The mental health crisis among vegans isn't about B12 deficiencies or social pressure. It's about what happens when any beautiful choice becomes a psychological prison. Beneath it lies a fundamental confusion about the nature of identity in the modern world. the hidden epidemic of our time: a generation of people who've confused temporary alignments with permanent essence, mistaking belief systems for identity itself. And it's quietly destroying us. And once you see this pattern, you can't unsee it everywhere.
JUSTIN BROWN: I was sitting with my morning coffee in Singapore, scrolling through Instagram DMs, when something stopped me cold. A few days earlier, I’d published an article about the research showing vegans have significantly higher rates of depression and anxiety. I expected pushback from the vegan community. What I didn’t expect was this.
“I’m not even vegan,” read one message, “but your article made me realize why I’ve been so miserable since starting CrossFit. I can’t admit to my gym friends that I’m burned out because being ‘the fitness guy’ is all I have left.”
Another: “I’ve been calling myself a minimalist for three years, but I’m secretly drowning in anxiety about whether I own too much. I can’t buy anything without feeling like I’m betraying who I am”…
The messages kept coming—dozens of them—from people who’d never touched a plant-based diet but recognized something in my follow-up piece about the psychological cost of living by strict ethical codes. Christians questioning their faith but terrified to lose their community. Democrats who disagreed with party positions but couldn’t voice dissent. Parents suffocating under the weight of attachment parenting philosophies they’d adopted as gospel…. Something clicked. This wasn’t about veganism at all…
I realized I was looking at the hidden epidemic of our time: a generation of people who’ve confused temporary alignments with permanent essence, mistaking belief systems for identity itself. And it’s quietly destroying us…
The mental health crisis among vegans isn’t about B12 deficiencies or social pressure. It’s about what happens when any beautiful choice becomes a psychological prison. And once you see this pattern, you can’t unsee it everywhere.
We’re living through the collapse of traditional meaning-making structures—religion, extended family, stable communities, geographical rootedness. But instead of grieving this loss and building something new, we’ve been frantically grabbing onto ideologies like life rafts, then clinging to them so tightly we forget we know how to swim…
When your identity depends on being “the environmentalist” or “the conservative” or “the progressive,” you become psychologically invested in being right rather than getting things right. You can’t adapt your strategies based on evidence because your strategies have become you.
Look at our political discourse. People can’t change their minds about anything significant without feeling like they’re committing intellectual suicide. Climate activists can’t acknowledge when certain approaches aren’t working. Business leaders can’t pivot failing strategies. Parents can’t adjust philosophies that aren’t serving their families. We’ve lost the capacity for independent thinking because we’ve confused intellectual positions with personal essence.
But there’s another way… I call it “fluid integrity”—the capacity to hold your values deeply enough that you’re not blown around by every cultural wind, yet lightly enough that you can evolve them without losing yourself. It means understanding that you are the space in which beliefs arise and pass away, not the beliefs themselves…
This isn’t about becoming wishy-washy or abandoning your principles. It’s about recognizing the difference between commitment and attachment. Commitment serves your values; attachment serves your ego’s need for certainty. Commitment adapts to circumstances; attachment defends against them…
The practice starts with a simple recognition: every identity you cling to is provisional. “I am vegan” becomes “I currently choose plant-based eating because it aligns with my values.” “I am an entrepreneur” becomes “I am currently building a business as one expression of my creativity.” “I am spiritual” becomes “I am currently exploring practices that deepen my sense of connection.”
This isn’t semantic game-playing. It’s psychological freedom. When you hold your identities lightly, you can respond to life as it unfolds rather than defending against it. You can be wrong without being worthless. You can change without losing yourself…
The mental health crisis among vegans is just the tip of the iceberg. Beneath it lies a fundamental confusion about the nature of identity in the modern world. We’ve been taught to build ourselves out of beliefs, positions, and practices. But we are the builders, not the buildings.
In a world that profits from our psychological rigidity, fluid integrity is a radical act. It’s the foundation of both personal freedom and collective wisdom. And it might just be the key to solving problems that rigid ideologies never could. SOURCE…
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