I don't know what to do about this.

I've been battling some conflict recently about whether or not I want to be vegan. My parents used to tell me that when I was younger I hated meat, and I would continuously refuse to eat it until they got me to approving of doing so. Now about 2 weeks ago my mother took me and my brother with her to get chicken and we didn't go to the store but this outdoor "shop" with all the live chickens and the preparation tools and machines. The woman who ran this thing was holding a chicken by it's legs while it "cried" and struggled as she spoke to my mother; it was the one my mom was buying. When she put that one in one of the machines head first and went to get another one all the chickens backed away and were visibly distressed and the entire time I was there I just felt so weird, like it sounds so silly but I guess this was the first time my brain really understood that I've been eating a dead animal all this time? It's legs, arms, feet....and mind you there's people who eat an animals tongue, legs, stomach, neck, and a bunch of other shit.

Later that night we had the chicken for dinner. I tried to eat it but felt so out of my own body and didn't finish, and ended up having a horrible night of stomach aches, slight hallucinations, and even throwing up. I was on my period too but the excruciating time I was having that night could NOT have been related to that.

Now it's a new day and we have a chicken at the house—an alive one that my grandmother wants to kill and have me take the feathers off. This chicken walking around the land is so beautiful, and it's bringing back the sick feeling I had because I don't know how I'm expected to look at this living creature now and then look at it again when it's dismembered and spices next to some food. It's so fucking ridiculous because I've been eating meat all this time but I just wasn't thinking too about how people grab an animal, skin it, chop it up, pack it and then have it served on plates in dozens of different shit. This chicken is literally shaking and looking up at the walls as if it knows what's about to happen, and I feel so alienated because I'm the only person here who's having conflict about this. Even my own mother is treating me like a baby and being so bitchy to me when I try and explain my feelings, and even went as far as to tell me "well in the Bible God lists animals that Christians are allowed to eat" as if she doesn't know I wholeheartedly don't place myself in that religion and reject it fully. I know a lot of people who practice spirituality who are vegan and say it's a must, and I'm honestly seeing the truth of it.

It's hard because I'm African(Zimbabwean to be exact) and being anything out of the norm is taboo. Dress the same, speak the same, laugh the same, eat the same......and then there's me, the homosexual, agnostic spiritualist with a billion different styles and an entirely different personality. I am constantly brushed aside and rejected because people love living in the past and seeing new things as weird or demonic, and so I don't think me thinking of being vegan is going to be any different.

Any advice??