Vegetarian for 16 years, Vegan for 5
Now a pesca-vegan
aka I am dairy-free & have salmon once a week, b/c it’s the most nutritiously dense per capita

Here’s why + how, and the stress/heartbreak it caused, which I think might be helpful for others in a similar situation:

I was young when I went vegetarian (13) so I have almost no recollection of how it felt physically. I adjusted, it was a new normal.

I went about most of my life wanting to be vegan, but caving under the pressure of cheese, ice cream, basically anything good in the world (rip)

Effectively I was falling asleep one night after a few years of meditation and psychedelics, and bolted up out of bed and just typed 'dairy farm video' into my computer like I was hypnotised or something. Saw footage, sobbed into my hands, and then never ate dairy again

All to say it’s a huge part of my mental + emotional life. I don’t feel social pressure to do this, I am deeply tied to this cause & consider it a near-spiritual matter. I identify with it in the same way I identify with my humour, my dreams, my singing voice, etc. Integrated.

Three years later, I meet my fiance and about a year in I become severely depressed. (Worth mentioning as a VO artist I spent a lot of time in a small dark space, and had no friends in LA after moving back from Prague so it’s obviously more than one trigger.) Anyway:

He is a fervent lover of meat and dairy, so he was always sort of ribbing me (heh heh) and insisting sort of indirectly that my existence was wrong (which he has since apologized for fyi and no longer does this and cooks tons of veg meals lovingly + eats 90% less meat)

He started showing me studies about nutrient deficiencies in vegans, which I ignored for a good 6 months. (Our body can get by for about 3 years before effects become detrimental. We need heme-iron, and the essential omegas are not properly absorbed w/o animal protein)

We had a few fights about it, in which I think we were both sort of justified and both sort of wrong, essentially I should have of course embraced the facts (…), and he should have been a bit more understanding of why it was difficult.

exempli gratia:

Him: It’s conclusively true that you can’t get the nutrients your brain needs, just eat meat it’s no big deal, you can still love animals, just upend your entire philosophy and trashcan your beliefs, don’t punish yourself for being an animal too

Me: I do not think I can physically eat an animal, I’d rather be malnourished (?) if that's even true, I am separate from animals in that I have the power to choose my food and they don’t, this is a deep part of my identity, not something I can discard with ease, please respect

Meanwhile I’m getting worse, am tired constantly and having weird panic attacks everywhere, once in an uber with my fiance where he had to tell the driver to stop so I could more or less try to pull my hair out on the side of the road (honesty) and cry in front of a donut shop

I began quietly googling veg nutrition after more like this & found it was conclusive. I was still struggling with this when of all things I saw an interview with Anne Hathaway who spoke about eating salmon and experiencing a ‘brain reboot’ which was all I truly wanted

So 6 months of stress later I decided for my mental health + relationship I had to try salmon, which I ate with shame and sadness and desperately wanted the findings to be wrong and to not feel good afterwards.

Except I felt amazing within 15 minutes, and here’s what happened:

-I started to experience full-body tingling
-An energy very deep within me felt ‘refilled’, I suddenly felt *essentially* awake
-Giddy happiness, I started to just…laugh
-Improved vision. Not sure if this is a touted benefit, but I realized that everything was crisper, brighter

I began incorporating salmon into my diet once a week, and have been doing this for about 8 months now. Gradually got happier, more creative, more able to HAVE A DAY. More importantly, energized. I was legit malnourished for 4 years. (Or maybe 16?)

From here it went like this: I was heartbroken and guilt-ridden for a few months, but that loosened up in time. Found more compelling evidence that fish don’t feel pain, which is heartening. I still don't enjoy the process of eating it, but I do enjoy feeling fully alive again.

The issue is:
I appreciate veg orgs & what they do, of course. But the dogmatism is a problem, proclaiming that humans DON’T need any animal product whatsover is a problem. There is likely too much special interest pressure + misinformation for most vegans to even experiment.

I don’t think vegans are harbouring a secret but pushing their agenda regardless. I was misinformed, and for years felt good. I think most are the same, but when it comes to accepting those who need meat for w/e reason, vegans can be downright scary, man

Luckily I don't care what mobs think, just worried about vegans in a similar mental state who do. This was an extremely difficult process for me, and I imagine coercion from the consensus gentium would have doubled it. It can be dangerous to tether our health to a complex cause.

Theoretically, veganism is altruistic in nature. But encouraging a community to give up meat + dairy forever is essentially encouraging people to deny their natural needs (& is unrealistic.) Which is why I’m such a supporter of lab-grown meats + reducetarian efforts instead

All in all, I advocate that it’s possible to bridge the gap to the best of our abilities, and neither party should feel guilty about eating meat, or feel like they have to betray their deepest selves to get what they vitally need. Both causes can, and should, survive in tandem.