Category: Keeping Ahead of the Shadows

Veganism: Why It Works for Me

Posted on by Kai Raine

Two and a half years ago, I became vegan because of the moral considerations: for the environment and for the animals. I remained mostly vegan because I realized it made me feel healthier and more energetic. If I had to pinpoint one major change that kickstarted my journey to a healthier, happier lifestyle, it was the day I turned vegan. Vegetarianism and veganism were things I’d always toyed with, but never quite committed to—until one day, when I went vegan overnight.

I want to emphasize that I’m not advocating for worldwide veganism! This is not about why veganism is great for everyone. This is about how I adopted a new eating habit and stumbled across some realizations about myself.

I turned vegan overnight because of a conversation with a very rational friend of mine, who has on many occasions functioned as my sanity barometer. In essence, I explained to him that I did not go to zoos or aquariums because I had found that I generally didn’t approve of the way that some of their animals were kept. (I have a particular problem with aquariums that keep marine mammals.) I ranted about the studies that show that animals are traumatized by the poor treatment they receive in cramped quarters.

He pointed out that that made no sense. “You would go to a zoo or aquarium maybe what, once a year?” Even less than that, I had to admit. “But you eat animal products a couple times a week, right?” Even more that that: I loved milk and yogurt, and had some virtually everyday. “Surely you see that your argument against zoos and aquariums doesn’t make any sense unless you’re also vegan.”

“Well, I’ve considered being vegan,” I told him. “But the thing is, I don’t like the idea of being that person who visits a friend’s place, or goes to a party and has all the dietary restrictions that have to be catered to.”

I don’t remember what he said at that, because even as I said the words, I heard the flaws in my own reasoning. Obviously, in that case, I could be vegan at home. I could eat whatever I was served in public while still remaining vegan in private. My reason was a ridiculous one.

My friend was insistent that I understand that he wasn’t advocating for veganism, he himself not being vegan. “I know I’d be miserable if I were vegan, and I would rather not subject myself to more difficulty than I have to,” he explained. “But I just wanted to point out that your logic isn’t consistent.”

It was true. That evening I emptied out my fridge and cupboards of all non-vegan food items. I decided I had to make a clean break, or else I might decide “Oh, but I can just get a little of this” and I would fail to uphold my new decision before I had ever really begun. I took the non-vegan food items to this friend, who was concerned.

“You know that I wasn’t trying to tell you that you had to be vegan, right?” he asked me.

“No, I know. It wasn’t you; I convinced myself.”

That evening, I made an Indian dish with lentils, rice and vegetables. I bought soy milk and tofu. That weekend, I looked up recipes for vegan pancakes and muffins and burgers, and anything else I could think of that I might start to crave.

To my own surprise, I didn’t have any cravings for non-vegan food for months. I was excited about the new recipes and I couldn’t wait to find all sorts of new ideas and new foods to cook. For about 6 months, I was strictly vegan.

During this time, I realized that I suddenly had energy like I’d never experienced before. I wanted to be active and move around and go outside. Previously, I’d very much been an indoors person. I still enjoyed my indoor time and my quiet time, but I also wanted to be doing more and going out more.

Over the months that I’ve been mostly vegan, I’ve worked out that this is mainly an effect of removing dairy from my diet. I haven’t gotten any medical tests, but I have come to realize that dairy just doesn’t agree with my body. Somehow, a little bit of dairy in my food has the effect of making me both physically and mentally slower and fatigued. There were minor stomach problems that I used to have habitually that I no longer have ever since removing dairy from my diet.

I have no doubt that at least part of this change came from simply the psychological effect of making a mindful choice to care about what and how I ate. Not having had any real medical tests, I couldn’t say if my reaction to dairy is lactose intolerance, a mild allergy, or something else entirely. I do, however, know that I am happier and more active by simply eliminating dairy from my diet, so I keep that up consistently.

With regards to meat and fish, I’m more fluid. I steer clear of red meat all the time, unless I’m in a place or situation where it’s difficult to work around that. I’m more forgiving of eggs and chicken if the chickens are what I call “happy chickens”: raised with plenty of space and good food and sunlight. Fish I frequently incorporate into my diet (this was a concession I made within the first year so that I would be able to continue to eat Japanese food), but I try to ensure that I only eat seafood that is caught in a sustainable way.

