Hello, and welcome back to Eight Years In. And if you’re new, welcome to you. Today we’re talking about vegan burnout. It’s a really important subject to me because I’ve seen it happen to many, and I’ve felt it in myself as well.
I’ve skirted around this subject in my post about how to be a long term vegan, which you can read here, if you’re interested. (Which I do recommend. That post has some good suggestions for how to keep this vegan thing sustainable for you in your real life.) But I never really talked about burnout before.
Like I’ve said before, in my years as a vegan, I’ve seen people come and go. And they all have their own reasons for doing so. I don’t imagine it’s fair to try to pick apart each individual and analyze the “real” explanation behind their actions. But I can say this much: you can burn out on veganism, if you don’t go about it in a good way.
Now, the people who try to make veganism seem like a cure-all don’t want to tell you that because it can make veganism look less than 100% amazing. But having experienced and observed vegan burnout, I think that we do much more harm in not mentioning it. Because once I ran into it, I had to figure out how to deal with it all on my own, just as many people do. I think this “head in the sand because veganism is great” approach is very limiting in terms of retention of vegans and our understanding of what a working vegan philosophy really looks like.
So sit down with me, if you can. Just for a few minutes here. And let’s talk about it! If you’re feeling the burnout right now, these ideas might be able to help you. And if you never have, then they might be able to help you avoid it forever.
Why we get burnt out
So what is vegan burnout? I don’t know if there’s a better word for it, but that’s what I call it.
If you’re a vegan for environmental or ethical reasons, your veganism has a quality of awareness to it. And when I say awareness, I mean it in the sense of “this is what’s going on in the world around me”. You see the atrocities of animal agriculture or the tragedies of climate change (or both) and you realize that you want to do what you can to not contribute to those sorts of things. That’s really admirable of you.
The thing is, you’re human. And while that also means you’re prone to making mistakes (as I discuss in this post—there’s no perfect vegan), it also means that you are bound by your very specific human psychology as well. And if there’s one thing we know about human psychology, it is really hard to maintain that level of constant awareness of atrocities and tragedies without making use of some coping mechanisms.
You might think “oh, I went vegan. That’s my coping mechanism.” And it can be, for your guilt, definitely. You won’t have to use denial to keep your guilt at bay. But no matter how hard you try, for the time being, these issues are here to stay. You can’t fix them all on your own, even if you have superpowers.
This awareness of the problem mixed with the awareness that you cannot fix it is an issue for our psychology. Especially if you’re the kind of person who tends to throw their all into something.
Vegan burnout
When you start getting bogged down by this realization, the burnout sets in. For me, it started seemingly like any other bad mood or pessimistic day. And I think it is the same for many. That’s what makes it so dangerous. You don’t always realize what’s going wrong.
I started feeling like “what’s the point? I’m never going to save the world by doing this, so why try at all?” I started to be very annoyed with the fact that I was vegan. I wanted to just be normal like everyone else. Not check the ingredients of my meal before I ate it, not make sure my shampoo wasn’t tested on animals.
And why, I fumed, should I have to do this all the time? Why should it be an effort to not participate in the atrocity of factory farming, animal testing, etc? Like, why shouldn’t that be the normal and then extra work if you want to support that stuff if they’re so bad? I was tired. I was angry. And I considered not being vegan anymore. A lot.
Why I stayed vegan
The truth is, I think that my habits were my saving grace here. By that time, I had been vegan already for a couple years and it would have meant me breaking my habits to start nonveganism again. I would have to sit down to a processed version of animal products (which would seem weird because if it has to be so processed for me to be okay with it psychologically, should I be eating it?) or the whole chunk of them, (which would upset me because it’s so in your face, like wow I’m eating a part of a body or an egg or milk from a cow or something. I’d have to really face what I was doing). It would have taken a lot of emotional pain and guilt to be able to do that.
And the other side of it was a little piece of unrelated advice that a friend had given me a year or two before. He had said, “to the ones who are affected by what you do, it matters. Don’t ever think it doesn’t.” I held on tight to that advice. In my most hopeless, resentful dark places, of both veganism and otherwise, it stuck with me.
Maybe you’re the same. You have a good heart and you want to help change and save the whole world because you think that that’s what you’re here for. Well, you can’t change the whole world. But you can change your world.
