me, someone recovering from an eating disorder, with a close family member who was hospitalised for 5 months with an eating disorder, who has read countless papers and doctor reccomend books on eating disorders: modern diet fads are just repackaged eating disorders. a lot of vegan diets have a purity complex attached to them that very easily enables the development of eating disorders. some vegan (and veggie but to a lesser extent) diets are so restrictive that they are outright unhealthy, despite claiming to be the healthiest diet you can have. there is a big problem in vegan activism of promoting this as good and kindest to the animals.
some dude with crusty white dreds and bunch of peta stats: why do you hate animals
My doctor literally will not allow me, in any capacity, to adopt any variety of vegetarianism or veganism because of my history of eating disorders.
Those movements provide disturbing snug shelters of self righteousness and insular thinking in terms of enabling and encouraging extremely unhealthy thoughts and attitudes towards food, the body and eating. It’s even more toxic in some senses because you can deflect it completely away from you and frame your illness entirely as a way to be kinder to animals and the planet.
It’s.. really concerning how I never see this addressed by non-survivors tbh and I wish I was brave enough to bring it up when people recommend I turn vegan for vague political reasons that ultimately are about enabling their own sense of superiority.
You’re 100% right!! My experience has been different because I was raised veggie and the family member in question was as well, and both my parents. However, I always got lots of protein and I was always told I could try meat if I wanted. It was a very healthy way of having that diet.
However.
So much of modern vegan activism - and the classism, the racism, and the ableism therein that is often not addressed - very easily fuses with purity complexes and goes nuclear.
Think of all the propaganda that revolves around veganism being CLEANER (despite the fact clean food is scientifically Not A Thing), of how it DETOXES YOU (no food detoxes you, as only your liver and kidneys can do that), or how ANYONE CAN DO IT (hint: they can’t).
The martyrdom of how it’s fine because it’s BETTER FOR THE ANIMALS.
The way it TARGETS YOUNG WOMEN AND GIRLS BY TELLING THEM IT’LL HELP THEM LOSE WEIGHT AND LOOK HOTTER.
It just really needs addressing but bringing it up so fucking often gets cries of “You’re just lazy!”/“here’s a graphic description of animal cruelty in x industry” and I’m tired but more than that I’m angry! !!
i just saw a fb post where a man was arguing with a woman about the best way to make macarons and he kept insisting that she was wrong, and then eventually he was like “I’ve never personally made macarons, but if you think about it what I’m saying makes sense, i’m simply stating the obvious. i’m sure there are plenty of youtube tutorials that would show you the same thing.” and the woman replied by linking him to her instagram business page and she makes fuckin macaron towers for parties for a living and i’ve been laughing about it for a solid 5 minutes.
Men automatically assume they’re more of an expert on something than any woman on account of their dicks. I’ve never met such an ignorant and narcissistic creature as a male
I’ll never forget a time when a fb friend of mine posted that she’s on her way to hospital to give birth. Women commented with “good luck” and other encouraging messages. A man’s comment was advice on how to give birth.
You have got to be kidding me
So I was talking about Jekyll & Hyde (the book) at a writer’s museum while we were looking at an Robert Louis Stevenson exhibit. I was giving my take on Jekyll, and my brother tried to counter it. I countered back easily, and then he said “well I’ve never read the book”
My dude………..stop
my ex, whose baking experience was pretty much limited to frying premade biscuit dough in boy scouts to make ‘donuts’, would constantly try to correct me or give me advice on baking
i’m a fucking pastry chef
met a dude at a party who was talking about physics and asked if i’d ever listened to any online physics lectures bc he listened to all of this one series and they were so helpful and maybe i could learn some physics too
i have a degree in physics
and am a published coauthor in astrophysics
the best part is that the woman who invented the term ‘mansplaining’ (her name is Rebecca Solnit and i highly recommend her collection of essays) came up with it when she was at a party one night and a man tried to explain a book to her, and wouldn’t let her speak long enough for her to tell him that
she wrote the bloody book he was mansplaining to her
You know I have plenty examples of this but that last one takes the cake so imma just let it be.
one of the more valuable things I’ve learned in life as a survivor of a mentally unstable parent is that it is likely that no one has thought through it as much as you have.
no, your friend probably has not noticed they cut you off four times in this conversation.
no, your brother didn’t realize his music was that loud while you were studying.
no, your bff or S.O. doesn’t remember that you’re on a tight deadline right now.
no, no one else is paying attention to the four power dynamics at play in your friend group right now.
a habit of abused kids, especially kids with unstable parents, is the tendency to notice every little detail. We magnify small nuances into major things, largely because small nuances quickly became breaking points for parents. Managing moods, reading the room, perceiving danger in the order of words, the shift of body weight….it’s all a natural outgrowth of trying to manage unstable parents from a young age.
Here’s the thing: most people don’t do that. I’m not saying everyone else is oblivious, I’m saying the over analysis of minor nuances is a habit of abuse.
I have a rule: I do not respond to subtext. This includes guilt tripping, silent treatments, passive aggressive behavior, etc. I see it. I notice it. I even sometimes have to analyze it and take a deep breath and CHOOSE not to respond. Because whether it’s really there or just me over-reading things that actually don’t mean anything, the habit of lending credence to the part of me that sees danger in the wrong shift of body weight…that’s toxic for me. And dangerous to my relationships.
The best thing I ever did for myself and my relationships was insist upon frank communication and a categorical denial of subtext. For some people this is a moral stance. For survivors of mentally unstable parents this is a requirement of recovery.
It’s very habitual of me to be surprised that my partner or loved ones do not notice the things I do. Of course, the reason being is the as a product of abuse I notice the most minor things in every day life. A rustling of snacks, a loud crunch. My senses are heightened.
