Benched The Podcast Episode One

In the debut episode of Benched, CJ opens up about what “being benched” has meant in his own life. From childhood memories of obesity and bullying to the deep shame, depression, and self-doubt that kept him on the sidelines, CJ shares a raw and unfiltered story of struggle and survival.

But this isn’t just about the pain—it’s about the turning points. CJ reflects on therapy, faith, and the journey of self-awareness that helped him begin to heal. This first episode sets the tone for the podcast: honest, vulnerable, and rooted in the belief that no setback is permanent.

💡 Reflection Question: What has benched you?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Welcome to Bench, the podcast for anyone who's ever felt overlooked, held back, or stuck on the sidelines of life. I'm your host, Curtis, but you can call me CJ. For years, I've lived benched by my own body. Obesity kept me hidden, hurting, and playing small, even when deep down I knew I was meant for more. This show is for those who've been there too, benched by weight, by trauma, fear, or anything else that tried to disqualify you. But I'm here to tell you, you're not disqualified. You're just getting ready to play the game of your life. In this first episode, I'm pulling back the curtain on my story from the weight of childhood to the work of being whole. Let's talk about what it really means to be benched and how we can get back in the game. So for me, bench means being a part of a team of life but unable to get in the game and watching from the sidelines. Some may feel you were in the game and then life benched you. It can leave you feeling B, belittled, E, excluded, N, neglected, H, humiliated, E, empty, and D, disqualified. Here we will have a safe place to build a strategy, engage with others with similar stories where you can be nourished, be challenged, ask for help, Be encouraged and decompress. Okay, so a little bit about me. When did I realize that weight was an issue? So... When I was little, probably two, three years old, they used to refer to me as Webster, just based on my build. Even though I was a toddler, I looked like Webster. But I, you know, pretty for the most part was normal, but I always had like a stocky build to me. But when I realized the weight and And the impact of it was probably around nine years old, nine, 10 years old, you know, on the way out of elementary school. And so I just started comparing my pictures to the pictures of others in my family, because, you know, I'm at their house and I see their younger pictures, my siblings and things like that. So I just started, you know, gaining weight I don't recall specifically how and why it just seemed to start happening but it did not really resonate until I got about 11 years old and I was going to the sixth grade and so That was a very difficult place for me because I was obese then, severely obese then. I was what, quote unquote, soft. So I did not have an aggressiveness about me or this male dominance about me. So people automatically assumed I was weak. I dealt with gynecomastia, and you don't really know what that is. It's male tissue in the breast area. And then I found out later my hair started falling out, and I had alopecia. And so I recall my parents taking me to the doctor to figure out why patches of my hair was falling out. And so they ran blood tests, and then they said, you know what? It's stress. Now, theoretically, what does an 11-year-old, what can they be stressed about? But when you're a young child trying to find life, trying to navigate through it, trying to understand feelings and emotions, growing up in, a household of domestic violence, feeling, you know, left out, feeling alone at times, feeling excluded and, you know, bullied and things like that. And so it's just a lot was on me at that point. And so I remember in particular one day I was at school. So I come from a family that They fight, not in terms of just go out and fight, but they can throw it down when it's necessary. And so me, I was more on the sensitive side. And so I remember growing up, and so my grandparents and my great aunts and great uncles, they played a large part of my role. They were a big part of my village. And so they told me that or trained me that if I'm nice to people, people will be nice to me. And so I went into life at that time with that thought process that if I was nice to people, people would be nice to me. So I'll never forget, I was on the bus, and they used to play this game where they would slap the back of your head, but you didn't know who did it. And so they would even reach out the window on the bus, slap your head or whatever the case is, and then you didn't know. And I'll never forget, one day, I was the target. And so they... Somebody started slapping the back of my head and it was all of a sudden everybody did that was around me and I couldn't tell who was doing it. And it just built until I just started crying. But I wasn't crying because I couldn't fight back. I wasn't crying because I felt powerless. I cried because they made those that trained me and raised me in part of my village, they made them out to be a liar because that was