After over four years of waiting, I finally got hold of some eggs from Stepney Farm! I gave up eggs shortly after giving up dairy, because I love baby chicks and knowing that every time I ate an egg, a baby chick was going to be killed was enough to make me stop. Stepney Farm takes in rescue hens, and they have cockerels too. I've visited a few times, and they are open six days a week, so anyone can go and see how they treat their animals. I'm satisfied they are taking good care of their chickens, and they spread awareness about the cruelty that's still legal in the EU.

I was planning on using some of their eggs to make a vanilla cake, because, let's face it, vegan vanilla cakes suck. Instead I ended up having egg and chips for three days.

And I really wish I didn't.

Okay, so you know how I have a tendency to rant about the evils of milk? Well, that's probably not going to end, especially now I am at a higher risk of cancer than I thought, but I was so convinced before that all my mental health problems cleared up because I cut out dairy. I was so sure that -- as it was the animal product I consumed on a daily basis and in large amounts -- dairy was the culprit.

Two days after I had the eggs, I started getting irritable. My sister was nasty to me, and I was like Alice in the pool of tears. Even after I stopped feeling upset, I just spent the rest of the day and the day after crying, feeling so so sad, not even about what she said, but just this free-floating sadness. And I haven't felt that way since I switched to a plant-based diet. I was getting very tetchy, losing my temper with the kids really easily, getting shouty and annoyed at the slightest thing.

Later that week I got an anxiety attack, and even though I did have a really bad one 2 years ago, that one was a focused anxiety. This time, it was completely free-floating. I woke up with that anxiety pain and tachycardia, the inability to think properly, and the rest of the day I was bed-ridden, because I just felt so bad, I couldn't face anyone, I was almost back to being mute. But I had no idea what I was anxious about. I just spent the next four days in this state. I even got my hyperfocus and object-empathy back, which was nice for Cal, although it's gone again 🙁

There have been some very stressful things happening in my life lately, and I considered that maybe I'm just trying to block out the sadness and this was just my brain releasing it. I highly doubt it though, as two weeks from the first egg later, I was back to normal. I was planning on waiting a few months, then trying again, just to make sure, but that was before the crippling anxiety attack. I really don't want to risk going through that again.

So it seems I'm sensitive to eggs. Dairy could be problematic for my mental health, too, but since I don't fancy ingesting a mixture of cholesterol, pus and hormones, I'm not going to test it to know for sure. However, I have had two herbalists tell me I've probably still got some kind of allergy, because of my permanently congested nose and throat. Knowing my luck, it will be one of my favourites: potatoes, wheat/gluten, soya, chocolate or sweetcorn. Actually, knowing my luck, it'll be all of them. I'm starting to think I'll have to go on a food-free diet :S Don't worry, if I do decide to try an elimination diet, I will do it under professional supervision.

I've been considering gluten-free to see it it makes a difference, but bread. Gosto muito de pão 🙁 I've tried to switch to a different breakfast a few times, but always end up coming back to tea and toast (I also don't have difficulty eating early in the morning since I gave up animal products. Weird huh?). But gluten-free bread is ridiculously expensive, isn't always vegan-friendly, and also it looks so highly processed with all these weird ingredients, it's just so off-putting.

Anyway, for more information about how diet can affect mental health, and even cause or reverse diagnoses for mental illness, have a look at the following links:

• BRAIN ALLERGIES:How Sensitivities to Food and Other Substances Can Effect the Mind ^archive (this one in particular is very informative)
• 5 Foods That Negatively Affect Your Child’s Mood ^archive
• Food Intolerance Network Factsheet ^archive