceptive pill Microgynon for a number of years, starting it at the age of 14 in an effort to alleviate her long, heavy and painful periods. “I went to the GP because of that and came back with the pill, without any discussion around the different kinds of contraception. It was a case of ‘this will be the one that will fix it’.”

This scenario of a quickfire induction into the complex world of hormonal contraception will be familiar to many. “As young women, we’re just chucked on the pill and expected to get on with it,” says Davina McCall in Pill Revolution, a documentary exploring the state of contraception in the UK, which aired last week on Channel 4. The one-hour special is reigniting conversations about the ‘black hole’ in research around contraception, especially the pill, which has barely evolved since its creation in the 1950s. Although that was a seismic moment in the women’s liberation movement, the pill would face far more stringent testing if it were developed today. And while for some it is a useful tool in preventing pregnancy (and one that is 99% effective, when used correctly), it’s wreaked havoc in the lives of many.

To coincide with the documentary, Channel 4 commissioned a survey, and of the 4,000 women surveyed, 77% of women said they had side effects on the pill, and 36% had anxiety, depression or low mood, and that was the main reason they stopped.

While Microgynon did help to improve Abi’s periods, negative side effects plagued her throughout her late teens and early 20s. “Obviously I had all the usual ones like really bad headaches, but then I began to get terrible insomnia around my period. I felt anxious and depressed, and I would argue with my mum and dad so badly. They didn’t really understand what was going on with me, and neither did I. I hadn’t really known my life without the pill, so I assumed everything that was going on mentally and emotionally was just my natural state.

“Whenever I spoke to doctors, I felt like I wasn’t being taken seriously and that my symptoms weren’t a big deal. All of them dismissed the pill as a cause. And when you’re young, people just assume it’s all just part of puberty or being a teenager.” In later life, the pill had a detrimental effect on Abi’s romantic relationships and friendships too. “In my mid-20s, when I was in a long-term relationship, I’d fly off the handle at things and had lots of mood swings, so we would argue a lot because of that. I felt like I was going crazy, and experienced a lot of paranoia and jealousy, as well as absolutely no sex drive – I really just didn’t feel sexual and would never initiate it.”

“The pill wreaked havoc on my life and hormones – so why don’t we talk about its side effects more?”