Note: Thanks go to Dr. Steven Hassan, who talked about these methods of how to have fruitful conversations with "indoctrinated" people and gently lead them closer to their authentic selves. I applied his methods and similar ones to my own past self.
Hi Aurin,
You're a die-hard vegan, aren't you? It's your identity, it's your value system, it's a big part of your life. I respect that. And I'm not here to tell you that you're wrong or veganism is wrong. But I happen to know (by virtue of being you) that there's a dark secret attached to your veganism, an instance of emotional abuse that has traumatised you and that you haven't healed from yet.
Remember when you were a young, eager activist, setting out for the big wide world for the first time, when visiting Hamburg, the big city, was still an adventure to you country egg? There were the cool, slightly intimidating activists who lived there, who navigated big city life and big politics like fish in water. They were your older brother's friends and roommates.
This one particular asshole, he later turned out to be an avid rapist-supporter, yeah that one. I think you know what I'm getting at? He didn't touch you, but he verbally and emotionally abused you. It was not ok.
YOU shouldn't have to feel ashamed! YOU shouldn't have to feel shame for what HE did! You never passed that pain on to others. But you kept it as a secret inside you all these years, where it festered.
Can you break the silence? Do you think it might be a relief to you? Healing shame by lifting the silence, by being heard and validated as the strong survivor you were and are?
Ok. Take a deep breath. You can do it!
He did! He did abuse me, you are right! I thought if I ever told anyone about it, I would betray veganism as a whole... That's stupid, isn't it... This asshole does not represent veganism... But it's so hard! *sobs*
*holds you*
He... He knew I had been raped as a child by my father. He knew rape and even just anything about sex, even consensual sex, was a total trigger to me (he'd use it against me later to shut me up when I tried to question him in front of the group about why he was supporting a rapist in the movement). So yeah, he KNEW these things about me! He knew. And yet, he used it in an argument, when I was still eating non-vegan dumpstered food. And he convinced me that that wasn't good, that as a vegan I shouldn't do that. At the time I thought, why not, I'm not financing or promoting animal exploitation?
But he said... It's like finding child porn in a dumpster and getting off to it. It's beyond disrespectful to the pain of the child. Even if you're not paying for it. And he said eating a chocolate bar from the dumpster was like that. (He'd also say artificial insemination was rape, and stuff like that.)
It's just. That is such an ugly and horrific thing to say! How DARE HE!!! HO DARE HE use my pain as a chip to win a debate like this???? IT MEANT NOTHING TO HIM! HE understood NOTHING of the emotional impact of rape!!! All he understood was that he could use it as a weapon against me, to silence me and to control me.
From then on, I stopped seeing animal products as food at all. That was also his phrasing. That it's not just "forbidden food", but not food at all. Why should that distinction even matter? I don't know why he cared so much about what I did. If I'm honest, I do remember that before that point, I enjoyed the nonvegan food from dumpsters. I did not think of it as gross, veganism was never just a matter of taste to me, whether animal products taste good was never a factor to me. Or rather, it wasn't in the beginning. Now, I can't make myself even imagine eating animal products if I was stranded on a deserted island and my life depended on it. Or... when I was homeless and struggling to get food and I didn't have access to a kitchen and had very little money... Sometimes the meals at the homeless shelter had no vegan alternative and I'd just quietly accept eating potatoes with nothing... I didn't dare complain. I'm not entitled like that.
It's just, I would never hold anyone else to those standards, and I don't! Most of my friends can't be vegan due to combinations of food intolerances, poverty, eating disorders, disabilities, etc. And I don't look down on them for it. I know it's not possible for everyone. And I wouldn't expect anyone but me to forgoe proper meals when they're already struggling to feed themselves, while homeless and suffering from eating disorders...
You're doing great. I know you are acting out of love! You have always done what you believed to be right. You don't want animals to suffer needlessly and you are doing what you can. But it should be possible for you to address how assholes who happened to be vegan, hurt you. Like you said, those assholes don't represent veganism. In my mind, the vegans I think of first, are like you: Caring, compassionate, and honest. You don't abuse humans, whether through rhetorical trickery, let alone flat out emotional abuse. You don't weaponise anyone's triggers against them. You act as a beacon, like a lighthouse, by living your values and by supporting others to be themselves and to make choices for themselves - by letting them know that there are choices where they thought there was only one option.
