All Posts by Tommy Roel

Shattered Minds

Uncle Gary This is For You

In a few months it’ll be five years. I’ll never forget the moment I found out you were gone. I’ll never forget your smile and your pure heart. I’ll never foget my speach I wrote about you for @portledge_school and I’ll never forget the Essay I wrote about you in creative writing clsss two years ago in Tampa. Everything in my life is a derivitive of you, and becoming like you Uncle Gary, was probably the greatest thing I have ever done. I miss you so much and wish you were here to guide me through me mental health. But I know you’re kickin it up there. Thank you for all your motivation. If it weren’t for you, I wouldnt be a Powerlifter, a mental health activist, or a writer. Without you Uncle Gary, I would not be the Tommy that I am today. Hug your loved ones close and tell them you love them everytime you see them because you can lose anything in an instance; I did. I lost Gary. But through his spirit I found myself. I pray for you everyday and every morning I wake up and look at these photos. Thanks for teaching me everything Uncle Gary.
Before Gary passed, we sort of witheld his private mental health website blog, and are finally comfortable enough to share Garys struggles with the world. 

Check out my deceased Uncle Gary’s blog; Shattered Mind: Surviving Mental Illness. 

Shatteredmind.org

And I’m going to follow his footsteps through Maxinoutnblackinout. I love you endlessly Gar. You lost yours when it should have been mine. But you have us all life again. I fucking miss you. I fucking love you

MaxinoutNBlackinout LLC Package Deal Announcement:

This is a new project I am testing out and launching for the website. I want to try to provide all my skills for people in one big effort. Now though there is free advice on this website, this deal provides much more than that. Every aspect described will be carried out to its fullest extend and I intend to help people full time if possible. So anything regarding dieting or training and programming will be taken extremely seriously and will be specialized and designed specifically for the individual. Additionally I will make myself available as a 24/7 mental health hotline. Here is what is included in the deal;

READ THROUGHLY

MaxinoutNBlackinout LLC Package Deals

Yearly MONBO Package

*One time payment of $250 or quarterly (every 4 months) payments of $63.33

Includes:

  1. My MaxinoutNBlackinout LLC Phone Number for Contact
  2. A follow from my instagram @maxinoutandblackinout with the potential to have your lifting videos or modeling photos posted/previewed. Plus a follow from my powerlifting account @roel_powerlifting so you can see my powerlifting comeback.
  3. MONBO Gear / 5 chosen Products of Your size of any merchandise produced in the entire year – FREE shipping/handling plus USPS 2-day Priority mail. **Generalized Free 24/7 Lifting Advice. **Free 24/7 Powerlifting Coaching or Online Personal Training coaching and programming.
  4. Diet and Nutrition Coaching
  5. 24/7 Mental Health Consultant Aid Hotline; Talk to me if you need me.
  6. Access to receiving hidden and unreleased articles, or early peeks at articles that are in the making.
  7. You Get shoutouts on the website regarding modeling my clothes or regarding anyone’s business ventures and ideas.
  8. Any Additional Shirt Purchase beyond what is provided in the within the package will be 10% off.
  9. Access to Discount Codes.
  10. You gain the eligibility to submit an article to me for review, and then I may potentially post it on the website.
  11. Eligibility for anyone or any athletic sports team/athlete to be sponsored by MONBO. Sponsorships includes consistent shoutouts and discount codes.
  12. Copies Multiple CDs/Audio of me speaking throughout my mental health articles and experiences. Additionally, you will receive a CD or Mp3 files of every song or freestyle I’ve made, just for the fun of it.
  13. Lastly, You get to design and buy ONE special Monbo shirt, however you be would required to pay 50% of the cost due to high pricing on individualized shirts and logos.

*EVERYTIME SOMETHING IS NEEDED REGARDING PROGRAMMING OR MENTAL HEALTH I DELVE FULL MEASURE SO THAT YOU CAN RECEIVE THE BEST POSSIBLE ADVICE.  

Payment: PayPal Via Website, or I accept Venmo, Cashapp, Google Pay, and Zelle online. In person I accept Checks, Gift Cards, Pre-Paid Cards, and Cash.
SOON we will be accepting Debit or Credit.

