- Username
- mia21
- Date posted
- 39w ago
Being vegan and having ocd
I’ve been vegetarian since I was 6 years old when I realized that meat was dead animals. I didn’t put the pieces together until I was on a field trip to a farm when I was in kindergarten and I decided then I was never eating meat again. At 16, I went vegan and still am now at 24. That’s all fine and dandy because I like being vegan and it’s something I don’t want to change. However! Every time I accidentally eat something non-vegan or realize that a product I’ve been using isn’t vegan, I feel AWFUL. Like I cannot sleep right now at 3:30am bc I’m just thinking about the fact that I eat root vegetables and that means I kill plants (everyone loves to remind me that vegans “kill plants” which also does not help) and I accidentally drank this stupid energy drink the other day that turned out to have bovine collagen in it and that I’ve been using regular paper towels for my whole life and apparently those have gelatin in them which isn’t even vegetarian. I know that my unusually strong moral obligations come from my ocd, and I’m constantly ruminating on this and compulsively trying to think of ways to “counteract” my immoral behavior or punish myself. How do I grapple with moments where I accidentally or unknowingly have something non-vegan when it makes me feel like such an evil person? Does anyone else have this issue?