I’ve written about the circle of influence before on this site, and I’ll do it again I’m sure, but all you can do in life is effect change where you can and be an example of the sort of world that you wish to live in. And when you get sucked into the idea that that’s not enough, that you have to save the world for it to mean anything, ground yourself.
It matters, what you do, the actions you take. To the ones who are affected, it matters. Remember this when you start to feel low and ineffectual. You’re changing your world with every action you take. It may not seem like enough. But it’s something, and it’s significant.
Coping skills
I don’t think those two things alone would have been enough to keep me from leaving veganism on their own. Instead, what they did was act as a foothold for me when I was falling. I clung to them while I tried to get my act together and figure out the problem.
I didn’t realize at the time that that’s what I was doing. Looking for better habits and ways of getting rid of this unhelpful pessimism. But I did know that I didn’t want to go back to participating in something that I didn’t ethically agree with. And I did find myself falling into certain patterns that have helped a lot with the vegan burnout.
So here are some strategies for combating and preventing vegan burnout. It may take you a little while to figure out in what circumstances you’ll want to use each one, but they have all been instrumental in my building of a psychologically sustainable vegan lifestyle.
Live healthfully
I do mention this in my post about being a long-term vegan as well, but please, as a vegan and as a person, prioritize your health.
If you’re not taking care of yourself, it’s really hard to have a good mindset. And this can bring you more quickly to pessimism about the state of the planet, which as we know can contribute to burnout directly.
Not to mention that if your health is failing, you and others around you may be prone to blaming veganism. When people get sick, they tend to look for what makes them different from other not-sick people, and if that’s the only thing you can think of, well, you might find yourself unnecessarily blaming your veganism and putting yourself in a position where you try to force yourself to choose veganism or the pursuit of non-illness.
So please, take care of yourself. Get enough sleep, stay hydrated and eat a balanced, healthy diet. Stay active and work on your mental health too! Meditate and go to therapy and do what you need to do to take care of yourself. Remember that you are also worthy of your love, care and compassion.
Have other interests
I think I will probably write a whole post about this topic in the future but I think it’s really important for vegans to have other interests as well as their veganism. When you first start off, it can be easy to become obsessed and forget the rest of the world a little bit.
I think for the most part, this is fine. You’re learning new ways of shopping and cooking and grooming. In some cases, you’ll need to find new activities to do, and you’re becoming aware of a very big issue in the world. In fact, I would be surprised if it didn’t dominate your thoughts for a little while.
But it’s important to note the “little while”, because this stage can’t last forever. If you stay vegan, sure, it’s always going to be a part of you. If you’re a foodie, you’re always going to be looking for new vegan foods because that’s the kind of food you eat now. And if you love beauty, you may constantly be looking at and for new vegan beauty products. That’s okay, but notice both of these examples have to do with interests that the person holds outside of veganism.
Your vegan lifestyle is going to intersect with most areas of your life, because unfortunately most aspects of life these days are intersected with the use of animals and their products. But it’s important to not let that morph into veganism being your only interest.
The vegan philosophy exists to prop up the value of life. The living of it, as well as the quality. And yes, while we’re talking about the animals or the environment when it comes to veganism, it strikes me as odd to be advocating for life on one hand and then squelching it on the other with the refusal of other aspects of living well.
Your life matters too!
While veganism is an incredibly important moral philosophy, life is not just about morals and ethics alone. It’s about living and experiencing and all of the things that make it worth living (not just the things that we’re fighting against). And if you’re thinking right now that with all of the climate change and horrors that animals go through, we don’t have time to “enjoy the pleasures of life”, you’re wrong. We don’t have time not to.
When veganism is all you think about, you get really bogged down in negative emotions because of all of the seriousness that comes with it. That can degrade your mental health in time. Don’t do that to yourself.
Also, when it comes to effective activism, it’s important for nonvegans to see that vegans also have interests and personalities. It helps them realize that if they went vegan they wouldn’t have to give up who they are, just what they’re participating in. And that is super important when it comes to making a final decision about whether or not they really believe they can go vegan. A lot of people (consciously or subconsciously) believe that they would have to give up who they are. And luckily, that’s not the case. So don’t make it the case for you! Like and enjoy things! Explore the world around you. Have adventures and hobbies and interests. Go ahead, you don’t have time not to.