not necessarily the case. You could be good to people and not receive that in return. And so that was heartbreaking to me because everything that they said to me was gold I could take to the bank. And so when I got off the bus, I remember my cousins was at the stop sign and they saw And so I just went on in the house and didn't say anything and just went in my room. And so my cousins, I think they called my grandmother, my grandmother called my mom, and then, you know, they got involved and asked me questions or whatever the case is. And... You know, I don't fault them for how they perceived it because, again, I come from tough people. And so for me to be this anomaly, to be this unicorn, and not just automatically fighting, it seemed unusual. Like, why am I so sensitive? There's this notion or this perception that people that are obese, they're supposed to have tough skin. They should be able to take anything. That their feelings are... Their feelings, you know, they should not show emotion. It shouldn't bother them. They shouldn't be as touchy about certain things, which is quite the contrary, especially when you don't know what that person has dealt with or is dealing with. You know, obesity is not just a person that's lazy. It's not a person that... doesn't care about themselves or don't care about life, there could be medical challenges that's going on. There can be depression. There can be a lot of factors. And when you're talking about a child trying to understand and you're constantly picked on, not just picked on and bullied or whatever by people in the world, like school or whatever, when you're experiencing that same behavior in places where you feel like should be your safe space. from church to families and you know just constantly picked on and you're like as a child like number one why am I being picked on but how can I fix this and you don't know you know I was not athletic I was not sports oriented again which is unusual because I come from beautiful people I'm not saying that that because they're my family I'm saying that because it is what what it is. They are beautiful people from the time that they were, I see their younger pictures, my parents, my siblings, my aunts, my uncles, my grandparents. They are beautiful people. Always been. They were, you know, ladies man and just foxes or chick as they called it back then. And so I was just the total opposite. And I'm trying to understand like Why am I different? Why do I look different? And I don't know how to change this, because what you hear all the time is, just stop eating. And what's so funny is, People, you know, just a quote to parents, if you want your child to eat healthy, you got to eat healthy with them. You know, you can't eat. ribs and fried chicken and expect the child to have salad, especially when they're trying to make them healthy or whatever the case is. But, you know, I'm like, well, I see you eat whatever you eat and you're still small. Why can't I eat that and be the same? So, you know, metabolisms are different, all those things. And so it was tough going through my Adolescent years You know food is one of those things where you're also rewarded with food so you bring home a good report card, what do you do? Have ice cream. If, you know, one of the things, like one of my grandparents, if, you know, if I did good or they, you know, they felt that I was feeling sad, they might give me an extra chicken wing or pork chopping. So sometimes, you know, that can be your best friend or your worst enemy. if you don't navigate your emotions well and again at that time you're talking about coming up in the 90s and in the 2000s it wasn't there wasn't a lot of awareness about mental health depression and PTSD and just trauma and all those things we didn't it was taboo at that time and so we didn't have all the tools and resources and the conversations that we have now so you know go Going through these next years in school, you know, I never felt good enough. And so a lot of times I felt unwanted or unattractive or embarrassing because, again, when I see the people around me and I see my family and I see all those things I don't look like them you know they look athletic they look like they come out of magazines and I'm like, why do I have to go through this? Why do I have this challenge? Why do I have this hard? I wish I could pick my heart and this wouldn't be it. And so, you know, going through those times, it's like you have to... 10 times over to validate your worth to people. And so there were a lot of years of seclusion and just being to myself. And so if I wasn't by myself, I would automatically be around older people because they were my safe space. So I'm not talking like, you know, by aunts and uncles. I'm talking about great aunts, great uncles. They're friends. The neighbors, they were my safe space. That's why I kind of have like an old nature, old soul, is because I spent a lot of my time with them because they were nice to me. They were, you know, if I went to the playground, if I went to try to play basketball, if I went whatever, it was constantly picked on. And so... what happens is you kind of develop this need to guard yourself and to