Cain, Abel, and Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day, 2023. I’m seated at a fusion eatery next to a historic theater, an iconic corner of my city. My half-empty table for two is outside. The chilly breeze kisses my skin and my hands ball into fists to try and stave off the cold. I’m clean-shaven. I’m wearing my favorite jacket. I feel dainty and handsome. I’m the only one sitting alone amidst a full restaurant of couples. Each little table has a slim vase of decorative Valentine’s Day flowers. No one knows why I look so content despite having no lover sitting across from me. I enjoy a hearty breakfast of eggs, cornbread, and spicy pulled pork. A journalist with camera and microphone suddenly walks right in and begins interviewing the couple next to me about their Valentine’s Day plans. I’m in the background of the camera view looking extremely single at the only table for two without the second person. I finish eating, pay, and skedaddle before I become the next meme. I make my way over to the specialty café and laugh with the baristas over my funny morning.

Valentine’s Day, 2020. I have no idea what time it is. Night shifts to dawn and sunlight gently breaks through the window. My belongings are locked away in a drawer somewhere in the facility. All I have on me are the clothes I’m wearing. The room is white. I’d been sleeping on two slabs of stone maybe three inches thick; the staff called them “mattresses.” Roughly twelve hours and some change ago, I’d been preparing to carry out the end. I had reached out to my older cousin before following through; she had watched my mental decline over the past couple months and begged me to let her help. I checked into a psychiatric ward. Now I was alone in a cold room. I felt safe. I felt rested. I get up, stretch, and happily do some pushups. I hadn’t exercised in years, yet I felt connected to my body for once and was having fun moving it around. I realize it was my first real sleep, the first time I slept knowing no one could hurt me, especially not him. The screams of terror echoing around the darkest depths of my soul were silent for once. I was 22.

What magic can happen in three years?

When I think back to the circumstances that led to that life-changing night’s rest, I think of the biblical story of Cain and Abel. I’ll do my best to tread carefully given that I’m no expert in religion nor did I grow up with faith, but I feel it’s a short enough story that even I can’t misconstrue its widely known themes of offering, betrayal, and punishment.

My mom’s a first-generation immigrant and a single parent of two sons a decade apart, myself being the younger one. While she worked in a hot kitchen to keep the lights on and put food on the table, the older one was left to babysit me from my toddler years up to my teenage years.

I’ll be using titles like “The Older One” throughout this, so bear with me. The obvious B-word is lost to time and misfortune.

In his view, I was a little brat keeping him away from an extravagant social life of mingling with peers his age, and his treatment towards me reflected such.

In my view, I was stuck with some wrathful psychopath for half the day until my mom could make it home, and my skittish, terrified behavior reflected such.

Every day started with the same objective: survive until mom gets home.

Here was the daily practice:

1. Get hit or screamed at over whatever reason you could have beef with a five year-old for.

2. Play video games to hide and dissociate.

3. Try to explain to mom what the older one did in sub-par and still developing Vietnamese. Be ignored because the older, native speaker steps in and rewrites the whole narrative.

4. Cry.

5. Repeat for however many years.

I lived in constant fear. I spent all day and everyday crying so much that I developed a stutter that sounded like a little boy choking on tears.

Memorable moments (greatest hits, even. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)

• Strangled me twice among other assaults.

• Hid around corners to jump-scare me. This made me scared to move from room to room.

• Threw away my mom’s groceries to force the family on an Atkins diet. I was forced to eat bell peppers and ground beef three times a day. When I asked my mom what was going on, she said “He’s lost his mind.” She was scared too. If I didn’t eat my veggies, he threatened to shove them down my throat. I believed him.

• “Next time you open the door to a stranger, I hope you fucking die.” I had opened the door to a salesman and woken the older one up for fear of him missing some abstract adult matter I had no conception of in my little mind. I just wanted to help.

Why was I living with a demon?

Well, that demon started as a person, and that person grew up in hard Vietnam with a strict mother. My family always told me tales of how heavy-handed she was with him compared to how she barely touched me when she got to the United States.

He was hurting too. He’d always been and still is.

He was a socially awkward loner by all accounts. He had trouble making friends. He was jealous that my mom pulled her hand back when raising me. He claims this was due to her fearing Child Protective Services in the United States. While this was true, I always felt there was a deeper reason. She was always so clearly scared of him. I knew part of her understood she had raised a monster and couldn’t do it a second time.

He had the chance to stop the cycle that so many survivors of abuse like myself dream of ending. Instead, he continued it.

I eventually outgrew the physical abuse but had little safeguards against the mental and emotional. I was constantly put down and made to feel less than. Honestly, and I hope this doesn’t come off flippant to those who also suffered physical abuse, but the mental and emotional were so much worse. I thought it was “over” because I was too big to hit. Little did I know, the abuse was just starting.

Being body shamed, being told I’m hopeless and worthless, being told I’m a waste of space. These all hurt so much more than being hit.

During this time, I thought to myself: Am I Cain, or am I Abel?

Was I Abel who’d been led out to a field only to have my head, hopes, and dreams bashed in with a rock?

Or was I Cain and silently awaiting the day I’d be the wielder of the rock, ready for God to smite me however deemed fit afterward?

Where was my place in the story? Was my story already over, or was it just beginning?

