Hunting Is Killing Me

[SlickAsCanBe]

I'm having a really hard time dealing with hunting and hunters. I never knew anyone who hunted or been around it until a couple years ago. It was something I never really thought about but now that I've been exposed to it I'm a wreck. I keep my mouth shut but it's not doing me any good. I stay up half the night crying sometimes because a thought ran through my head. I saw a video of hunters shooting a deer then laughing and giving each other high fives. It literally made me sick! I couldn't breathe, got dizzy then got sick moments later. This happens when I see someone driving with a dead deer strapped to their vehicle too. I just don't understand how people can enjoy taking a life.

I don't know what to do. I don't know who to talk to or what to do about this. The anxiety is killing me and I feel angry almost all the time. I can't think of anything that can help me. I've got enough to worry about and I'm trying to tackle this first because it's causing the most problems. Any suggestions?

[Eseress]

Removing yourself from that situation would be the best thing you can do. Do you feel pressured into being around your hunter friends? Explain to them your anxiety problems! Don't let this continue. You shouldn't have to force yourself to be uncomfortable, and they should be levelheaded enough to understand.

[SlickAsCanBe]

Thanks for the advice. I don't, and won't, hang out with anyone who hunts but here's the really big problem. The area I live in is saturated with people who hunt. After having a hard time finding a job after the company I worked for made cuts, I moved and took a really good job with another company. They specialize in outdoor activities and me being a huge fan of camping, whitewater rafter, and canoeing thought it would be a great place to work. I really love my job and what I do and I work for the best person I can ever imagine. BUT, being that they specialize in the outdoors, I'm surrounded by hunters all day. I just can't seem to get away from it! I don't voice my opinions at work but people know I don't hunt. They keep telling me that killing makes you feel really good and I should try it (comments like this make me feel like they need help, not me). They will continue with all the details...

I never felt this way or thought about it until I moved here and started the job. I'm so afraid I'm going to hear somebody talk about something at work and I will get to the point I pass out or something. I don't know what is causing the dizziness, nausea, and difficult time breathing when I hear hunters talk about what they do. To make it worse, I don't have any friends where I live that I can talk to and get things off my chest. I do have a boyfriend and although he doesn't hunt, he comes from a family of hunters which I avoid. He couldn't give a damn about animals and when I've tried to talk to him he tells me to mind my own business and tells me I'm a tree hugging hippy. I can't win.

I appreciate any and all advice someone can give me! I'm pretty desperate.

[GenSec]

Hi,

I live in Britain, which compared to the USA has severely restricted gun laws. However, i can appreciate your situation: my father owned a gun license, and he was also a hunter.

He used to hunt rabbits, deer etc. Anything that moved in the wild really. He'd take them home and gut them at our house. As i was his son he'd try and encourage me to help him out. It was utterly revolting yet he seemed to find it satisfying. I can associate with your revulsion at these men who take enjoyment from killing animals.

He took me out a few times to test me with pellet rifles, hoping i would one day pick up his hobby of hunting. I detested it from the beginning, but luckily my mum also disliked hunting. He was disappointed at my lack of interest and often mocked me as being weak. He was forced to give up his shotguns when one day he almost shot his own father by accident in the house when cleaning one of them. He forgot to unload the thing!

My advice to you would be to stand up for your beliefs. You don't need excuses: just don't compromise your ethics, that shooting innocent animals is wrong. Like you, i cannot understand men why certain characters of men gain pleasure from shooting an animal that cannot fight back. You cannot change these people, but what you do have is the right and ability to control your own life and what you do with it. Do you really care if these people regard you as odd because you don't agree with hunting? I personally wouldn't care very much what these people think. Don't allow anyone to compromise your personal ethics, compromise your personal happiness! If they are entitled to their opinions, so are you. I felt very pressuried by my own father into accepting hunting, into participating. I refused and although at times i felt small from his mocking of me, now i look back i am proud of my standing up for my own personal ethics in the face of peer pressure.

Best wishes,
Gen.

[budjaytx]

Hi Slick, I feel somewhat obligated to answer your post.  Questions like how can they do that? seldom seem to offer much relief.  There just are people like that. Normal people.  I grew up fishing in then in another environment had the opportunity to hunt.  I never considered it a great joy but the food supplemented our meager income.  In the range of common human behaviors many are abhorrent. Pick your battles in life and choose the ones you can make a difference with.  If this is a huge issue with you there are areas where hunting is hardly practiced; big cities, some islands (though fishing is indeed cruel too).  I think most of us are desensitized to the things we find worthy of loathe and disgust.  We have to be; we live without thinking with all manner of social injustice, uncertainty, pollution, crime (and the bizarre way society deals with it).  I wish you luck.  Perhaps avoidance is the best policy here.  Good luck to you.

[hydraulicwave]

Are you a vegetarian?

