It may be incredibly challenging to manage health issues that need you to restrict your diet. It can be much worse if you believe a family member is attempting to make your health problem about them or is “competing” with your condition. Angry with her vegan sister for “taking the attention,” one lady with multiple sclerosis and dietary limitations wanted to know whether she was wrong for requesting her sister quit behaving as though being a vegan is a disability?
Source: Reddit
I (16F) and my sister (20F) haven’t gotten along since she started high school. When she started college, she decided that she would like to be vegan. I didn’t really care at the time because I thought that it wouldn’t affect me. Last summer I had been experiencing some balance/memory issues and had a continuous numbing feeling in my legs. Long story I had to be sent to the ER and was then diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis.
Due to this I had to limit processed food and food high in sugar out of my diet which is surprisingly a lot. Anyone who knows me knows I really love food, so I really struggled when I first started this change and still do from time to time.
My sister ALWAYS tells people she can’t eat certain food or can’t eat certain places because she’s a vegan. The only thing that bothers me with these statements is the word can’t because it’s her choice to be vegan and I don’t really have a choice due to my disability. I have told her multiple times that saying she can’t eat these food feels unfair to me because to stop eating foods I’ve loved a lot like bread and bacon wasn’t a choice.
She normally glares at me and tells me something about how if she ate meat now it would make her sick because she had been a vegetarian for a while before being a vegan. Today, she kept saying ‘I can’t eat this I can’t eat that’ at this point I was very annoyed because she was also starting to get rude with our grandparents, so I said “you choose not to eat meat. I’ve told you when you say you can’t eat certain food it offends me, stop acting like being vegan is a disability or serious allergy”.
After I said this, she was furious she started screaming about how she’s privileged she gets to eat like this and that she was sooo sorry that she actually has morals and due to her morals, she can’t eat animal products. I don’t feel like it was too much to ask for her to simply change her wording, but I may have done it the wrong way so, Am I A Jerk?
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