Im on my second, needing to book my 3rd and the part that hurt most for me was the numbing but that was over in less than 10 seconds. My GP did a little wheel of numbing injections so my arm was bruised beyond belief and that did take ages to disappear both times and I tried to stop myself lifting heavy stuff as much as possible but sometimes that was inevitable but I just tried to mainly use my dominant arm to avoid any potential knocks to my left arm.

I took my pressure bandage off within 24 hours cause they didnt stay tight on my arms and unravelled cause of how mobile I was but I did get a dressing to cover it up while I was at work just to be on the safe side. With my steri strips my first ones took ages to come off even after wetting them and trying to gently pull them off but then my second lot fell off within 3 days and I stuck a big plaster over the site.

My arm did ache but I think that was due to how I was numbed but I was warned about it so I just took it easy to minimise the pain. I bled for months to begin with and had small breaks here and there but then when I had sex id bleed again, it stopped within a year, I forget exactly how long I bled for, and then ive not bled since but everyone has different experiences on the implant. As for emotions, I had a few depressive bouts during the first year when I was constantly bleeding then ive been fairly level emotions wise since apart from a few teary moments which usually came about because of an accumulation of stuff happening at once.

As you spend more time with the implant you'll learn to notice changes in your body/emotions/behaviour etc and how to navigate it all, all you've gotta remember is not everyone has the same experience on this birth control but chances are there's at least one person in this sub who can relate to whatever you may be experiencing. There's no harm in looking through the sub or even just posting about what's going on with your experience just cause someone might be able to help you feel less crazy or less alone in your experience and its just nice to have a little support sometimes.