[Squeemy]

Although I am not opposed to people killing for food (as long as the animal doesn't suffer) I do also get anxiety from people hunting for fun or demonstrating the type of disrespectful behaviours you have described.   It should never be fun to end the life of a living creature but unfortunately some people do get some joy out of it.

If you feel so strongly about animal rights why not use your energy to help stop game hunting etc?

As for the calling you a tree hugging hippy. That's no insult  Be proud that you have been recognised as a lover of nature & haven't lowered yourself to fit in with something you dont support. i feel that you are very strong internally, it just must feel like a lost cause when your the minority 

i hope you can find a way to get away from this situation.

[howahkan]

Well, hunting is a part of life for my family. I'm half native american and hunting is a large part of our culture and it was a way of life for every single person on the planet before we started domesticating animals and keeping them on farms. Hundreds of years ago, we didn't eat unless we went out and hunted it. The reason people get enjoyment out of hunting is because it is a very old right of passage that is ingrained into us from thousands of years of depending on hunting. Even when you go to the grocery store and buy meat or something with meat in it, that meat was hunted as well, just in a different way. Think of it like the circle of life. Animals and humans alike hunt and eat and it's been that way since the big bang.  I hope this somewhat helped.. Also, don't look up hunting videos if it bothers you so.

[howahkan]

Thanks for the advice. I don't, and won't, hang out with anyone who hunts but here's the really big problem. The area I live in is saturated with people who hunt. After having a hard time finding a job after the company I worked for made cuts, I moved and took a really good job with another company. They specialize in outdoor activities and me being a huge fan of camping, whitewater rafter, and canoeing thought it would be a great place to work. I really love my job and what I do and I work for the best person I can ever imagine. BUT, being that they specialize in the outdoors, I'm surrounded by hunters all day. I just can't seem to get away from it! I don't voice my opinions at work but people know I don't hunt. They keep telling me that killing makes you feel really good and I should try it (comments like this make me feel like they need help, not me). They will continue with all the details...

I never felt this way or thought about it until I moved here and started the job. I'm so afraid I'm going to hear somebody talk about something at work and I will get to the point I pass out or something. I don't know what is causing the dizziness, nausea, and difficult time breathing when I hear hunters talk about what they do. To make it worse, I don't have any friends where I live that I can talk to and get things off my chest. I do have a boyfriend and although he doesn't hunt, he comes from a family of hunters which I avoid. He couldn't give a damn about animals and when I've tried to talk to him he tells me to mind my own business and tells me I'm a tree hugging hippy. I can't win.

I appreciate any and all advice someone can give me! I'm pretty desperate.

I think that you are seeing hunting as something that is negative and crazy. It is not that way. Of course when somebody tells you, "Killing is fun." That guy is crazy. But you need to remember, animals get eaten and killed by other animals. Would it bother you as much to watch a lion stalking and killing a deer? Animals enjoy hunting just as humans enjoy hunting. It is the same thing. We kill animals to eat, animals kill animals to eat. It is the circle of life.

[hydraulicwave]

There is certain element of excitement involved in hunting. That is a fact. An example of this would be when a gun dog knows it's going hunting... they become very excited, and when hunting, they are evidently enjoying the thrill of the chase. This is true in any predator, and we humans are super predators.
Let me make clear though, that killing an animal for fun is without doubt wrong.

[Suzanne]

I feel for you, I too hate hunting with a passion and thankfully, my husband feels the same way.

Unfortunately the only option open to you is to quit your job.  It is going to be no good to voice how you feel, because if this evil thing is permitted, then your voice is not going to do a thing to stop what is happening! The fact that it is also making you angry means you need to get out of that environment otherwise, your anger is going to damage your body, as mine is damaged!  I have deep rooted anger issues and now suffer internally from never resolving the problem that caused the anger!

I live in France and hunting is legel here too, so when I go out, I have to look the other way, because of those dreadful killing machines and often say that what if the person is having an off day, or is prejudiced; so easy to turn that gun on the person!

We have chickens etc and I was often the butt of the joke with our French neighbours because I refuse to treat our animals as food!  I cannot even go to the market to by chickens because it breaks my heart to see how they are treated!

Umm as for this boyfriend of yours?  Does not seem to be the kind of chap for you sweetie.  One who calls you a wimp for this, is a chap who would not think twice about hurting another human being; I might get raised eye brows for that.  But if a man or woman gets a deep satisfaction in killing another life - then excuse me, but what does that say about them eh?

You honestly need to get out of that situation. It is not your dream job if it is causing all this emotional pain!

[skleep]

I used to get this way about slaughterhouses (and to this day, I don't eat red meat for that reason!) But then you have to think about the vast majority of injustices going on in the world and how they actually target human beings.  This isn't normally a comforting thought, but realize that in the grand scheme of things, hunting is relatively low on the injustice scale, at least compared to genocide and rape.  Not that you should be thinking about those things either, but just realize there will always be terrible people, and hunters are not as terrible as many other people out there.