I studied why vegans have higher rates of depression and discovered a hidden psychological pattern that's destroying careers and relationships for everyone

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."

And then this one, which made me set my phone down entirely: "I left my corporate job to become a 'conscious entrepreneur' and now I'm more trapped than ever. I can't pivot my failing business because everyone knows me as the guy who escaped the rat race. What happens to my identity if I go back?"

Something clicked. This wasn't about veganism at all.

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.

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.

Through my decade of work with The Vessel—the platform I co-founded to help people develop authentic self-knowledge—I'd seen glimpses of this pattern. But it took those Instagram messages to show me how universal it really is. We've become a society of ideological orphans, desperately adopting belief systems as surrogate families, then defending them with the fierce loyalty of abandoned children.

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.

I think about my friend Sarah, a brilliant lawyer who became vegan after watching a documentary about factory farming. Within six months, she wasn't just someone who ate plants—she *was* vegan. When she started experiencing digestive issues and brain fog, she couldn't bring herself to try eliminating certain foods because that felt like betraying not just animals, but herself. "If I'm not vegan," she asked me, "then who am I?"

That question haunts me because I've asked variations of it myself. When I left my corporate career to build conscious businesses, I thought I was choosing freedom. But I'd just traded one identity prison for another. I became so invested in being "the guy who escaped the system" that I couldn't honestly assess when my new ventures weren't working. Admitting failure felt like admitting I was a fraud.

This is what psychologists call "identity fusion"—when the boundary between self and group dissolves, when challenging the belief feels like threatening the self. It creates a kind of anxious attachment where any flexibility feels like existential danger. You can't be wrong about anything significant because being wrong means you might not be who you think you are.

I started noticing this everywhere in my work. The meditation teacher who couldn't admit she was depressed because spiritual people are supposed to be at peace. The zero-waste advocate who hoarded glass jars in secret shame. The productivity guru whose life was chaos but couldn't say so without destroying his brand—and his sense of self.

When I met Brazilian shaman Rudá Iandê in 2014, he helped me understand something crucial: most suffering comes not from our circumstances, but from our rigid identification with temporary states. We think we need to be consistent, to have a solid sense of self. But what if that very solidity is what's strangling us?

Working with Rudá to help him launch programs like "Out of the Box" showed me that the people who suffer most are often the ones with the strongest moral convictions. They care so much about doing right that they lose touch with what actually serves their wellbeing. They become more committed to the purity of their positions than to the effectiveness of their choices.

This pattern isn't just creating individual misery—it's fracturing our collective ability to solve problems. 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.

Someone with fluid integrity might remain deeply committed to reducing animal suffering while being honest about personal health struggles. They might care passionately about environmental protection while being willing to question which specific approaches work best. They hold their convictions as tools for engaging with reality, not as monuments to their moral worth.

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.

I think about Marcus, a guy who reached out after reading my veganism piece. He'd been plant-based for five years and loved it—until he developed severe anemia that wasn't responding to supplementation. Instead of quietly adding animal products and suffering in shame, he posted honestly in his vegan community about needing to temporarily include some fish for his health. "I'm still committed to minimizing animal suffering," he wrote, "and right now that includes not sacrificing my own wellbeing."

Half the group attacked him. But the other half thanked him for his honesty, and several admitted they'd been struggling with similar issues in silence. That's what fluid integrity looks like: the courage to prioritize truth over tribal belonging.

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 irony is that people with fluid integrity often become more principled, not less. When your principles serve your growth rather than constraining it, they become more powerful tools for engagement. When you're not defending your beliefs, you can actually live them.

I watch this transformation in people who go through our programs at The Vessel. They don't become less passionate or committed. They become more creative, more resilient, more effective. They stop fighting against reality and start dancing with it.

Looking back at those Instagram messages, I realize they were all variations of the same cry: "I thought this identity would save me, but it's suffocating me instead." Veganism, fitness culture, political movements, spiritual practices, career paths—we've turned them all into identity prisons because we're terrified of the space between who we were and who we're becoming.

But that space isn't empty. It's where growth happens. It's where real choice lives. It's where you remember that you are not your beliefs—you are the awareness that chooses them, questions them, and when necessary, transcends them.

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.

The next time you feel that familiar anxiety about whether you're being consistent enough, pure enough, committed enough to whatever identity you've adopted, try asking a different question: "What would serve my growth right now?" The answer might surprise you. And that surprise might be exactly what you need.

Check out my Instagram reel below for some reflections on writing this article.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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