protect your feelings, especially when... you feel like you don't have that kind of protection from people. So if you're not going to protect me, I have to protect myself. And so you start building this tough exterior, this sharpness with words, so that people know when to back off. Because some people, unfortunately, they may say a joke, they may say something slick, and they don't know when to stop. And so I started getting to that notion of, okay, if you're not going to stop, I'm going to make you stop. Whether it's with words, whether it's fighting, whatever that I had to do. Which is not always the best thing, because what I really needed was... therapy, I needed a more safe place, I needed support, and sometimes I couldn't articulate what I needed at that time, but it's just a part of my journey, and so even like now, being at the age that I'm now, I have to battle and wrestle with the fact that I've never been in love. I don't even know what that feels like or means. Relationships are almost, you know, here and there, non-existent. And because I, you know, from an early childhood, I always wanted my own family. I wanted my wife and kids. And, you know, I envision myself being like a... The Huxtables. Always wanted my own family. And so, you know, there are times that I have to, I think about whether how obesity and my ability or inability to conquer that, how... You know, that played a role into, you know, not being able to have the family I wanted because I didn't have the confidence that I needed or, you know. So it was pretty tough, you know, especially in those years that are like your best years, middle school, high school. So the dances, you know, the dates and stuff like that, I didn't experience a lot of that.

UNKNOWN: 17:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:30

I didn't take a lot of pictures. At least from my perspective, people didn't want me in their pictures, you know, and I get it. So even to this day, I'm trying to get more and more into taking pictures, but it was a lot, you know, many years of not taking pictures, you know. There are activities that I couldn't engage in, like going to the beach or going to the pool because I'm embarrassed I don't want to take my shirt off. So if I did, I had on a full outfit um and you know so there's a lot of things that I missed out on you know that you know I grieve at times but I know it's all for a purpose you know sometimes people say well I'm the black sheep and all those things I'm like well at least you still feel like a sheep among sheep I felt like a fish among sheep of sheep or some other animal um because I just didn't feel like I belonged anywhere. And so, you know, one of the things that I realized over time is that People, they're okay with like every other issue that you can have, but obesity is one that's still not widely accepted because it's not marketable. It's not something that people, you know, they want to represent them. That's not true in all cases, but a lot of times that is the case if you look at social media if you look at just everyday life that's not who we put to the forefront that's not who we market unless you have this amazing talent or ability or notoriety or whatever the case is, then that can be overlooked. But just to the every ordinary person, common day ordinary person, it's not something that is accepted. And I will never forget when I went off to college, My mom and my aunt, they took me to college. I was my first time ever living out of state. At that time, we still had landlines. Cell phones were just coming in. People had cell phones, but they still relied on landlines for the most part. You had the extra cell phone. I'll never forget I had brought a new phone to go into my dorm room. And I remember my mom and aunt setting up my, helping me set up my room. And they left. And I remember I set my landline up. And when they left, I was seeing them off waving, whatever. When I went back into my dorm, there was a voicemail on my landline. Now, I didn't even know the number. Again, I just plugged this phone up. I didn't even know what my number was. I didn't give that number out to anybody because I didn't know the number. And, you know, I had my cell phone, so I was using that. And I played the voicemail, and the person said verbatim, you don't matter. Got to go. And I played it, played it, played it, because I'm like, who's playing on my phone? Well, who knows I'm here? Who knows I'm in this room? I wrestled with it, and I called my mom, and I said, I need you to listen to something and tell me what you hear. I called on my cell phone. I said, I'm going to play this. And I played it for her. And she said, what is that? I said, this is a voicemail that was left on my phone. And she said, well, it sounds like you don't matter is what they're saying. And I said, amazing. I said, I don't know who this is. I said, the voice don't even sound familiar. But that always resonated with me because, you know, this was like another reminder. that I don't matter to people. Then I'll never forget, I think that following year, I stayed a little bit back through the summer and I visited a church and Bishop Albert Jamison, I'll never