In my
last post I mentioned a new relationship. It lasted about 8 months and now that
it’s over I have some insights about vegan with non vegan relations and
maintaining your individuality while trying to make a relationship work. Please
understand that I am certainly not a relationship expert and these are simply
my opinions and observations.
Vegan
or not I’ve always had a tendency of focusing so hard on maintaining my
relationships and the other persons happiness that I end up giving up the
things I love and losing my own sense of self in attempts to keep them and
therefore “us” happy. Obviously this ends up not working as overtime my
self-worth, confidence, satisfaction, and inevitably my happiness falters, thus
tainting and in turn self-imploding the relationship. I believe the technical
term is called Self Sabotage.
If you’ve
read my other posts then you know that I have been working on myself for a few
years now. Isn’t that what life is after all? The search for oneself, and the
constant struggle to become a better person. For me it is. It’s been four years
now of serious reprogramming and I have never been happier with myself as a
person. I found myself ready to make another attempt at love.
The
biggest lifestyle change that I made for the sake of this relationship was
getting back on birth control. This is in my opinion the main culprit. For years
I have been charting my cycle and using that to know when I am fertile. I had a
fling that lasted a couple months using this method and never had an issue. But
for my partners peace of mind I agreed to again use the depro provera injection
form of traditional birth control. I warned him that I experience severe
emotional side effects from hormonal birth control. Sure enough every month was
worse than the last and even though we were trying other possible solutions it
just got to bad for us to keep waiting for it to get better. I will address feminine hygiene and my
fertility struggles in another post.
From
the beginning I knew being vegan was going to be a challenge for my partner but
it ended up being a bigger challenge for me. I found that it made the family uncomfortable
when I would make my own meal to eat at dinner while they ate hamburger helper,
taco salads and such. Albeit their eating habits were balanced and by today’s American
standards would be considered healthy, the meals simply were not vegan. So more
and more I started slipping back into eating ‘normal’. It started with things
like “I steamed some broccoli so you can eat with us.” But he had melted cheese
on it, and for the sake of not hurting anyone’s feelings or coming off as a
stuck up B, I would smile and say that it looks good. All things in moderation,
right? Wrong. The negative changes within me were obvious within just a couple
months. From weight gain, skin problems, energy loss, exhaustion, loss of
motivation, to depression anxiety, and feeling like I was going straight up
crazy. My whole life I’ve struggled with
energy levels and being able to keep up with peers as well as depression,
anxiety, and endometriosis. Since going vegan I had raised energy levels, no
longer had depression, rarely had any anxiety, along with having consistently stable
moods, and hadn’t had an endometriosis attack for a couple years. Although we
were a relatively active couple I found my energy levels lowering and my
muscles would be sore for days after doing a 3k when the first month that we
were together I was able to run a 5k with minimal soreness. The only changes in
lifestyle were the birth control and diet. So I found myself not being able to
keep up with my boyfriend and as a result we became less active which aided in
us both gaining a few pounds. All the nesting jokes aside it affected us both
as individuals and in turn took a toll on the relationship. Long story short I
ended up so depressed and with such horrible mood swings that we just couldn’t survive
any longer. Not that we didn’t give it our all, we did and I am eternally appreciative
to him for all his patience, understanding, and efforts. While I wish I had
known better and as much as I wish we could have made it to the other side
together it simply wasn’t meant to be and I am grateful for the many wonderful
memories and even more so for the valuable lessons that I’ve learned from and
will apply to what will hopefully be successful future endeavors in love.
Lessons
to learn from: Never sacrifice what’s important to you for the sake of another.
It is far too easy to fall into bad habits! I gave up my yoga classes and
regular workouts to fit into his family’s schedule better. The guilt I felt for
eating non vegan just to please the family made it hard to focus on the positives
of the relationship. Longer term, the SAD (standard American diet) put me back
to the health levels I was at before going vegan. I developed cervical cancer
before going vegan and after having the cells removed and being strictly vegan
for over a year the cancer had not returned and my doctor was in awe of how
fast I had healed. I now have to start all over again to regain my health. In
addition, I knew that using hormonal birth control was not right for me and
should have stuck to my gut on it. I hope this insight is able to help others
who may be experiencing similar difficulties in their lives. While we all must
learn our own lessons I also believe in learning and taking ‘pointers’ from
others. Why suffer if you don’t have too? Stay tuned for a future post about my
experiences with SAD diet, endometriosis, cervical cancer, birth control, how
being vegan changed things and natural feminine hygiene.
