Watch Out For That Trigger

Although I have been recovered from my eating disorder for quite a long time now, I am still very sensitive to weight and food topics and issues. I can be easily triggered, and then it takes a whole lot of work to talk myself out of my frantic thinking. And if someone makes a comment about my weight, well it's a tough thing for me to get over. I was working in a bar in PA. and somehow it came up that I was a vegan, and the customer I was talking to said"I'm surprised you're not thinner if you're a vegan" Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, he must have realized that he was a bit rude, so he was trying to backtrack and it was just making everything worse. I already hated this job sooooo much, and this comment happened early in the evening, which made for a really long night.  I remember several days later I was still upset, and the guy who said it had probably forgotten all about it. It's crazy how many people don't realize the power of words. As I continue to heal from all the years of disordered eating, I can't control people and what they say, but I can control what I listen to when I'm at home. That's the joy of living with cats, I can go all day with no words if I want, when I'm home. So, I realized yesterday that several YouTube channels that I used to enjoy are no longer serving me. I am an ethical vegan, and I call myself and my diet vegan, not plant based. I have never referred to myself as plant based ever. There are quite a few vegan or plant based YouTube channels that focus almost entirely on weight, maintaining the perfect healthy weight, and also eating the optimal plant based diet. Although my focus as a vegan is ethics, I also enjoy eating healthy, and as someone with no health insurance, it kind of benefits me to use plants as medicine. But, I also deprived myself of food, and other crazy antics over food for so many years, that it feels really good to eat normally, and have the occasional vegan splurge. I don't ever want to give up vegan chocolate. I want to be healthy, first and foremost. And, I have been working out really hard trying to lose the beer flub, or what I call my unhappy weight. It's been an ongoing struggle, and the weight isn't falling off the way I'd hoped. I'm working so hard to be loving towards myself, and appreciate the fact that it's even functioning after all I've put it through. So, I realized watching those types of videos are toxic to me. And, since they aren't even talking about animal rights or ethics, and they don't eat in a way that interests me, why am I still watching? It's silly, like in high school when you try to fit in with a certain group, and you try so hard, they never fully accept you, and then you realize you don't even like them that much anyway. But yet you still want to fit in. That's what happened to me. I tried to be cool, and I really just am not, and I'm okay with it. I want to eat delicious vegan food, and I want to nourish my body, but I also want a life with treats and splurges. It's such an amazing time to be vegan now, with new delicious foods coming out daily, and I want to try them all!