forget, I went to put my offering up and he prophesied me and he said I want you to do this stop trying to fit in God created you this way he said you're unique you're special and you're never going to fit in and that was the first time that that I felt free, that he said something that I felt for years. And so just to have that acknowledged meant so much to me. But he said, you know, You're going to be successful. You know, God is going to raise you up in the workplace and all those things, he said. But just know that you're never going to fit in. And so that's why I can rely on Romans 8, 28, that all things work together for the good of them that love the Lord and are called according to his purpose. Even the bad things, the sad things. They all worked for his purpose. Do I know what the full purpose of it is? Not the full purpose. But every day that I get up, I learn a little bit more about what that is. So the question was asked, what sparked the change in me to want to reach this job? journey of health and wellness and transformation. I told someone, when they asked me that, they said, I told them that I had finally reached the point where I felt like it was an unachievable goal. And the moment that I felt that way, I started getting this relentlessness to prove myself and others wrong. And so one thing about me is when I get back into a corner and... I feel like I have no other options. I get this relentlessness and this persistence to beat that, which seems unbeatable. And so I told him, I said, also, I know that somebody else is relying on my journey and my story. And they need to hear it. So I started doing... I started doing certain things to try to work towards that. In 2020, I reached out, July of 2020, I reached out and sought therapy. And that was the game changer for me. because therapy helped me more than I could imagine. I had, again, coming from the African-American culture and from a heavy Pentecostal background, it's like therapy is taboo. It's like, why do you need a therapist? You know, we don't mind you seeing a specialist for everything else, but when you talk about mental health, Like, why do you need that? And I started learning the vital role that mental health plays into obesity. And so... I started looking at my life, and one of the things that my therapist said to me is like, so the life that you want, how are we going to get there? Because it is possible, but we just need to strategize on how to get there. And I'll never forget, I was at work one day, and I was so exhausted. And... I looked at the things that was going on in my life. I was going through a lot of grief, but I was working, you know, 50 or 60 hours a week. I managed my own team, managed a lot of processes, especially during COVID. I was contact tracing, trying to manage processes, trying to manage a team. So I was working overnight. night, just nonstop, trying to be a caregiver for a loved one. Then I was on 10 auxiliaries at the church. And so I just, I was just running on empty. And I'll never forget my neighbor saying to me, She said, I watched you get out the car and walk from the car to the mailbox and the mailbox into the house. And she said, I just knew that you were going to fall dead or pass out or something. You just looked like a shell of a person. Because at that point, I was just existing and not living. I was at work one day, and I got dizzy, and I just wanted to shrug it off. And I remember a coworker, she's saying, you know, I have a blood pressure monitor. Let's just check your blood pressure real quick. I was like, no, I'll be fine. And she kept pressuring me, so I went and did the test right there, and she said, She actually called my director and told her what the numbers were. And my director called me, she said, you got to go home. And she said, you have to take some days off. And she said, if you don't, I'm going to require a note for you to come back. You have got to leave and go home because your numbers are too, it's unreasonable. And you should go get checked out from a doctor. But again, I just shrugged it off. I did go home because she made my coworker walk me to the car, and I drove home. But again, I wasn't trying to see a doctor because, again, sometimes it's hard for us to go see a doctor. So I just thought it was something I could shrug off. But yeah, I started... with therapy, I started looking at ways to go after the life that I want. And so we took it step by step. So I've been with her for almost five years now. And those first, that first couple of years was very rough. Because a lot of things that we had discussed that was brought up to surface and and dealing with that. And so some of the initial steps that I took as a part of that is I removed what I call negative nouns, people, places, and things. And these are hard because a lot of these things are dear to you. So for example, I had to remove or delete distance myself from people that was not contributing to my wellness and my health. This was people that are close to me. This was family members. These were friends. But if it was not adding value, if it was not in the place of support for me, I had to do a healthy boundary and a healthy distance.

