It really depends on the principle.

And I love the word "principles" as I live by my principles.

Where it comes to eating meat (eating dead animals) then it is up to my family and friends to respect my principles because I will starve to death before I will eat of their animal meat as food.

But if it is a principle as like I do not use animal skin products in my house, but I still have to sit down on my sister's huge leather furniture, as that principle bends for them but not for myself.

Yes, deep down I know you are right, I think I've known all along, even before I knew the facts I think I still 'knew' ......in my marrow...that there is no space for me in this world, there's nothing to eat, everything is contaminated, everything is harmful. I'll spare you the details.

But my family care so much about me......and my friends.....they have supported me through everything, but they don't want to see me get sick and die. And I don't want to leave them.

There is not a lot of space for you or for me in this world, but I find that it is the space at the top which is so small, while being at the bottom is broad and wide, and so the small space is really better then the wide space.

What works for me is that I studied up about God because everything here is God's fault, and as it turned out that I found that the real God is a whole lot better than what most people believe.

In the Bible it says that God first made mankind as vegetarians, but later after mankind sinned then God made it okay for mankind to eat meats, because we are sinners then we can eat meat, and it is only that I want to stop being the sinner and therefore I stopped eating the animals.

Both the Buddhist and the Hindu have doctrines about being a vegetarian, so I like them too.

I find that it is okay that some things are harmful to me and some things are contaminated, because eventually then I am going to die anyway.

My principle is that I do not want to hurt the animals, but if some thing hurts me myself then that is okay, because I do want to make this world into a better place, but I am NOT just trying to protect myself.

I see this as the best place to compromise = If it hurts you then so be it, but you do not want to hurt others.

I'm sorry, I think you misunderstand, I know that everything here causes me harm, I don't mind so much about that, what bothers me is that it harms the animals, but I now think that this is something that I'm going to have to go through alone.
Thank you for your input
TheUnnamable

why do you not like the word principle?

this is very cryptic. i hope you're not planning to harm yourself in any way.

i would and do put my principles and beliefs before family and friends, and yes, i would die for my beliefs.

The Unnamable,

The cause of death for us, is life. From the minute we are born the clock starts to tick. So it isn't the food we eat, the air we breathe or environmental factors, per se. Even if all those things were in a perfect state, still, the human body would degenerate.

That being said, there is much living to be done in the in-between. If your family is worried that a vegetarian diet may harm you, well time is the best remedy for that. Take care of yourself the best you can, learn all you can about proper nutrition and thrive. When your family sees that you are not only doing well, but thriving, it will ease their minds.

I don't see where a choice has to be made between the principles of vegetarianism and loving your friends and families. We can love the people who disagree with us most. In doing so, we move to a higher state of consciousness. Every interpersonal struggle is at it's core, a gateway to higher consciousness.
A long time ago, I read something inspiring a Hindu Vedas that stayed with me always:

TO PERFECT ONE HUMAN RELATIONSHIP IS TO PRACTICE LOVING GOD.

If your friends and family disagree with your personal choices in life, that doesn't put you in the unfortunate position of choosing one over the other. Differences do not require you to stop loving someone. It requires that you be true to yourself, as you continue to love those who do not see as you see. Principles can become weapons if we close our selves off every time there is conflict. Live your life with purpose and a loving nature. It's your best message.

Thank you all for your replies, sorry I've only just got back to this.
It is kind of complicated...isn't everything...?
I can't remember why I didn't like to use the word principles, I think maybe because it doesn't completely fit, it is more than principles for me, it has become a deep kind of Need, an equilibrium for my existence.
I am still struggling with this, but I have taken life over death at the cost of my 'principles'
I think partly why I'm being so cryptic is that I find knowledge about certain things that aren't vegetarian or vegan which until now I've been eating very, very triggering, and I try to be careful not to let that give anyone else disturbance by speaking without censor.
Every time things get bad for me in life this question arises also, and I just can't find a solution.
Partly what makes it so hard is that I find I can no longer trust anyone. Here in the UK we have a vegetarian society, and a vegan society, they have a label which goes on to food to say if it's vegetarian or vegan, I don't trust them. I have reason not to trust them. But it goes further than that, it spreads to everything, all food, fruit and vegetables.
I know that it is worse when I'm feeling bad, which means that it is probably not completely rational, but the reaction is based on a truth.
It is life and death, which is why it really is one or the other.
But mojopaw, although not well I am 'safe' thank you...

I'm in Hell.

:-(

You all seem so comfortable in your own skins, and with food and eating, I hope you are, I don't like anyone suffering, I just don't understand how people, anyone, can be Ok.

I don't feel well.

comfortable in my own skin???

nah, not even slightly. i can't wait to retire this body.

what's life and death? this seems to me to be about a lot more than eating/ not eating meat. i think if you really want to find help or helpful suggestions you'll have to drop the ambiguousity and just speak from the heart.

