It seems like there's always a knock at 10PM. Occasionally it's a student locked out of his or her room, occasionally it's a noise issue, and frequently, it's someone who simply can't take the pressure of freshman year at Howard anymore and they need someone to talk to. As a Junior Resident Advisor (JRA), I'm that person. Steady hand, conflict resolver, older brother. I put on a face, the calm, authoritative, "I've got this" face, and I take care of it. However, most times, I'm internally shaking with the same anxiety as they are. When I'm trying to complete assignments in my Physics and Computer Science classes, when I'm dealing with the social pressures of campus life, and when I have to worry about an entire floor of students I'm responsible for, I feel like I'm running multiple tabs in a web browser. The fan is spinning, the computer is slowing down, and all I would need is a single "knock, knock, knock" from another resident needing my help, and my system would crash.
When the noise at home becomes overwhelming, I do not go to the library or attend a party. I go to the gym.
The weight room is my sensory reset. The air smells different in that place. Metallic, sharp, slightly like rubber or sweat. That is the smell of working out. In the weight room I hear the rhythmic clanging of weights and the hum of the treadmill instead of the chaos from outside my door. My focus for the next ninety minutes will be on nothing but gravity and my refusal to let it win.
Bodybuilding is often misunderstood as a mere vanity pursuit, lifting weights to develop large muscles and show off your physique when wearing a shirt. However, for myself and many other guys that find solace in the gym, it is a mental and physical discipline. I do not simply "pick things up and put them down." Rather, I am always researching. I spend countless hours studying, such as sarcoplasmic hypertrophy (the growth of the volume of the sarcoplasmic fluid within the muscle cell) versus myofibrillar hypertrophy (the growth of muscle density). I track what I consume in terms of macronutrients, I evaluate how well I execute each exercise, and I approach my body as if it were a physics problem since it is the only variable in my life that I have control over. The variables are: I eat X amount of protein, and I lift Y amount of weight, Z is the resulting outcome from this. It is fair. It is a direct relationship. In a world where you can work hard on a test and still fail it, or you can be a good person and yet be treated unfairly, the fairness of working out is grounding.
The reason this desire to have control over my physical form has become so important to me is because I felt such a deep sense of haunting when reading "The Stanford Witness Statement," written by Emily Doe. In her victim-impact statement, Doe recounts the traumatic events of the sexual assault that occurred against her by Brock Turner, where she describes the devastating moment that she realized her body was no longer hers but had been used as an object, a crime scene, and a piece of evidence in a court of law. The trauma caused a severing of her attachment to her own skin. In one of the saddest parts of the text, she states:
"I stood there examining my body beneath the stream of water and decided, I don't want my body anymore. ... I wanted to take off my body like a jacket and leave it at the hospital with everything else."
When I read this line, I literally had to lay my paper down on the desk. That line spoke to me in terms of my own nightmares about body autonomy loss, not specifically related to her traumatic experience, but because it clearly communicates the ultimate nightmare of being unable to control your body. Doe expressed a desire to get out of the body that had become so vulnerable and cage-like. She wanted to un-zip her skin and leave it behind as the world had shown her that she could be raped or abused.
The concept of "taking off" for me does not relate to my views on fitness at all. Rather than stripping fat from my body, I view my workouts and diet as an opportunity to protect my body. Each workout, set, rep, and research-based meal. All of it represents an attempt to claim back some level of control that the world has taken away from me. As a young Black male, I recognize how society often looks at my body through the lens of stereotype, sometimes as a threat, other times as a product to be sold. There are fewer opportunities for me to have full control over my body, but when I train, I do have this opportunity. When I'm working out, I am building a barrier. I am involved in a voluntary self-construction, which opposes the voluntary self-surrender that was covered in the AI readings. I am not giving up anything, I am taking charge.
Doe's tragic experience demonstrates specifically why I believe that the fitness discipline plays an important role for my mental health. She illustrates how fragile my freedom to choose how I will live my life is, and how easily I can lose the sense of security and empowerment that comes with having control over my body. When she describes the sensation of pine needles scratching her skin and the void that she feels, she is referring to an invasion of her body. When I feel lactic acid burning or my muscles expanding through the process of sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, I am experiencing an occupation of my body by myself fully and completely.
I often hear people discuss mental health and physical health as two different areas in which we are either going to the therapist for our mind, or we're going to the gym for our body. For myself, however, there is no separation. I cannot physically survive the demands of Howard, the expectations of my residents, nor the overwhelming chaos of the world without having a physical base to provide an anchor. The discipline I find from working out provides me with the reminder that I am capable of change, that I can withstand pain or discomfort, and that I am ultimately the one who is responsible for my own decisions and choices, the "captain" of this ship. I do not want to remove my body like a coat. I want to wear it like armor.