UNKNOWN: 32:31

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 32:33

You know, detach some I had to, you know, love from a distance. And it was very hard because, again, relationships are are critical and vital to me. I rely on my relationships. And so, you know, these are family members and friends and people that you always thought you have in your life. So but if in order for me to get into the place that I wanted to be. I had to start protecting my peace, but also building a game plan to get to the life that I wanted. Because sometimes people are, you know, they say people are in your life for a reason, season, and a lifetime. And so sometimes you have to start making that determination. And so that's one of the first steps that I did. um with places i had to relocate which i did not initially want to do because i felt that i was abandoning my family because we were going through a difficult time and i had to leave um the places of familiarity and so and moving to a place where I didn't have any close family members and so just me and my dog and so a close friend of mine he We packed up and we left, and he helped me move to a new location. But it was necessary for me starting over, and so I had to leave. So work, left the state, left church, just as I was attending, because it was not contributing to a healthy environment for me. And it's hard. It's the hardest thing you have to do, but it was necessary. And then unnecessary things. Take an inventory of your life. What is not contributing to a healthy and whole lifestyle so that can be... That's where your eating comes in, exercise, finding different activities, you know, going out, you know, not being tied to your house, just different things like that that can hinder you from moving forward into the healthy and whole lifestyle that you desire. And so... One of the scriptures that I rely on is 3 John 1 and 2, where it says, I'm paraphrasing, but, you know, is that I pray that you will be in good health and that you will prosper as your soul shall prosper. And so it's biblically... It is necessary for us and it's desirable for us to be healthy and that our health prosper just as our soul prosper. So we have to put that same energy that we put into spiritually at times is just the same intentionality into our health. I'll never forget... One of my pastors said some years ago that stuck with me forever. Pastor Brenda Ray, I love you. And Bishop Ray, rest in soul. But I'll never forget, she said, you know, the reason that it's good to make sure that your health is intact is because when you're going through spiritual warfare, it's already difficult enough, but you don't want to go through spiritual warfare and trying to battle your health diabetes high blood pressure high cholesterol she said so trying to eliminate as much as possible because the warfare by itself is enough but you don't want to be battling warfare and your health because a lot of times your health is what's going to be impacted the most And it's harder to fight when you're fatigued and not your best self. And so I made the conscious decision that I was going to outlive the pain and the trauma that I've experienced in my past. And so... One of the things that the Lord took me to was saying, you know, you were created in my image and my likeness. So how can you hate what I created? Right? And that was pivotal for me because for so long I hated myself. And I said, but I can't hate who we create. And I hated myself because of the expectation and what media and what people put that expectation that they put on you. But I had to realize that I cannot live... The rest of my life is always going to be short-lived, hating what God created. And so that's why now I have reached the place where I can say I'm proud to be me. Through the struggles, through the pain, through the heartache, the difficulties, I'm proud of who I am. Am I everybody's cup of tea now? But I refuse to walk the rest of my life feeling embarrassed, feeling lonely, feeling undervalued, feeling like I don't have any worth. And so that's important to me. And I owe it to myself. to be my best self and to show up as my best self. I don't go to the gym four days a week, two or three hours, just for my benefit, but I know that I need to show up as my best self for others, for the people that I manage at my job, for my family, so that I can experience life and enjoy it. that when certain things come, one of the things that one of my nutritionists said to me, she said, challenges are going to keep coming. So what are you going to do? And I didn't have an answer at the time. She said, you have to continue to fight through that. So that's where therapy, prayer, and all those things matter. Because life is going to keep life, no matter what. Back from 2020 to 2023, part of 2024, I have experienced the most grief that I could ever imagine. it was just non-stop before I can I couldn't catch my breath it was just one by one and I had to persevere through that and so those things kept coming and I couldn't stop it it's inevitable so that was part of