Ok. I'll try to drop the ambiguity, I don't write posts very often at all, I find social interaction very very difficult and partly the ambiguity is about me shielding myself and partly it is me trying to shield anyone who might be reading this from the monster I see.

I just don't want to upset any one, but we all have a responsibility for what we choose to read and what I'm about to write comes with a warning that it may be deeply upsetting. For me it has threatened to push me over the edge several times.

My conversion to veganism came under a great cloud of distress when I found out about the millions of bull calves and cockerel chicks that are slaughtered a year as a by-product of the milk trade, most of them being piled on to land-fill sites because there are just so many. I found the idea of millions of animals being killed and then chucked into landfill deeply, deeply disturbing.

So, veganism I went.

Then I started wondering what farmers use to fertilize their soil with, or keep the pests down. I researched and found that sometimes (and there's no way of knowing) they use manure, but even worse it is a known practice for them to use meat, blood, bone etc. (slaughter-house by-products) to fertilize the soil.
Now I started feeling very sick.
I found out that it is mostly organic farmers that do this. So I steered clear of organic for a while, but then I started seeing that non-organic is perhaps equally or more harmful but in different ways, so now ALL food, fruit and vegetables included to me are contaminated, bad, harmful. I was swayed back to organic and have been buying some organic stuff for a while, it is HELL knowing what I now know, but I promised a dear friend that I wouldn't beat myself up any more, so I won't whip myself here, needless to say, it isn't sitting well with me.
In my mind now Everything is contaminated. Slavery, torment and slaughter in every field, in every aisle in the store. So much death, seeping through Everything.
I Just wanted to live in a way that I could be sure I wasn't contributing to the ill-treatment and slaughter of animals, and I think I've found that it is impossible. I think I've found that even vegetables aren't what I've even consider to be vegetarian.
There are a few stock-free farms in the U.S. As far as I can see there is 1 in the U.K and it's too far and doesn't deliver.
I e-mailed an organic vegetable company, they sent me this;

The Soil Association production standards relating to blood and bonemeal being used in organic farming are as follows:

4.8.11 Revised
With our approval, you may use the supplementary nutrients listed below to treat severe
deficiencies:

sulphur
the trace elements boron, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum, cobalt, selenium, zinc, sodium (in the form of granular rock salt)
basic slag
meat, blood, bone, hoof and horn meals, but only in propagating compost
wool shoddy, only when not in direct contact with the crop
fish meals and fish emulsions, provided they are free from substances we dont allow and only in protected cropping, propagating composts or for perennial crops
calcium chloride, only for bitter pit in apples
industrial lime from sugar production.

I've e-mailed back asking how often these methods might be required, whether it is regularly or almost never. Still waiting for a response.

It just all makes me feel so sick. Nothing is transparent and I feel there is potential cruelty, slaughter or detrimental environmental impact in everything. I so deeply don't want to be a part of any of this but I have grown close to my family and friends and I've allowed them to grow close to me.

I have managed to find some compost that I'm sure is vegan but I don't have even remotely the amount of space or expertise to grow all my own food.

Things have become very, very difficult, right now though I've been forced to slow down, and put this thing down for a little while because it was tearing me apart.

I wish someone would help, but maybe there isn't a way to help with this.

I have struggled with the exact same issue. The truth is, you have no way of knowing where anything came from or what it's doing to your body. Non-organics have their own set of evils, to the environment and to your body. This world is a conglomeration of people trying to scramble up every last cent they can and not giving a damn about the "faceless consumers",the planet, other animals, anything because well, "its not me, so who cares?". But then everybody is doing this and we are destroying ourselves and everything around us...and we thought we were so smart. And it all comes down to the fact that there are just way too many of us. And there rests the point that is ultimately discouraging, because how do you stop 7 billion people from continuing to overpopulate ourselves into extinction?
But if you really care about all these things and youre not alive, the probability of any of these things getting better drops by 1/7billionth. So just do the best you can, dont forget what you know, and try to help the world in any small way you can. I have really enjoyed environmental and animal volunteer work, and I would like to get involved with law making in the future. All of those things can be personally rewarding and can make a difference.
Live for what you believe in, live to make the world better, and most importantly, live because it's the only chance you have.

That's good advice RachelDani, thanks. I'm not sure it's something I can do, I have barriers stopping me doing the obvious things, people-phobia...and then I would struggle knowing if what I was doing to try to help was causing it's own set of problems/harm...
I could help the over-population problem by 1/7 billionth... it even occurred to me that I could take a few more out at the same time, but only fleetingly, because that kind of thing just isn't me.
I try to live only judging my own actions, no one else's. I'm not an activist. I don't try to change the way other people live, any more than showing them how I choose to live I mean. So this is why all the focus is on how *I* live. I guess that's partly why it feels so impossible and so disproportionate.
I'm really trying to think my way out of this problem.

I've actually placed other people ahead of Both my principlesAnd ahead my family before

All I know is "there are no mistakes; there is only learning"

Hoping you found some balance in this very hostile, and unbalanced world

Peace