Having read this, one might think, “So you’re not vegan at all, really. You’re mostly just dairy free.”

True, I don’t stick to a strict vegan diet, and I don’t keel over with guilt at the thought of eating meat. It’s more of a guideline than a strict rule. But I do make an effort to remain vegan as much as possible. The effects of meat in my diet aren’t as pronounced as the presence/absence of dairy, but I do feel like I’m happier when I’m eating vegan.

Self-Awareness (So Easily Said and So Difficult to Actualize)

Posted on by Kai Raine

The most central part of my journey, and central to every sub-section of this blog series, is self-awareness.

The first step was learning to know when I’m in a depressive phase. Believe it or not, I’d been having depressive phases for the better part of a decade before I learned to recognize them for what they were. It took even longer to be able to identify an episode while I was in it.

I’d have a hard time trying to pin down why, exactly, it was so difficult to reach such a basic point of self-awareness. The most simple part of the very complicated answer is fear. It’s frightening to admit to depression. There’s no cure and a lot of stigma attached to the notion. It affects how certain people view me; some people even act as though it’s a thing I should have been able to do something about. Even if they weren’t speaking to me, a conversation about someone else’s anxiety or depression (even if not mentioned by name) would feel like an accusation directed at me: “Why aren’t you able to control your own mind?” I’d hear. In depressive phases, I get badly anxious; I would become anxious about being called depressed and it became easiest to avert my eyes from the whole idea altogether.

In my case, over time, I eased into the realization. As it grew harder to deny, I became readier to admit to it.

The second step is learning how to help yourself get out of a depressive phase. This is extremely tricky, because by definition, one has very little energy or will to do anything in such a phase. It isn’t always even possible.

A “solution” that was often presented to me was the notion that I should  exercise more. This did not work for me. I couldn’t explain how counter-effective this was until one day I stumbled across a video on YouTube. Nycea talks about a variety of issues, including her own experience with PTSD and weight loss. In the video I watched, she explained how she had anxiety and couldn’t “just exercise,” because effects of exercising felt too much like an anxiety attack and would trigger an actual anxiety attack. This, I realized, was exactly the problem I’d been encountering. So exercise was decidedly not the solution.

It did, however, help me to be able to verbalize why this didn’t work. The people who had been convinced that exercise was the answer continued to be convinced that I should be exercising. The ability to explain the problem made it possible for me to ignore this opinion, because I knew that it would not work for me.

In the worst depressive phase I ever had, I kick-started my recovery by finding the energy to call a friend. This was a friend who also suffers from depression, and I felt certain I could trust her to understand what I was going through and help me. I told her that I needed to get to a doctor to get meds but didn’t have the energy or the will, and the world outside was terrifying. She was calm and encouraging and pushed me gently (just enough), reminding me why to care. She was with me the whole time, first on Skype then over text. I had to wait for hours to see the doctor and had to go to 3 different pharmacies to find one that had the correct medication in stock, but I managed. And this friend made all the difference.

If you wonder, “Why not call a friend who could actually come and be there physically?” the answer is because I didn’t trust anyone in reasonable geographical distance with my psyche as much as I trusted this one friend. I judged that it was better to call a person I felt certain I could trust to help me find the strength, than to try to call someone I trusted less in the hope that they wouldn’t say something that would send me crawling back into bed to hide away for another week or three. In this case, I chose correctly. (But that doesn’t mean that if faced with a similar situation again, the same solution would work.)

The third step is learning to identify oncoming depressive phases before they begin, and counteract them. This is far more easily said than done, even more so than either of the first two steps. But having said that, it is my experience so far that it’s easier to counteract a shallow oncoming depressive phase than it is to crawl out of a deep, full-on episode.

For myself, one of the easiest signs that I am on the verge of a depressive phase is when my mind jumps straight to blaming myself for things I can’t help. When I find myself getting caught up in guilt over a memory, I know I need to do something. (This isn’t the only sign, and it isn’t always present when I’m on the verge of a depressive phase, but it is a common one.)