I stayed home for college to look after my mom in what felt like a hopeless household. I graduated in 2019 and a violent depression that had always been there took hold when I no longer had academic aspirations to distract from the deeply rooted pain in my soul. I rarely left my room. I had no funds. All I wanted to do was bash my head against a wall.

At this time, three events led to the biggest mental breakdown of my life.

1. My best friend of nine years ghosted me. To this day, I still have no idea why she suddenly chose to never speak to me again. One day we were closer than magnets, then the next day she decided I was a closed chapter in her life.

2. An older cousin (not the one I reached out to prior to Valentine’s Day of 2020, a different one) baited me out to lunch and ambushed me with a scolding about how my mom’s gonna die any day now and that I need to pick up the financial pace to take care of her. Said older cousin had recently lost her own mom and was grieving through berating me. I stood and cried for a whole hour in public, begging my older cousin to shut the fuck up and leave me alone.

3. The Older One filed my mom’s taxes and sent me an email blaming me for her lack of savings. The email, in so many words, laid out plans to eventually take over my mom’s bills and kick me out if I wasn’t contributing. He declared that he didn’t care about my depression (which he caused from years of abuse) nor did he care about my opinion of the email. He’d been living under the same roof despite being a decade older than me. I’d been helping out with groceries and the bills with my financial aid disbursement from college. I even took my family out to dinner whenever I could despite not wanting to breathe a lick of fresh air outside my room.

The first two events had already left me emotionally scarred. The third one set off my C-PTSD and I flew into a fearful panic of what might happen if I didn’t adhere to the email.

I immediately began starving myself for fear of eating up money. I started job hunting with intentions to pay my mom back for raising me before I kill myself.

I couldn’t stand to see my mom’s face while I fasted. She knew something was wrong. I decided I needed to die faster.

That’s when I reached out to my older cousin on February 13th, 2020 and was checked into a psychiatric ward a few hours later.

That’s when I had the first real sleep of my life.

From the moment I magically attained sentience as a child, I’d always lived in fear. I had no frame of reference for life beyond the The Older One because his abuse was all I’d ever known. My starting point had been fucked from the beginning. I had never been truly happy.

All it took was one night’s rest to see beyond the abuse.

Maxine woke up on Valentine’s Day, 2020. There wasn’t a better day to start loving myself. There wasn’t a better year to see things clearly. Get it? Sorry. Couldn’t resist.

She didn’t have a name just yet, but she could finally live, and Not-Maxine could finally dream.

I sleep easy now.

I blocked him on everything since. I ignore him when I see him.

I started trauma-focused therapy.

Months later, I stood my ground against him. I stood tall. I stood firm. I spoke with justice and conviction. I told him I went to college to support our mom since I had no faith in him being anything beyond the parasite he was. I told him his abuse was never justified. I told him his failure to address his own demons had manifested in being one towards me. I told him that the progress I’d been making in therapy was from talking about him. I told him that his email had made me suicidal.

His response?

“That was a risk I was willing to take.”

We haven’t spoken deeply since and we never will again. He routinely tries to rekindle things. He doesn’t understand that I’m done.

I was never Abel. I had never been killed. I was still there. Maxine was still there.

I wasn’t destined to be Cain. I always had the strength to be kind.

The story of Cain and Abel was never mine. I had my own story to tell this whole time.

I just needed a good night’s rest first.

Now, every Valentine’s Day, I celebrate another full year of love, whether it’s self-love or love towards another.

Maxine loves roses and sunflowers. They make her blush.

Stop right there!

Halt! Yield! Alternative phrasing for hold the fuck up!

In the name of scandal, I command you to settle down with your favorite gossip snack. Go get your preferred bite to eat or drink of choice to hear some SCALDING tea.

Back from the kitchen? Have a seat bestie.

Okay okay okay, so in previous posts I’ve given brief overviews of my past super-toxic relationship.

Long-distance gal who tracked my location and kept me on camera 24/7? Ring a bell? Yeah, that one.

Let’s call her Pink because that’s her favorite color.

So, prior to her, I had already been cheated on once, then I met Pink and knew I needed to tread carefully with my anxieties for fear of scaring her away. Turns out, she had the same anxieties. I thought to myself, I wanna take the healthy, productive initiative and sit down with this (seemingly) lovely person I enjoy spending all my time with to have a heart-to-heart about our relationship’s boundaries.

What is cheating? What is infidelity? What is a breach of trust?

I thought these were all tough, wonderful questions to ask, and yet, every time I brought it up, she pretended not to hear me for weeks.

I finally got her attention and we had the talk. The typical things for two monogamous people were laid out. Itemizing what felt like respectful no-brainers immediately felt a tad silly and tedious but lightheartedly cute in the spirit of understanding.

The first two rules felt obvious, but then she suddenly introduced a third rule.

1. No physical shenanigans with someone else. Duh.

2. No flirting with someone else. Other couples might think differently, but we weren’t other couples. Not our cup of tea.

3. If someone is flirting with you and you don’t stop it, you’re cheating.

Huh. Never thought of that before, but sure, why not. I knew Rules #1 and #2 would never come up on my end, but I hadn’t even considered #3 probably because the concept of someone flirting with me just flies right over my empty head.

So, how did I meet Pink?