Have a good support system
Another really important thing is to have a good support system in your life. This really isn’t a vegan thing specifically, but it is important to your all-around well-being.
It’s important to have people you can go to when you’re upset and working through heavy emotions. People who respect you and your lifestyle, as well as care about your well-being. For you, this may be a partner, family, friends, a really good therapist or all of the above. But don’t let yourself do your life all alone.
Seek community online
This suggestion piggybacks on the last one, but I wanted to make it separate because I’ve used online vegan communities in a very different way than my support systems. If you’re in a place where vegans are scarce, you’ll likely need to do the same.
I go to my support system for emotional support. For conversation, planning, social connections, heart to hearts and sometimes just simple time spent together laughing and doing activities or nothing at all.
Vegan online communities have been a place for me to explore my veganism. Try new ideas and foods and products. They’ve been a place for me to lurk around and at some points ask questions. But more than anything, they’ve been a place for me to go to to simply feel normal.
I know I’ve been slightly critical of vegan social media on this site before (you can find that post here, if you’re interested), and my criticisms still stand. There are definitely some terrible vegan groups and other great ones. There’s also a lot of variation of individuals in the groups too. Some of the people you may feel like “this is why everyone hates us vegans” or you may vehemently disagree with their points of view inside and outside of veganism.
That being said, when you go to a vegan group, you get a respite from that one thing that people always find noteworthy. You can find human connections without having to go “yes, I’m vegan though” whenever people bring something up that is relevant to your veganism.
Because as much as certain people may like to tell you otherwise, being vegan doesn’t make you weird. You’re still just a normal person. All you’ve done is made a decision about what you don’t want to support, and that’s good! In vegan groups, you get to exist as just another person, not “the vegan”. And the pressure of that taken off is very relaxing from time to time.
Do not keep watching slaughterhouse footage
This one is very specific but I feel very important to keeping away vegan burnout. Don’t keep watching footage of animal slaughter and abuse. I don’t even follow accounts that post this stuff anymore, it’s too much.
You may fall into this trap because some of these images and videos are what helped make you go vegan, or you believe that you should be “bearing witness” to what the animals go through. In my opinion, this attitude is unhelpful, especially if you’re not there with the victims physically.
If you are going to bear witness to the animals before they go into the slaughterhouse and give them water and try to calm them down and show them compassion before they are killed, I do think that may have some value in terms of lessening the suffering they have to endure. But continuing to watch footage of horrendous violence and abuse isn’t going to help anyone. You’ve already made your decision to go vegan and not participate in this system wherever possible and you’re not looking to change your own mind anymore. So that will not help you.
But also, there is something called empathy fatigue, that is very important to be aware of in veganism. When you continue to “bear witness” to this terrible stuff, your brain starts to break down. You start to get a trauma response out of yourself, even though you’re not the one who was the victim. Because this stuff is real, it’s abhorrent, and it’s scary!
So you either start freaking out or you start numbing out. If you don’t see the signs of fear and panic in yourself (racing heart, shaking hands, etc)–or even if you do– you might find that you’re becoming numb to this kind of thing. This sort of numbness translates into empathy fatigue and can leave you actually caring less about the pain and suffering of the animals (and humans too, actually) because you’ve diminished your ability to care! For those of you who are continually watching slaughterhouse footage to “hold yourself accountable”, please be aware that this practice can actually have the opposite effect, if it doesn’t ruin your mental health first!
Avoid the burnout
Ultimately, just like anything else, if you’re going to avoid burnout with veganism you need to learn how to build the habits that make you more resilient, and be okay with taking a rest from time to time when you need it.
The animals need you. The environment needs you. They need your voice and your continued action. Your efforts matter. But you need to take care of yourself in order to maintain those efforts, plain and simple.
If you’re looking for a place where you can be your vegan self, explore a vegan life and get emotional support on topics involving living an ethical life, consider subscribing to the blog. We talk about all that and more here, and you’ll get email updates when a new post goes live. Thank you for reading my thoughts. I hope they were able to help provide you with some comfort and perspective. And as usual, have a good day!