I've been taking Yasmin for 3 years now and have always experienc...

I was only on Yasmin for three months, and I blamed all of those symptoms (the same ones you had) on stress. When I let my trial prescription run out, I realized that it was the Yasmin that was doing all of that. (And yes, it DID get way worse during the two weeks surrounding my period--I only had a week where I was even semi-normal, and even then I was depressed.)

I talked to a gyno and he said that Yasmin has some of the highest dose of hormones of any current birth control, and for someone unused to that many hormones (i.e. women who are younger or who have never had a baby), the stress to your system can be very great.

As for where to go next, I reluctantly tried the Nuvaring (because I was afraid the hormones would make me crazy again), but I have been pleasantly surprised! Not only is it once monthly and easy to use, you don't even notice it's there once it's in, and the hormone dose is much lower than Yasmin--I haven't had any extreme side effects like with those pills.

The only non-hormonal birth control that's as effective as pills and the ring that I've been able to find, though, is the Paragard IUD, and they don't normally recommend that for women who've never had kids.