I met Pink through an online gaming group in 2020. I’ll refer to it as the GTA Group since our game of choice was Grand Theft Auto V. The pandemic was just starting and all the gamers knew the drill: gaming computers run till the apocalypse happens.

Still with me? Pink? GTA Group? Cool.

Now, in the GTA Group was an unbelievably creepy dude. Let’s call him Cars because he was obsessed with them.

Throughout the months, the GTA Group of maybe 10 or so people logged on every day during the peak of the pandemic to have fun well into the night, the lot of us often gaming for 16 hours a day. We became decently close, but Cars became obsessively possessive over Pink.

Now, Cars loved to call every guy in the group a simp. Colloquially, a simp is someone who expresses way too much affection to someone who doesn’t reciprocate it.

Logged on at the same as Pink? Simp.

Played Grand Theft Auto V with Pink for more than an hour alone? Simp.

Helped Pink out against enemy players? Simp.

Had a normal, human conversation with Pink? Oh my god, siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimp.

Summer ends. Everyone goes back to school. Cars isn’t in school, so he continues to play video games for 16 hours a day while everyone else gets on with their lives.

Fall semester ends. Everyone comes back online. Cars is salty. Cars claims everyone only returned to play video games with Pink. Cars goes on to slander every guy in the group until most leave and a handful of emotional hostages remain.

Cars gets drunk one night and tells a story about sexually assaulting an inebriated woman.

Yikes, right?

I tell him that’s not right in any way, shape, or form. Cars starts calling me “The Enlightened One” after that and saying I’m virtue signaling to get Pink’s attention.

Regardless, Pink starts spending more time with me and we start dating in secret from the GTA Group.

Months go by. Cars starts catching on that we’re a couple, loses his mind, and begins doing anything he can to get between us, ranging from openly flirting with Pink in front of the whole group to trying to convince her to buy two-player games to play with him and him alone.

I remembered Rule #3 which Pink came up with herself. Now, I wasn’t bothered that someone was shooting their shot. Your partner is a lovely person and that’s why you started dating them. You saw what made them special and so will others. No biggie.

What bothered me was that this was in violation of what she herself defined as cheating. Cars was blatantly being as disrespectful towards our relationship as he could be, so why wasn’t she drawing a boundary?

Was she oblivious?

She couldn’t be, because she deemed all the women in my life to be homewreckers over the smallest of hellos, yet Cars was doing an absurd amount of flirting with zero pushback from Pink.

I pushed for Pink to come clean about us to Cars for over a year. She brushed me off every time.

I left the GTA Group because I refused to tiptoe around Cars just to interact with my own girlfriend. Whenever I’d bring him up, she’d roll her eyes and go, “Oh my god, I’m not talking about this again.”

Her aforementioned toxicity crept toward the surface. This reluctance to draw boundaries made me anxious about her interactions with flirty men and I became insecure. She preyed upon this insecurity and leveraged my anxieties to get what she wanted from me. I had to block close gal pals and exes just to make her happy. Meanwhile, she freely received validation from other men at my expense.

Time goes on. I had enough of the lies, gaslighting, and surveillance. I broke up with her after 15 months. We go our separate ways to heal.

Pink studies abroad for 2022’s summer. She messages me that she still loves me. She sends me crying selfies.

Come autumn, she blocks me on everything. I assume this is so she can move on.

Now buckle up, bestie. Here’s the tea.

Today, I reached out to an old friend from the GTA Group to say hello. I’d missed him lots. Let’s call him Rockstar because he is one.

Rockstar was overjoyed to hear from me and updated me about what happened after I left the GTA Group.

During 2022’s autumn, Pink returned to the GTA Group and began dating Cars.

Holy shit. The validation of 15 months’ worth of bad gut feelings.

Cars immediately hated putting up with exactly what I had to put up with. Pink had the ever-present red flags waved in her face when Cars’ possessiveness amplified with exclusivity. Pink and Cars have a falling out. Pink leaves the group. Cars forbids anyone from being her friend. The group gets sick of Cars and gets rid of him after three years of controlling nonsense.

I’m invited back to the GTA Group. I regained all my old friends that I gamed with for the entire summer of 2020.

Pink and Cars hate each other and are on their own, their daily doings a mystery to us all.

But wait!

Pink dating Cars lined up with blocking me. She never drew that boundary for me but did so for Cars after I broke up with her.

The AUDACITY, sis.

I blocked close friends, distant friends, barely friends; if you had the gall to be a present woman in my extremely taken vicinity, blocked.

But Pink? Childhood lover, fraternity boys, and Cars were all free to flirt away as long as she could use it to get something she wanted.

If only you could’ve seen the way I jumped up from my office chair yelling “I knew it! I fucking knew it!”

All the hunches. All the gut feelings. All the sentiments I voiced of “Hey, shouldn’t you NOT stay up playing video games till six in the morning with someone trying to break us up?” All the ties to the universe that I ignored for the sake of romantic companionship.

They were all right. I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t just being insecure.

I was so scared to voice my feelings for fear of the relationship ending, but in hindsight, what did I lose?

I learned so much from that awful relationship. I learned, most importantly, never to burn myself to keep someone else warm.

As I continue to unpack all the trauma I endured from the relationship, I learned something about myself when I dug deep and asked the hard, painful, uncomfortable questions.

