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Don't You Miss It?

by BREANNA LOCKE

It was a celebration. My friends and loved ones were scattered around me at a park, and the balmy weather confirmed that spring was inching closer and closer to summer. It felt like the family cookouts of my childhood — everyone in bright colors, cotton ball clouds dotting the sky and picnic tables with checkered cloths showcasing rows and rows of food. I laughed, not at anything in particular, just thoroughly enjoying this unnamed celebration. I picked up a veggie burger mid-chuckle and took a big bite. Then the sky darkened. My face contorted, and I regurgitated when I realized that the burger was actually beef.

That’s a typical “vegan nightmare” as I’ve come to call them. When I got my first tattoo, I had nightmares in which I’d accidentally wash the image off, or that it simply fall off like an old Band-Aid. Those dreams stopped after I’d gotten used to the tattoo though. My vegan nightmares however, began seven years ago (they started out as vegetarian nightmares), and I still get them periodically. I laugh when I wake up; I’d much rather have a food-related nightmare than one involving serial killers who are inexplicably out to get me. But its invasion into my dreams just goes to show how much veganism has become a part of my self.
 
When I was younger, and thought waking up to the sound of bacon sizzling was the best way to start the day, I was not a fan of vegetarians. Whenever someone mentioned the “v” word, I’d scoff internally. My cynical high school self didn’t think that abstaining from meat would make any sort of difference for animals. I was depressed, and saw the world as broken beyond repair, meat industry included. But I loved animals, so I had to admit that I felt a little insulted too. Other people called themselves vegetarians, so did my lack of this title imply that I didn’t care for animals as much as they did?

Then came the inevitable experience: I saw undercover footage of a slaughterhouse online. It’s become something of a rite of passage for emerging vegetarians to watch factory farm footage, and to see documentaries like Earthlings (which I tried to watch but couldn’t stomach for more than 20 minutes). I was horrified and heartbroken over what I saw. Even if I wasn’t yet convinced that my puny self could make a difference in lives of farm animals, I couldn’t justify financially supporting that industry any longer. Though I wanted to, the thought of going vegan overwhelmed me. But I had to do something. So at 16, I went vegetarian.

My hometown was tiny and full of family farms. Medway didn’t even have a grocery store until I was in seventh grade, and let me tell you, when they made the plans to build the Star Market over a cow pasture, it was controversial. I didn’t know any other vegetarians there, so I was nervous about telling my friends and family about my decision. After all, just days before, I would have been judgmental too. I was afraid of being associated with the ridiculous stereotypes; you know, the malnourished extremist sporting a sack of raw vegetables and a superiority complex.

Because of this, I started out as a very humble herbivore, never preaching, never advertising. In fact, I went so far as trying to keep that entire part of my identity hidden in public. With a mean case of social anxiety, I hated the idea of ever drawing attention to myself. I was afraid of the myriad of questions people might ask — Why?, Don’t you miss bacon?, But where do you get your protein? — or worse, not even asking questions, but automatically criticizing or ridiculing. I didn’t like being different — as an introvert who preferred bookstores to any kind of social gatherings, I already felt isolated from the majority of my peers — but I could not and would not eat animals.

Things changed three years later when I enrolled in a small, liberal college in downtown Boston. I majored in Writing, Literature and Publishing, which I was always proud to state since I thought the title sounded more impressive than the standard “English.” I wore flannel shirts, short skirts with black tights, and combat boots. I started drinking my coffee black alongside other young, creative hipsters who always seemed to be trying to out-counterculture one another (in all the same ways, of course). I even started dating, which I had never experienced before given my painfully shy disposition in high school. There was no one special for a while, but I was putting myself out there in a way I’d feared I never would be able to.

I’d been depressed for a decade, but happiness creeped in as I’d take strolls around the Boston Common, visit small concert venues, and attend classes that I actually wanted to be in. The dining hall had an entire vegetarian station, and I joined the environmental club for a semester where nearly everyone abstained from eating meat. There wasn’t a cow pasture in sight. I was no longer the lone vegetarian, and it felt great.

The following summer, I made my first attempt at going vegan. Being a vegetarian was easy, so transitioning to veganism would be a cinch, right? Well, as it turned out, not so much. In fact, I only lasted a week before I went back to egg sandwiches, ice cream, and provolone cheese. Though they didn’t say so, I knew my friends and family were relieved. They thought the diet was unhealthy and unnecessary, and besides, scrutinizing every nutrition label at the busy grocery store was tedious for everyone.

