Question: Did you like meat?

I LOVED meat. I was called “Wimpie” like from the cartoon Popeye’s who would always ask him for money today and would claim to pay back whoever on Tuesday for a hamburger today – by my family. I never really made the connection between “chicken” and CHICKEN and ground beef and COW until I was like 10 or 11. I remember the day actually, it was a Friday night dinner and we were having a nice meal, and I was like, “Wait…chicken -is- chicken?” and my family looked a little embarrassed and was like “Yes.” I stopped eating for a moment – I never knew about vegetarianism until I was 16 years old and since my family ate meat for almost every meal – I didn’t really think there was an alternative. When I first heard about vegetarianism when I was 16, I thought it was the oddest thing. One of my cousins went vegetarian and it was a big family ordeal. I was too desensitized at that point to really do much about it. I kind of felt like Hamlet – walking so far in blood – that it’d be just as messy to retrace the steps as to move forward or so I thought. So, I just didn’t think too much about it.

Bounce ahead six years, and I had a complete mental breakdown. Basically, I developed schizoaffective disorder (which is under control now) and I really thought I had a satanic cult after me plotting to eat me. Turns out, it was just my serotonin was non-existent and my brain chemicals naturally got out of balance when the illness set in. I had a handful of people picking on me at college and I guess it was beyond my comprehension that people could be mean for no reason whatsoever so instead of thinking “Oh, they’re being crassholes,” it was “OMG, they are plotting to eat me.” It was a slow development and people talking to me about cannibalism, satanism, and random stuff that was unrelated that somehow got connected into this dark epic tale. Anyways, I -knew- something was wrong, went for help, and everything worked out okay. I didn’t know what was wrong but dude, when you think people are plotting to eat you – you either need help because it’s in your head or you need help because of impending doom.

Anyways, a day or two after my complete mental breakdown – we went out to eat and it dawned upon me that eating meat was wrong. I didn’t know about factory farming or environmental issues that went into it – but just had this moment of realization that eating meat was unnecessary and caused much suffering for the animals. Plus, I didn’t want to be eaten, so I decided to extend the same courtesy to other beings. Chicken fingers -were- my favorite food at that moment but I didn’t want to be a part of causing pain to another creature. So, I stopped.

It took about a month to get myself off meat. I tried to go cold turkey but I felt really weak and crummy so for about a month I ate meat once a week. After that, my body didn’t need it anymore (or maybe the chemicals in it, haha) and haven’t gone back since.

I went vegan about a year ago when my conscious couldn’t handle oppressing cows and chickens. Rather, I thought I could deal with that on my conscious – but it got to the point I couldn’t bring myself to eat animal products anymore. I’ve been vegan ever since. 🙂