Why are my partners always unfaithful in some way?

Why do I stay when it happens?

Why don’t I speak up for myself?

The answer was: a mindset of scarcity from a lack of self-esteem. I would think:

Well, relationships don’t happen often for you. If you draw your boundaries and this comes to an end, you might be alone for a long time because you’re not worthy of much affection.

By not loving myself, I would settle for being treated in the most awful ways.

Pink slapped me outta nowhere once. Full blast. It stung.

Pink would dream about sexually assaulting me at knifepoint. She thought it was funny.

Pink was horrendously disrespectful in intimacy. Sometimes my body still suddenly feels dirty and ruined.

I could’ve avoided it all had I just loved myself a little more and said enough is enough sooner.

But oh well. You live, you learn.

Since then, I’ve remained consistent at the gym and explored skincare and fashion as best I can. Dating has been whatever; I’ve tried the apps, but they’re just not for me. I’ve had some endearing times with sweet people but nothing major.

I’m taking it slow and being tender with myself as I reenter the dating scene and gradually open my heart back up to others.

I look forward to meeting my next lover with giddy excitement. I’m being patient and gentle with myself, of course, but I just know she’ll be amazing, and NOT because I’ll convince myself she is, but because I won’t settle for less than someone who holds me like I’m glass.

She’ll be sweet, kind, gentle, respectful, loving, and so much more because that’s what I bring to the table too, and I say that not with ego but with acceptance of the good in me.

Plus she’ll give me unlimited forehead kisses. Those are mandatory.

The magic bite.

I tried to hold the sandwich as gently as I could, but the slight pressure from even picking it up caused the egg yolks to pop and make a runny little mess over the bacon and tomato slices. I sunk my teeth into my breakfast and was met with a perfect ensemble of flavors. The savory bacon and eggs contrasted perfectly against the sweetness of the tomatoes. It was all held together by the texture of the bread and lettuce to create a perfect breakfast sandwich. I found myself smiling into everything and caught myself; I’d never enjoyed food like that before. It was amazing, but it wasn’t the best thing I’d ever tasted. I felt so happy in that moment and even cried on the drive home.

What was going on?

I’d been sitting at a farm-to-table café that serves fresh, in-season food from farmer’s markets on a cool autumn morning. At the time, I’d been reading Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch, two prominent figures in the field of nutrition, and gently perusing a subreddit on the topic to pull back the curtain on my longtime binge-eating disorder.

Here’s a rough timeline of my experiences with food and dieting:

Up to Age 22: I used food to cope with trauma and the stressors of life. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for one of my five daily meals to be well over 4,000 calories. I spent much of my life being heavyset. I ate when I was bored, sad, and enraged.
Age 22-23: My longtime depression started to manifest in different forms. I got tired of eating and nourishing myself to whatever extent that I did. I lost 25 lbs. from forgetting to eat. That year, my suicidal ideations took a turn for the worse and I tried to starve myself out because I believed that I was a waste of space and shouldn’t eat up any more of the resources around me. I started trauma-focused therapy soon after.
Age 23-25: I entered an abusive relationship that I tried to look good for. I fasted myself down another 30 lbs. I started weightlifting and developed another eating disorder of obsessively tracking every gram of carbs and protein to meet my strength goals. The stress-eating from the relationship paired with the all-consuming ambition of strength resulted in gaining those 30 lbs. back.

Once I ended the relationship and met my strength goals (1,000 lb. club, woot woot), I had time to stop seeing food as just an escape or a means to an end. I started learning about and bridging the gaps between intuitive eating, bodybuilding, and powerlifting. I learned that while it’s okay for me to want my body to look a certain way, it’s not okay for me to beat myself up for how it currently looks.

I started slowing down during meals instead of wolfing down whatever was on my plate to taste every flavor as fast as I could or to cope with whatever was bothering me. When it was time for my lunch break at work, I’d say to myself, “I’m going to have a good meal that makes me happy and makes me feel good.” Perfectly weighed packed lunches of plain chicken and rice turned into spicy tears from putting way too much wasabi on my sushi and happy food coma naps behind a closed office door from hearty pastrami sandwiches.

I started catching myself when I wasn’t being kind to my body.

Mid-bite, I started replacing old thoughts with new. It went from:

You will always be worthless and disgusting.
The only thing that’s gonna fix this mess is more food.
Redeem yourself by never eating again.

To:

Okay, looks like we’re binging a little bit. Let’s slow down. You don’t have to finish it. You can even throw it away. No one’s gonna hurt you for wasting food. Let’s grab a to-go box for now and talk about this later.
Hey, I know we’re at an outing, but if someone offers you food, you can politely accept or decline it. If they get upset, that’s their problem.
Your progress in strength training won’t magically disappear if this meal doesn’t perfectly have 50 grams of protein. Enjoy some pasta.

These thoughts of self-love culminated at the aforementioned café. I was finally getting the hang of eating not being catastrophically stressful. I could take my time. I could order whatever I wanted. I could walk away if I needed to.

It was never about the BLT. It was about me. That’s why I smiled into every bite. That’s why I cried on the way home.

