How to avoid mental health issues – final

921:

Is it that we think our mental health depends on what others think of us and not what we think of ourselves? Is it that other people, including ourselves, might think highly of anyone who lives the same sort of lifestyle?

            So, what happens when we forgo the approval of others, for the sake of making a radical change in our own lifestyle. The answer is likely to be that we effectively isolate ourselves, socially. Very scary. Probably this is why more people aren’t switching over to vegan food and vegan thinking.

We all fear for our own mental health if we’re alone; everyone knows there’s not much kudos in being vegan, or even vegetarian. Being alone is always frightening.

If the omnivore is complacent about their own mental health, or down-plays the guilt factor, or ignores good sense and conscience, they may not get far past where they are now. Their habits, which at worst are barbaric, at best mindless, are set down during our younger years and get locked into place when we become adults. There’s no chance of these social habits, especially those concerning food and communal eating, being changed unless one is willing to strike out alone. Vegans do strike out, very often without anyone to support them in their change of lifestyle. And what happens then can only be known to vegans themselves, because one’s lifestyle seems to change on so many levels, just by eating certain foods and boycotting others. One’s social life has to alter accordingly. Vegans can’t expect anyone who is not vegan to understand how it feels. there’s a sense of liberation in the body, when it’s being fed real food for the first time. Energy levels increase, there’s an absence of stomach troubles, a welcome change in the smell of the toilet, the smell of the breath, and the eyes look just that bit brighter. Any list of benefits and changes can’t convey the difference between the days of animal-eating and the days of no-animal-eating. But, over all the changes, the one that stands out most clearly (to the vegan at any rate) is the release from a nagging, worrying, something’s-not-quite-right feeling. Call that mental health if you like.

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