Recovery after nexplanon nightmare

TW: mental health (panic, depression, suicidal ideation)

I had my nexplanon removed about a month ago after having it for about a year and a half. It was quite the rollercoaster while I had it and I'm wondering if anyone else had an experience like this, how long it took to feel more normal again after removal.

It started pretty rough after I got it because I initially had severe mood swings and slight depression (to the point of my mom pointing out that it was like I had a personality change), and I bled for like 8+ months straight with my doctor just telling me to wait it out while my body adjusts to the hormones. Then the bleeding stopped and I loved it up until a few months ago (in retrospect there were some things happening from it, I was just too busy to notice them and they weren't severe). But this is when things got really scary...

I suddenly spiraled into a mental health crisis (anxiety, panic attacks, depression, intrusive thoughts, and some suicidal ideation, with EXTREME mood swings). I've had anxiety in the past, but at manageable levels, and I've never had any experiences with depression or mood issues before nexplanon. This hit me super suddenly over a few days and resulted in me going to the emergency room, and seeing several different doctors to try and figure out what was happening. That resulted in me being put on four different psychotropic medications which complicated things in a whole different way (but those frustrations are another story). Through everything, my mood was so out of control I would be fine one minute, and the next I would be crying and spiraling into these dark thoughts of hopelessness, and the next I would be panicking, until it was like someone flipped a switch where I was back to a neutral state. Along with this, I developed insomnia and lost 20 pounds in 2-3 weeks. It upended my life so badly that I dropped all of my classes the semester before I was supposed to graduate, would've lost my job if it weren't for it being a slow part of the year, and disrupted the lives of several of my loved ones. I felt like I was losing my mind and everyone in my life was at a loss of what to do.

Luckily I have a good support system and a few of my family members helped me identify that a lot of what I was experiencing seemed hormonal (on top of everything mentally, physically I was having hot flashes, appetite fluctuations, nausea, headaches, and body aches. My aunt compared it to menopause and my SIL compared it to her postpartum experiences). This led to some research where we came across some eerily similar stories from women who had nexplanon and also had really bad experiences with it. I then decided to have it removed, and after seeing one doctor who both refused to remove it and completely contradicted herself in her reasoning, I found a gynecologist who removed it for me and validated my concerns and reassured me that the nexplanon could be a huge contributor to my problems. Since then, I've talked to several different medical professionals that in a roundabout way have all said "yes, nexplanon can be super bad for mental health, especially if you have any preexisting conditions or risks in that area". No one ever told me that mental side effects could happen, and it wasn't in any of the information I was given about it.

Now, I'm a little over a month post-removal and things have definitely improved but I'm still not quite back to normal. My energy levels are still quite low and I'm sure part of it is just recovery from the constant state of emotional stress I was under for the past few months, and part is probably my hormones still adjusting. I'm still on one medication to help with the anxiety which actually seemed to surge about a week after removal, and I still have some overwhelming moments of sadness, but they're getting somewhat less frequent. Physically it's been like I've been a state of PMS for the past two weeks and I'm hoping my cycle will start back up again soon.

I know it varies from person to person, I guess I just need some reassurance that others have also had it take a while before they were completely back to normal, or that nexplanon can even cause something like this because I still have a hard time wrapping my head around everything that happened even with all of the evidence.