Healing from binge-eating disorder is a lifelong commitment. Difficulties arise when it crosses paths with bodybuilding and powerlifting as the needs to weigh myself and track my calories present themselves for efficiency. No matter what, I make sure to be kind to myself in the process. So far, I’ve found a good compromise by loosely tracking my diet on days I have to train and not tracking anything at all on days off from the gym.

I turned 26 recently and enjoyed a Thai steak and eggs for breakfast, a chocolate chip cookie and a latte for a snack, a plate of buttery seared chicken and rice for dinner, and a huge root beer float for dessert (I replaced the vanilla scoops with cookies and cream, yum). I eat whatever feels right to nourish my body and lift the heaviest weights I can. I’m not as preoccupied with food as I used to be. I happily toss everything I’ve learned about dieting out the window when a good friend wants to get carne asada fries, as I should, and I also catch myself when I’m avoiding sleep through midnight snacking.

Amidst societal pressures, health crazes, and food trends, I think this basic bodily function provides some fun when its viewed as a chance for exploration and creativity rather than a shaming, controlling, and punishing daily stressor.

But of course, Maxine gets ice cream when Maxine wants. That never changes. The inner child is always healing, one scoop of cookies and cream at a time.

Healing of duality.

It was near the end of summer in 2022. I’d just finished up an early morning meeting away from my office and was heading back to it. At the time, I’d been practicing getting out of bed earlier and getting to work at better times. Late nights spent arguing with an abusive ex had left me in the practice of crawling out of bed on less than three hours of sleep and arriving to work twenty minutes late long after the breakup. I’d picked up a morning Starbucks route which helped a lot with having an immediate objective, but I’d overslept that morning and had just enough time to get to work un-caffeinated.

A specialty café was conveniently along the way back. That particular one had been the talk of the town for years and many spoke of it in absolute reverence of its quality. I decided it was time to see what all the hype was about and more importantly treat myself for the back-breaking labor I’d done that morning (I sat in a waiting room for maybe twenty minutes helping a client. Insufferably difficult stuff, trust me.)

I parked my car and took a step in. Instead of the corporate, copy-and-paste grey and green of Starbucks, I was greeted with a warm, cozy palette of white and brown. There was a calm line of people and the mature aroma of coffee. The checkout was a couple of feet away from where orders were taken. Suddenly it was my time to order and I just about froze. I felt out of place and had no idea where to start. The gentle barista asked if I needed a minute and after a moment of perusing the menu, I asked for an iced latte with almond milk. I returned to my office as a happy camper, sipping on my morning treat while I took care of some documentation.

I came back the next day and the day after that too. A passing purchase to-go turned into sitting down and enjoying my coffee there, and that turned into waking up at 5:30 AM to get there even earlier. What started as taking a moment to mentally prepare for work turned into a therapeutic hour and a half of doing whatever I wanted over a nice latte. Over time, I noticed some things:

1. I was no longer at the mercy of morning traffic and the rage it induces. I didn’t have to compromise between getting to work early enough to skip traffic but having nothing to do for a half hour and getting to work right on time after dealing with morning California road rage.

2. I had more time and energy for hobbies outside of the gym. It’s hard to read books and write poetry after two to three hours of face-bleeding powerlifting. All the fun things I wanted to do at the end of the day, I did in the morning.

3. I got better sleep at better times. To make sure I got enough quality sleep before 5:30 AM, I had to be in bed by at least 11:00 PM. This kept me from staying up late playing video games or snagging a 3:00 AM milkshake at the most dangerous Denny’s I could find (I used to thrill-seek.)

Most importantly, I was starting every day with pleasant vibes.

I’d arrive, set down my backpack, order a coffee, make conversation with the baristas, plug my laptop charger into an outlet, and start my day. I’d spend an hour and a half before work reading Phantom of the Opera, writing poetry, and watching Netflix. Weeks and months went by. I finished whole books and started a series of poems about eternal, everlasting love transcending lifetimes. Much of the staff became acquaintances. Acquaintances became friends.

Amidst all the new positives from this new morning practice, there was something intangible and immeasurable happening inside. I felt calmer and nicer overall. I got a lot stronger at the gym. I approached days off from work in the spirit of trying new things and exploring new places. I felt not only compelled but safe to be sweet and bubbly in the morning café visits which then extended to the gym, affording me even more friends as I started chatting up my fellow lifters between sets.

The calmness of the morning café was healing and nurturing an inner child, and the intensity of the evening gym was strengthening a maturing adult.

Ever since I was little, undertones of duality had always been present in my life. A certain something or someone was always in the background of my personality when it came time to express myself, always repressed in some fashion.

I’d use words like “amazing” and “outstanding” to describe something I thought was such only to be scolded and told that boys don’t talk that way, that I need to replace those descriptors with “cool” to maintain the stoic masculinity being demanded of the first grader I was. I wasn’t allowed to cry either which really sucked because I cried every day for years, to the point where I can’t remember what age the tears started or stopped.

At some point, maybe around my teenage years, I went cold. My face turned to stone and I spent years rigidly saying next to nothing, solely focused on finishing whatever task there was. I turned into the typical silent guy who cared little for himself but would happily tear the world apart for someone else.

The years went on and I was consistently let down and hurt by the men in my family in one way or another. The women of my life raised me and thus I longed to be more in tune with the feminine side of me, yet I had no means to.

