Oh god, here we go.
As someone who actually had to deal with becoming suicidal at the age of nine and at 17 get diagnosed with clinical depression, this does not amuse me.
I experienced this mental illness long before I even knew what veganism was. It didn’t just magically appear when I started drinking soy milk. I wish it was that easy; I could just change my diet and be healthy if it were.
It is absolutely heartbreaking how many individuals believe that going from one diet to another is going to make them mentally healthy.Â
When you have greedy lying social media scammers sell you their products that are somehow magically able to treat mood disorders, and you happen to be desperate for relief, many will fall for it.
There are millions and millions of people who are diagnosed with depression and only a small minority are vegan. It’s the same when certain individuals blame plants for getting some weird illness… it’s like, it ain’t vegans filling those hospital beds, ya know?
But that’s none of my business, right. I’m not the one who is blaming broccoli for my mental health problems.
The kind of depression that vegans can experience comes from realizing how cruel of a species we are.
Before I continue let me say that I will share my opinion – because unlike others I am not claiming to be an expert or a scientist – when it comes to depression that affects almost everyone at some point, not clinically diagnosed one that might get you hospitalized.Â
They are different. As I said, almost everyone will be depressed in their lifetime but it most likely won’t last long, it won’t become severe and it won’t destroy your life.
So, does veganism cause depression? In my humble opinion, yes, you can feel depressed.
Being lied to for decades about what happens to other animals before we get to steal their fluids and take their bodies to be chopped and put in a plastic bag can have a negative effect on some people.
You open your eyes and see death everywhere. Your hands are tied and you cannot save them.
What are you supposed to feel after seeing slaughterhouse videos? How should you react when you witness a slaughterhouse truck driving by with chickens crammed together on their way to death?
Should we be happy? Joyous? Excited? Grateful? What do non-vegans expect us to feel when we open our eyes? I honestly want to know.
Experiencing depression because the world exploits, enslaves, abuses and murders innocent beings is a human reaction. I highly doubt people were ecstatic in Nazi Germany unless they were Nazis themselves.
While eating plant-based won’t give you severe depression, going vegan may cause you to feel depressed if unable to step back and detach from what you now know. It would be fucked up if we felt nothing after watching a cow getting her throat slit.
It’s okay to feel sad. It’s okay to feel upset. It’s okay to feel angry.
It’s also okay to lose hope and feel helpless. These are all very natural, human reactions to injustice and mass killing of those who have done nothing to deserve it. You are an animal who feels empathy, not a robot that is programmed to stand still until told otherwise.
So, to finish this post and answer the question of whether or not veganism causes depression, let me be frank.
You can get depressed because of the awareness that you now have of what we do to other animals, but there is no evidence that proves eating plant-based will get you diagnosed with this mood disorder.
With meditation and, if needed, therapy and a supportive group of people, you can start to feel hopeful and use your voice to fight for peace and equality – if it does affect you once you go vegan.
Again, you are a human being and the way we respond to any mass murder is not by laughing at it but by feeling sad and heartbroken.
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Tanja