When I had first told people I was trying to go vegan, I was met with candid responses like, “UGH.”, “No!”, and “That’s too far!” One friend lamented, almost as if she was personally offended by my decision, “So you’re not going to have pizza nights with me anymore?” I hated to admit that their reactions contributed to my giving up so soon.

Just a couple months later, at the start of my junior year, I met a guy. PJ was a longboarding stoner with a goofy, loveable smile. We connected immediately. After we went out to dinner on our first date, we ended up wandering around Boston for three hours (despite the fact that it was raining), just because we didn’t want the night to end. If I had been an outsider looking at our relationship, I probably would’ve gagged. We'd just sit there with our foreheads touching, staring into each other’s eyes as the city moved around us. He’d often drop his head and sigh, saying, “You're so great. I can't even handle it.” He wasn’t a vegetarian, but I didn’t care; he was the first boyfriend I’d ever cared about, and he respected that I was a vegetarian.

That semester, I was taking a required Speech Communications course, which I had tried my damnedest to get out of. Just the thought of class presentations made me nauseous, so I could only imagine that an entire course on presentations would send me to the hospital. My anxiety and depression had been acting up lately, despite the fact that PJ and I were honeymoon phasing to the max. While this class was a big source of anxiety—and it did prove to be, predictably, my least favorite class of my college career—it got me to voice my vegetarianism in a way I never had before. I used it as a topic for a persuasive speech project: “Why You Should Consider Going Veg.” I felt conviction as I wrote my four-minute speech and organized my PowerPoint with photos of cute little farm animals mixed in. In high school I wouldn’t have dreamed of revealing that part of myself to an entire room of people, but now, it seemed only natural that I’d use this opportunity to spread awareness. But not long after this presentation, my personal life went sour.

I had a feeling something was wrong when I met up with PJ one afternoon at the Public Garden. His eyes didn't light up like they normally did when he saw me, and though he hugged me hello, he didn't pair it with a kiss. He broke up with me, offering no real explanation, and it came out of nowhere. I was in no way emotionally prepared, and while I was devastated, the next day proved to be even worse. I saw that his best friend’s girlfriend had messaged me on facebook, and I assumed it was a message of condolence. It felt like a Twilight Zone moment when I read her words, “You deserve to know the truth, and the truth is that he cheated on you.” Apparently he was drunk and/or high at a party the previous Friday night, and things got out of hand with someone’s visiting cousin. That was all I found out, and it was more than I wanted to know.

My depression had been peeking up at me from under the surface for a while, but this ordeal launched it straight to the forefront. On top of being heartbroken, I found myself at terrible odds with my own identity. A self-proclaimed feminist, I felt betrayed by my emotions; why was I giving a misogynistic asshole the power to destroy my emotional state? I tried so hard not to care, to be rational about the situation.

My pre-existing regimen of antidepressants and mood stabilizers was constantly changing — adjusting dosages, adding pills, removing pills — desperately trying to find that magical pharmaceutical combination that would solve all my problems. I stopped reading and writing (as much as my major could possibly allow), slept between classes, and blew through bottles of klonopin at an alarming rate. There was a whole lot of self-loathing during that period, and when I thought about what I was supporting when I consumed dairy and egg products, I’d get particularly disgusted with myself. I said I cared about animals, but I still supported the animal agriculture industry.

I felt useless, like I was wasting space. So I finally stopped making excuses, and made the commitment to completely separate myself from animal-derived ingredients and products. My food choices were something that I was in control of, and at that point, I was clinging to any sense of control I had. Anyone who’s suffered from depression knows that it is vicious and all-consuming. But oddly enough, it weighed me down in such a way that pushed me into veganism.

My health started improving (both physical and mental), I started meeting new people, and I found myself becoming a part of a positive and accepting community. I fell in love with someone; we had found each other through our shared veganism. I don’t go out distributing “Go Vegan” leaflets (panic attack waiting to happen), but I volunteer with a publisher that produces books that help spread awareness.  I may have the occasional nightmare about inadvertently “breaking veg,” but there’s no actual fear attached to that part of life. And I’m lucky enough that at actual family picnics, everyone respects my lifestyle and makes sure I have something to eat.

Breanna Locke is a contributor to This Recording. This is her first appearance in these pages. She is a writer living in Medford. You can find her tumblr here.

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