Maxine had no mouth, but she needed to scream.

I hung out with the girls at school. It was hard to make guy friends. I couldn’t handle the way guys bonded through subtle jabs and harmless posturing; I was sensitive and cried easily. I didn’t have the tools to navigate growing masculinity. I was also scared they’d hurt me at some point if I wasn’t man enough.

I started lashing out in fifth grade. The parts of me that just wanted to be soft, gentle, and left alone were constantly picked at. I’d had enough and began letting others feel my pain. I started talking back to my family, even yelling and screaming at them. I started getting into fights at school. I spent much of my time in the principal’s office rather than learning anything in the classroom.

My first middle school fight in seventh grade resulted in a three-day suspension I struggled to academically recover from. The amount of makeup work across six classes compared to the single one in sixth grade was too much for little ole’ depressed and suicidal me. It got so bad that I was almost held back a grade and had to begin therapy.

I maintained therapy throughout seventh to twelfth grade, took a break in college, then began again in 2020 after a mental breakdown. The multiple therapists I had theorized that I had either bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder. Regardless, the focus was on the number two. I was one person one moment then another person the next. My temperaments ranged from uncontrollably expressive to toxically measured. I even thought I had dissociative identity disorder at some point.

There was someone inside me aching to be seen, heard, and validated.

As I’ve mentioned before, I began trauma-focused therapy in 2020. I unpacked much of the trauma I suffered at the hands of men and was given the most helpful and accurate diagnosis yet: complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD). Unlike PTSD most of us are aware of that centers on a singular time or event in life, C-PTSD results from ongoing trauma that lasts for months and years, often occurring during an inescapable childhood. It’s often misdiagnosed as borderline personality disorder due to its overlapping symptoms.

While diagnoses of bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder made me feel like I was born with something that was causing me endless strife with others, the diagnosis of C-PTSD made me feel valid in ways I didn’t think were possible. I had gone through a lot, so of course I was a little messed up. Who wouldn’t be? But, I wasn’t born with anything; things happened to me that others failed to take responsibility for and left me to pick up the pieces of a fragmented journey through life. The proper diagnosis allowed me to direct my attention toward ways to heal: writing, reading, lifting, singing, laughing, screaming, and drinking coffee.

I started healing someone, and I started calling her Maxine. It’d been her all this time.

With few guy friends in person, my main source of male companionship has been an online group of close gamers I’ve known for countless years. We’ve gamed, laughed, and cried together well into the late hours of the night. They’ve watched me grow from an angry, repressed little boy to a blossoming young man. They’ve been there for the birth and growth of Maxine.

One day, one of them said to me:

“Not-Maxine, you’re the most sane and insane person I’ve ever met. You’re a Dionysian man full of hate, love, and passion.”

For some reason, that stuck with me. I researched that concept some more and found an interesting paradigm of personality.

The Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus each have their respective archetypes of character, apparently.

The Apollonian lives a life of logic in the past and the future.

The Dionysian lives a life of theater in the present.

In all the childhood and teenage strife I’ve laid out, I’ve always been pressured to balance myself out. Yet, this endearing description from a friend resonated deeply with me. For once, it didn’t feel like there was anything wrong with me for constantly fluctuating and nurturing the sides of me that needed to both sing and scream.

I’ve found much balance in life by leaning to the extremes.

Cute little coffee in the morning. Face-bleeding powerlifting in the evening.

Bubbly smiley boy to new friends. Feral unhinged raccoon to lifetime companions.

Splash of color when I’m feeling cute. All black attire when I’m feeling serious.

As the meme goes, “I will no longer work on myself. I will now be unapologetically insane.”

I’m always working on myself, but you know what I mean.

I now navigate life without shame for who I am and who I’m not.

I make up for lost time by throwing myself into all the hobbies and experiences life has to offer, for all those years Maxine spent silenced and locked away.

Maxine will never shut the fuck up.

We’re happy.

Archetypes of lifting.

Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, defined archetypes as universal symbols and patterns present in the collective unconscious of humans.

In the few years I’ve spent lifting, researching fitness, counting calories, and healing from gym injuries, I’ve noticed that while my peers lift with all kinds of purposes, they have concrete distinctions and overlaps. The breathless minutes between sets of repetitions are often filled with deep conversations as muscles go cold and the reasons we first picked up the weights begin to flood the soul.

I watched a video essay titled The Archetypes of Fighting that explored the patterns of behavior across boxing, mixed martial arts, and more forms of combat. As a fan of both cage fighting and psychology, I ate this analysis up immediately. The parallels observed between Muhammad Ali in boxing and Khabib Nurmagomedov in mixed martial arts being packaged as the archetype of The Crusader that fights for a higher purpose was deeply fascinating to me.

Now, I’m just one person at a non-commercial gym in Northern California, so this doesn’t encapsulate the archetypes present across all of Olympic weightlifting, bodybuilding, powerlifting, strongman, or any sport related to picking heavy things up and putting them back down.

I’m just having fun with some observations I’ve made.