that's just part of the part of life so you have to know how to navigate through that and still show up as your best self And so that's the purpose of eating healthy, to have accountability partners, to make sure that you have a support system and create that support system. Don't rely on people to automatically... Be your support system. That's just not the way it is. From friends, family members, or anybody, sometimes we go with the expectation that people will just slide into those roles. It is what it is. Some people are comfortable with you being the way you are. Some people don't want you to get better because it puts them on notice and it makes them uncomfortable. And so you have to create that support system whatever that may look like. And it may be in unconventional ways. You know, I have support systems through therapy, through people at work, some, you know, people at church sometimes, you know, just different places that I would never expect it. And so I'm open to that. So This podcast... benched is for the ones that gave up, the ones that feel like giving up, and the ones that need help to keep going. Jeremiah 1.6 says, that's one of my favorite scriptures, is,"'Behold, I am a child, I cannot speak.'" And I believe it's my life's mission, my purpose in life, to give people a voice that may feel unheard, overlooked, and undervalued. It's my desire that people never feel the way I felt. And if I can reach one person that can change their life, that's worth it for me. When I'm at the gym, and especially when I was going through my heaviest part of trying to get to this healthy state, there were three messages from TDJs that I listened to on repeat. It was, which my favorite is, keep it moving in between fights and selective service. Keep it moving is pretty self-explanatory. In between fights is because the battle continues. I still battle with the old me. I still battle with self-image. I battle with dysmorphia, if you don't know what that is. We'll talk about it later. Dysmorphia is when you still battle your self-image and you're constantly... comparing yourself because you are trying to figure out what people see and do I look right today? Does this look right? It might take me forever to get ready because I'm trying to like... you know, make myself look presentable and always checking myself and still, although I'm smaller now, still seeing that 380 person that I saw before. And so I constantly am looking in the mirror. So sometimes people be like, you always in the mirror. It's not because I'm looking at myself in the sense of I'm glorifying myself. It's because do I look right? Do people think I look right? Does this go together? Do I look blah? You know, so I still deal with that. And then selective service is one of those ones where, you know, We are handpicked to go through certain challenges. We are handpicked to go through and survive certain traumas. And so does it seem fair? No. But is it necessary? Yes. So that's where I am with that.

UNKNOWN: 46:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 46:31

So what can you expect from the bench series? Expect... to hear from others that may have similar stories. Excuse me. We're not just talking about the sad stories, but hearing from others and their victories. People that want to start a wellness journey and transformation journey, the people that may be in the middle of it, the people that overcame it. I truly believe that we can draw strength from each other just sharing our stories that you don't feel alone that you don't feel that you're by yourself and this is only impacting you I want you to ask questions and certain things that you can learn and some of the things that people rarely talk about and so I want to bring those things to surface so that we can offer help and support to one another. Expect to be encouraged. Expect to be motivated. Motivated. Expect to expect help on becoming the better version of you. And it's my desire that Bencht is a a safe place of honesty and hope, that it's a safe place to build strategy and be challenged and where you can ask for help, where you can be encouraged, and most of all, where you can decompress and not feel the weight of the world on you. It is the mission to transform from shame to strength. So that's my story, or at least the start of it. Being benched by obesity isn't just about the weight I carried on my body. It was the weight I carried in my mind, in my spirit, and in my identity. But I'm here now on the mic to say, the bench doesn't have the final word. If any part of my journey resonated with you, I want to hear from you. Use the hashtag Bench Podcast and share your story. You can DM me, but let's build a community of people committed to wellness, wholeness, and the work it takes to rise again. Subscribe to the show, leave a review if you feel moved, and share with someone who's still sitting on their bench. Waiting for permission to get up. Until next time, remember, the bench may be where you started, but it's not where you have to stay. Let's heal. Let's grow. Let's get back into the game.