Like Vermozza, I loved animals and didn't crave meat.

But once my bipolar shifted, and I became more depressive and my hypomania became dysphoric and the euphoric hypomanic episodes were replaced with horrible mixed episodes, I just stopped giving a sh**. Seroquel made me crave food I had not eaten in years. But even once I stopped seroquel I found it difficult to return to veganism, and I have made hundreds of attempts over the years. It just won't stick anymore. I still hate that we kill and cause animals to suffer for food, but there's this exhaustion I still feel, this small bit of deadness in my heart, that just can't muster the will to go and stay vegan again...this is just me, and I'm not explaining it very well; sorry.

I think today, if someone with mental illness wished to go whole foods plant-based for their health, or vegan for the animals...maybe there is more sane and rational support nowadays. Or maybe the millions of opinions on the internet make it harder. I don't know. I think going vegan in my day, (pre-internet) it was easier, maybe it was harder. I really couldn't say.

I remember Bill Clinton eliminated animal products for his heart condition and it helped, but I think he's loosened up a bit to a more Dean Ornish sort of thing, and includes fish in his diet. Dean Ornish was originally preaching no animal products and no fat at all - this was back in the early 90s.

I'm very sorry that my original post was discouraging. I just wanted to say for everyone it's not so easy. But having bipolar disorder is not necessarily going to make a dietary change problematic for everyone that is afflicted