So! Without further ado, here are some archetypes of lifting:

The Wanderer.
With no singular driving reason, The Wanderer awkwardly joins a gym and begins picking up the weights simply because enough people told them that it’s a worthwhile endeavor and just “what healthy people do.” Perhaps small parts of them want to run a mile in under six minutes, look like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in a couple of years, or keep feeling attractive for their special someone. The Wanderer is neither strictly disciplined nor lacking conviction, they simply work out when they can. Their workouts are neither optimized nor misled; they know what they’re doing, but they have much to learn. Eventually, The Wanderer either cancels their gym membership for a couple of years or stays and grows out of the archetype either by their interests gravitating towards a sport of lifting (e.g., bodybuilding or powerlifting) or a catastrophic life event (e.g., a big breakup or a death in the family.)

The Sculptor.
Often a bodybuilder, The Sculptor doesn’t chase the big numbers but instead directs their focus towards attaining what they deem an aesthetically pleasing body. They learn what movements strain their muscles the best and stick to them, carving their desired body out of flesh and discipline. The Sculptor still enjoys the occasional beer with friends (what’s the point of looking good without a night on the town, right?) but you’ll often find them munching on protein bars, ground turkey, and mixed greens with a smile on their face. The origins of The Sculptor are often childhoods plagued by body shaming. Someone in their lives decided they were too big or too small. In response, they became an ancient Greek sculpture.

The Purist.
Subreddits? Weightlifting forums? YouTube tutorials? Macronutrients? Nonsense! The Purist cares none for the intricacies of optimization and instead approaches their lifting journey with a mindset of “If it works, it works.” Partaking in what’s often called “bro science”, The Purist doesn’t care whether it’s chest, back, or leg day; they have two objectives:

1. Pick heavy things up, put heavy things down, and repeat until the end of time.

2. Cheeseburger.

The Purist is laidback, easygoing, and a reminder that we’re more than grams of carbs and protein. You’ll never find them asking if the gym rat lunch outing will have keto options. They lift simply because it’s fun and allows them to eat whatever they want.

The Specialist.
Often a powerlifter, The Specialist seeks mastery over the most notable lifts such as the bench press, squat, and deadlift. They share many parallels with The Sculptor, however, while The Sculptor attains secrets to the body, The Specialist attains secrets to the weights, forever learning the smallest of intricacies that allow them to lift the heaviest they can. Do you know those movie scenes where the puzzle guarding the ancient secret is solved by a small nudging of a rock and suddenly the whole world seems to shift? The Specialist is that small nudging of a rock. Whether it’s a slight shifting of their feet, a different method of breathing and bracing, or a different timing of when to eat lunch, The Specialist solves all puzzles to lifting given enough time. The Specialist shares the same relaxedness in demeanor as The Purist but delves into the science behind lifting to learn more about what works and what doesn’t. They are the ones who blur the lines between hobby and sport.

The Werewolf.
Hungry for greatness, the weights are simply a means to an end for The Werewolf. Where one lifter says “That’s enough for today,” the Werewolf says “Give me more.” All lifters occasionally experience a certain feeling in the air; the warmups are perfect, the weights feel light, and today’s lunch was the perfect fuel. For The Werewolf, this is a “full moon”, and the beast inside is never denied. The gym is normally in for a treat and receives a boost in strength from The Werewolf’s presence when this happens. They are driven by the need to be the best they can be, because what else would they be in life? The limits of fitness are discovered and broken by The Werewolf. No one pushes you like The Werewolf does.

The Sage.
For many, strength is a lifetime goal, and this is embodied best by none other than The Sage. Often a much older man with grey hair, The Sage has wisdom the kiddos don’t. They’ve been in the gym long enough to see all the archetypes come and go. The Sage has already accomplished most of what they intend with their grown bodies, so a good workout for them is instead filled with accomplishments of the youngins around them. Sages in the making are often younger personal trainers wielding the secrets of fitness in the palms of their hands. They spend the most time in the gym, so if you’re having a bad day, be prepared for The Sage to check up on you.

The Flagellant.
Also known as The Demon or The Villain, The Flagellant uses the pain of lifting weights to reflect the pain inside their psyches. This is often the gymgoer with a hoodie and headphones whose workouts prompt questions of “Who hurt you?” The Flagellant experienced betrayal or tragedy at the hands of another and strives towards a glow-up to regain power over their lives. This archetype is seldom sustainable and is often a transient mode of being that provides focus away from inner strife, but it does produce some of the most grueling and rewarding workouts. Every gym session for The Flagellant is a suicide mission. Don’t ever bother The Flagellant. It’s a bad move.

The Hero.
Often growing out from The Flagellant, The Hero embraces inner peace and lifts with optimistic acceptance of life’s troubles. Where The Flagellant’s lifting is a vessel for violence against the world, The Hero’s is of mastery over the mind, body, and soul. The Hero attains a greater understanding of themselves through the long hours spent loading up bars with 45 lb. plates. They haven’t spent enough years in the gym to match The Sage’s wisdom, but their outlook on life is often wise beyond their years and serves as a beacon for gymgoers around them.

The Hero embodies this moment from The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse:

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“Kind.”

As I continue to lift, I’ve found myself experiencing many of the archetypes I’ve observed so far. They come and go with life’s troubles, but I feel the archetype of The Hero starting to take over as I continue to make peace with the past.

Lifting used to be many things for me.

Desire.

Desperation.

Vengeance.

Mourning.

Obsession.

Escape.

Chaos.

Violence.

Pain.