I am so tired. I feel like I'm in a constant catch-22! A trap that has no "right" response! If I complain about things, I'm the unreasonable, unpleasant vegan, the killjoy. If I'm pleasant and patient, and avoid making a scene, others think veganism isn't really important to me and assume I LIKE making mistakes where I accidentally eat something non-vegan. I HATE THAT *sobs*
*holds you*
I have learned a lot, you know. I know that there are reasons why some people can't be vegan and I wouldn't want to use negative emotions, guilt and shame and stuff, to convince people. Or proselytise to indigenous peoples and formerly colonised peoples and such, I've learned more about anti-racism since those days. But even apart from that, shame... That's what worked on me, I guess, but I'm not using it. I don't want people to choose veganism out of shame. I don't think that's a good motivation, it doesn't work long-term and it's inherently unhealthy. It's not a good strategy - for any political movement!
For me, it's about compassion.
I know. But that crowd, your brother and his friends, they weren't compassionate to you (or in general). They did use guilt and shame on you and you still carry wounds from that.
I don't know, maybe? I mean that thing with the CSA metaphor was gross. I am mostly ashamed on behalf of my fellow vegans that any of them would stoop so low. I am so ashamed.
... to be a vegan?
No! I don't know! Maybe? I don't know! All I know is that that fuckhead caused so much shame in me! *sobs*
*holds you*
That's not what you first thought veganism would be all about, was it? Do you remember when your brother first told you about it?
Yes! I was excited! Or, to be quite honest, when I first heard about it, before I knew anything, I thought vegans were stupid and that it was overly exaggerated. But he told me there was a principle in Buddhism about not causing suffering. And he'd been to a Buddhist temple in Berlin, the big city, I'd never been in Berlin. Or knew any Buddhists. And I was interested in the big wide world, I wanted to be open to new ideas from all over the place!
Did he give you a Buddhist text to read?
No, actually. What I ended up reading was written by... another asshole. I think he was a Jewish author, though it wasn't religious. It was by Peter Singer, I think was his name. I mostly remember horrifying scenes, described in bloody detail, of animal cruelty. Scene after scene of it, and numbers. It was really overwhelming.
My guess is, it was DESIGNED intentionally to be overwhelming.
Maybe? I mean, he had good reasons. It really is horrible what they do to animals. And so many!
But no, you have a point. That level of overwhelm wasn't done by accident. I wouldn't do that to anyone. Plus - the other stuff in the book. Even at the time, I was 16, I already could tell there were things in there that weren't right. I told myself he didn't mean it. That they were intentionally shocking thought experiments to make a point. And there were things I put to the side, things I ignored, things I looked past. So in essence, I was putting together my own arguments from what he wrote.
So you disagreed with the author on some points he made. But you took all the facts at face value?
Yes. I didn't know things in books could be wrong - after all, they go through an editing and fact-checking process to get published. Like school books. I did not question the facts he listed. I also did not check any of the sources. I'm bad at that in general. Even now - I can't fact check. My brain doesn't do it. That's the trauma though.
Yeah, school did not prepare you to question books, even though they SAID they were teaching you critical thinking skills. They didn't teach you enough, I'm afraid to say. How do you feel now?
I don't know... relieved, I guess. A bit more relaxed. Ooof.... wow yeah, I did NOT realise until you asked about it, how much this emotional manipulation was still weighing me down! Huh...
Thank you so much, you were really brave today. I want you to know that your conscience is yours and you get to make your own choices, based on compassion, love and facts. Free from emotional manipulation, intentional overwhelm with traumatic material, and abusers who deliberately trigger your CSA pain points. You can be trusted to make the right choices without this bullshit manipulation that's trying to force you into just one direction!
Well, that's the thing though! I was ALREADY gonna chose veganism!!! I did not NEED to be triggered and emotionally abused "into it". I guess I may have been freegan, eating free/dumpstered non-vegan stuff. Tbh, maybe that would have made my life easier when I was homeless. Being homeless sucked so bad. UGH!!