The solutions that help me are rarely the same thing twice. Once, I just started exercising more and a few days later was feeling better. Another time, I set off on a road trip to hike and visit a friend and was feeling better by the time I reached her place. Sometimes I change what I eat or how I eat. Sometimes I increase my social interactions; other times I cut out planned social interaction and make sure I have alone time to read and write and take it easy.

Largely, I find that I have to do a fair amount of soul searching to figure out what I need, or what would help me. My first attempt to recover sometimes makes it worse, and I need to work all the harder on the second attempt. Frequently, the solution that I require is neither the most obvious nor the most convenient.

Once, in the middle of a ski trip, I hit a mild depressive phase. I was feeling no enjoyment or excitement no matter how fast I skied: this state was not only alarming for my mental health, but also for my physical health. Having paid for the ski rentals and the accommodation for a certain number of days, I hated the idea of not skiing. But, in fact, a day or two of not skiing and just sitting inside writing was exactly what I needed. After that day or two, I went back to skiing and was capable of enjoying it again. (Though there was admittedly a numbed quality to the enjoyment, it was coming back.) To this day, I occasionally catch myself wishing I could have spent more of that trip skiing—and I remind myself how badly I needed to not ski at the time, and that had to take precedence.

The fact is, it’s very easy to say that one should be self-aware, but it’s extremely difficult to actually be self-aware. There is no self-help book and no other person who can teach you how to look into your own mind and truly know yourself. It is an excruciating process of trial and error. And that process of trial and error will always be ongoing, because there’s no one cure that fixes it, and no end point in this journey.

Keeping Ahead of the Shadows: An Introduction

Posted on by Kai Raine

Of the blog series that I’ve decided to write, I knew from the start that this would be the most difficult. It was also the one I most wanted to write, because I think that it might be helpful to someone if I put my experience out into the world.

I suffer from chronic depression.

This is a scary thing to admit to the world, because I know that this will define how some people see me. In a face-to-face conversation, I’ll say, “I was diagnosed with depression in the past, but I’m fine now.” That’s true, but not the whole truth. True that I’m not in therapy anymore, and I’m not on any medication. I’m active and can find energy from day to day to do the things I am expected to do. But I am also hyper aware that I have to be vigilant in my choices everyday, because I could trip and fall back into the abyss at any moment.

I have to be extremely self-aware. I have to be able to recognize when I’m on the verge of a depressive episode. I have to be able to do something about it. I have to find the energy to act decisively and effectively, when I barely have the energy to do the most basic things. If I fail to catch myself, I don’t have any safety net as a back up.

Managing depression without therapy or medication is, in some ways, a choice that I’m privileged to have been offered. Many experience depression too severe for this to even be a realistic, viable option. But at the same time, it is in some ways purely circumstances that have led me to making this “choice.” It takes a long time to build a rapport with a therapist to the point where they can really make a difference; I’ve been moving around far too much in the past year or so for this to be a feasible option. As for medication, the types available vary from country to country. While there are ways to work around this, since it’s really only a logistical problem, I would get anxious just thinking about what might happen if I suddenly didn’t have access to the medication that I needed, for one reason or another.

But this isn’t a series about the fears and anxieties of depression. This is about the things I do from day to day that make it easier for me to keep out of the dark.

This isn’t meant to be a self-help segment. I don’t expect what worked for me to be universal. I do advocate for seeking therapy (with a therapist you like), and taking medications as you feel necessary. I also want to emphasize that a lot of what worked for me just came out of me doing something different on a whim, and then realizing, “Huh, I feel better today.” And so I would take that up as a habit.

It’s a bit of an experiment, since I don’t know if I’ll be any good at writing about an ongoing struggle that is so central to my life; much less if my experience will be of any use to anyone but myself. But I want to try this anyway, so here goes.

I intend this segment to have 4 subcategories:

  • Eating and cooking
  • Exercise: routine but not boring
  • Nature and hiking
  • A social life that helps

This is me, sharing ways that help me to keep ahead of the shadows in my mind.