Wrath.

Lately, it’s been something much more worthwhile to me as the years go by.

Bliss. Simple, accepted, and embraced bliss.

The lady on the wall.

Sleep is weird.

In the middle of a summer night in 2017, I awoke to Pennywise the clown standing in the corner of my bedroom. Not 2017 Bill Skarsgård Pennywise. It was 1990 Tim Curry Pennywise. Way scarier, in my opinion.

I’d been having a funny dream that I woke up giggling from. For some reason, Pennywise was there laughing with me. He held a deflated mylar balloon. He was happy and angry at the same time. I jolted awake from shock, ramming my palm into my desk and bruising it.

It kept happening for several nights. Sometimes it was the Bill Skarsgård Pennywise. Sometimes it was the Tim Curry Pennywise but horrifically morphed. Sometimes he’d be eight feet tall. Sometimes my bedroom would have floating filming equipment.

Two things were consistent:

1. It only happened if I woke up in darkness.

2. Every time, I’d get up and try to punch Pennywise in his dumb clown face.

Some bruised knuckles later, I admitted defeat and went back to sleeping with the lights on. This went on for three years.

I was utterly confused. I have no clown phobia. I hadn’t even seen or read Stephen King’s It. I’d overcome my fear of the dark years ago, yet this accursed clown was forcing my nights back into the light.

A cursory Google search labeled it as hypnopompic hallucinations, or sleep-related hallucinations that occur during awakening, almost like extended dreams.

In 2020, I started trauma-focused therapy. I made quick leaps and bounds from simply having someone hear me out and talk me through the ins and outs of my life. I told my then therapist about my Pennywise dilemma.

“So, what does Pennywise represent?” he asked somewhat rhetorically.

“Oh. Well, shit,” I replied, dumbfounded.

Pennywise represented trauma. Childhood trauma specifically.

I haven’t seen Pennywise since that revelation. To this day, it’s still crazy to me how that’s all it took for that hallucination to stop.

The trauma I unpacked at the time was all I had to bring to the therapy table. Time goes on, of course, and new experiences bring new hardships.

In early 2022, I woke up to my bedroom being suspiciously grey. It wasn’t bright, dimly lit, or pitch-black. I was watching from my own eyes, but also watching from a zoomed out, disembodied view. I felt like I was in the audience of a play and in the play itself.

I couldn’t see her, yet I could.

A monstrously tall lady with long, black hair draping over her face and down to her waist was floating in the corner of my room. She wore a hospital gown. She had horrific intentions. I could feel it.

I was lying on my side with my face to the wall and my back to her, yet I could see her so clearly. She floated over to my bed and latched on, crawling up the side until she made her way to me. She clung to my back and shook me, whispering awful, abysmal sounds into my ear. She was trying to force me to look at her. I didn’t know how I knew that, I just did.

I woke up sweating and panicking. I washed up and did my best to go back to sleep to little avail. I ended up dragging myself to work on maybe three hours of sleep.

Round two. I knew exactly what the cause was, though.

At the time, I was in an abusive, controlling, long-distance relationship of just over a year. She tracked my every movement through an app called Life360. When I was home, she kept me on camera through an Amazon Echo smart speaker that she could drop into at any time and see what I was doing. Every moment of my life, awake or asleep, was under her surveillance.

The lady on the wall was trying to get me to see more than her face. She was trying to get me to see the truth.

I broke up with her that March. It’s been 14 months since.

As I started unpacking all I’d endured from her, the lady on the walls came back. She doesn’t float anymore, but she does crawl. If I wake up in darkness and open my eyes to a black corner of my bedroom, she’ll quickly crawl into view and try to catch my eye. She often succeeds and I think she’ll continue to as I further unravel and heal from all the abuse, control, gaslighting, and manipulation that I endured from my ex.

But overall, I’ve slept easier since the breakup.

The lady on the wall is a welcome guest, albeit a creepy one.

Maxine.

If you know me in person and have just arrived at my website, you’re likely wondering:

Why did I click on this link from your Instagram only to be redirected to a woman’s blog?

Why Maxine?

Simple!

1. My family is absurdly nosy.

2. She’s the protagonist from my favorite video game: Life is Strange.

In my journey of self-love and discovery, I’ve come to personify the feminine, nourishing parts of my life as a classy little lady named Maxine.

When I take a break from counting calories for bodybuilding and powerlifting to indulge in a giant sundae with extra caramel that further heals me from my old eating disorder, I say I’m feeding Maxine.
When I order the cutest, sweetest drink at a café instead of stoic black coffee, I say it’s for Maxine.
When I don a pink hoodie for the gym and listen to sapphic pop music while I squat hundreds of pounds, I say it’s Maxine’s leg day.
Not-Maxine has a barely approachable resting thousand-yard stare and numerous cuts and bruises from weightlifting.
Maxine has an endearing smile and tries her best not to constantly wear all black.
Not-Maxine meal preps white rice with low-fat ground turkey and perfectly calculated grams of carbs and protein.
Maxine eats ice cream every day.

Both are equally real, valid, growing, healing, and contributing to all that I am.

She’s me and I’m her, simple nourishment of all things masculine and feminine.

In the spirit of growth and reflection, she’s the perfect face for this journal needing a touch of anonymity.