Day 9ish: After the Bender

I realized I haven't written in four days! My apologies.

I am recovering from my three-to-four day food bender. I literally just couldn't get enough food, soda, etc. I have just been constantly stressed, dealing with my parents being rude to me almost constantly and my fiancé's graduating from culinary school, and getting a job where we don't see each other often. It has all happened at once, and I have become overwhelmed with everything. I feel like I'm letting people down if I don't be a vegan for the rest of my life. But I was afraid I was having a reaction to dairy and soy which may be true but it could also have been an acute stress reaction to all this crap that has been going on in my life (excuse my language). I don't know if I'll be the perfect vegan my whole life. It has been a journey that I have been on since I was 11 years old and decided I wanted to "be nice to animals." But I didn't realize that I deserved to be treated kindly as well. I have always had very black-or-white, all-or-nothing thinking.

Ever since I started my journey 18 years ago, I had always believed that I had to be perfect at being a vegan, even though I knew I couldn't. At 11 I wasn't equipped to know all the facts about CAFOs and disease prevention, I just knew that I loved animals and wanted to do something to help. But I have a weird relationship with failure. I always tended to aggressively seek approval from people I knew wouldn't give it to me, and I got so used to that feeling of rejection that I started unconsciously creating it in my own life. (See, my three-fourths of a Psychology degree does come in handy from time to time!) I almost got addicted to failure.

It's so hard to kick that mentality. It colors everything I do, and causes me to stop just short of a goal. I get there, get the approval, and then take a step back. That's scary to me, and will get me stuck in a rut my whole life if I don't do something about it now. I love being vegan, I love being able to say I did something to help change things for the better. But I think that the issue is so much deeper than being vegan or not being vegan. It's about not getting hung up on pleasing the people who will never accept my best, and realize that if I have God's approval and my approval, then that's okay. :-)

I appreciate you letting me share all of this with you. It has been a super hard October and I feel blessed to be able to start over again. Be blessed and enjoy the journey.