Conventional Deadlift Advice: Spreading the Floor

Deadlifting is one of the most important compound movements around, despite what type of athlete you are. It my personal favorite out of the three main lifts (squat, the bench, and deadlifts). Deadlifting is typically viewed by an average gym-goer as a back exercise. However, your trapezius, erector spinea, biceps, forearms, and quads are all engaged in the deadlift.

How so?

Well obviously your back muscles, biceps, and forearms contribute and develop muscle easier than other muscles involved because these are the primary agonist’s. However, other body parts and form must be used.

Back: Form and Contribution;

Back, Bis, Chest, forearms, biceps, and form,

1)During the deadlift one must NEVER let their back band in a motion where your spine can bend. This can cause serious injury or pain.

2. You need to work on the form, no matter whether conventional or sumo. Keep your back straight and chest up to keep the proper range of motion so that your back doesn’t bend too much, whilst keeping your chest up a little helps with proper form and injury prevent injury. You need strong biceps and triceps for your grip especially regarding what stance you use. If necessary for a 1RM, you should use straps to prevent further injury to calluses or open wounds. Also, I like to roll the barbell forward a bit then roll it back to me. This engages my Latissimus Dorsi muscle activated before you start your deadlift. Then, I launch my knew (like typical deadlifting) and as soo as. I grab the bar I squeeze it as hard as I can and pull it close and tight amongst my calves because with a bent-over back and improper form you can easily hurt your back, cause muscle sprains, all of which can be a result of bad form and bent over deadlifting. If bending over too much, too much gravity will pull the weight down and you’ll lose the rep/ Now rep work: Personally, I perform rep work with both however I would max out or compete with conventional. This way your overall deadlift form increases and lowers risk of injury.

Lower Body

3, Quadriceps: Always slightly squat down. NOT a full squatting motion, just low enough to get down to the bar. engage your quads on the lower portion of the movement and stretch beforehand.

4. SPREAD THE FLOOR: Newton’s third law is “for every action force there is an opposite reaction force.” Now spreading the floor means to keep your feel slightly bend inward in which when pulling the barbell, you try to rip the ground with your feet. This applies pressure, allowing Newtons third law to have its equal opposite reaction force. This generates more force all around and strengthens the compound movements.

Update on Clothing AND NEW LOGO BEANIES

New Yellow MaxinoutNBlackinout National Suicide Prevention shirts are out now! Check out my Instagram ( @maxinoutandblackingout ) page for updates and previews! or @roel_powerlifting for my fitness and lifting updates. Also, a new announcement; the OG Yellow Blue Logo Hoodies are coming back soon!

A sideways picture but whatever.

and NEW LOGOS ARE ANNOUNCED on black and white beanies with the original color scheme.

Darkness

The nights when I’m all alone and quiet are hard. Its like my brain is racing, running, going so fast. I keep thinking. I have all these negative random thoughts of failure in my head. I sit here quietly as I hear the crickets and the train in the distance. It’s physically dark out, and the darkness saddens me. I am thinking so much, and I’m alone. I have no one to talk to, or connect with. The darkness surrounds me, physically then mentally. Let me describe what I mean by darkness. Darkness is like loneliness except its heavier. It yells at you, you’re all alone and its yelling negative thoughts at you. It reminds you of the past things that were good but now are gone forever. But the thing is, is that theyre not. They happened. So they still exist. They’ll never go away, and never let the darkness or the loneliness prevent you from thriving. When it yells, yell back

Roel Resources

This is a small shoutout to my Father, Ronald Roel whom owns an LLC called Roel Resources. His edits books, articles, etc. Contact him if you are ever interested in help with your writing career or editing on a book. My father has been consistent in helping me with this website and my career so I am very thankful for that and wanted to include that information on here. Also; more content and clothing coming soon.

Roel Resources is an editorial consulting firm specializing in successful aging. We focus on senior issues, but also provide useful information and solutions  for every generation. We stress “resourceful writing,” helping others  find fresh opportunities and break new ground, discovering a more rewarding life.

ANNOUNCEMENT: I’M BACK

I’m just gonna say a few things with complete honesty. For a while, I fell off from lifting due to mental health, schoolwork, and other things you couldn’t even imagine. But the point is is that I’m back getting healthy, back in the gym, and working all the way back to where I was. I am taking supplements and protein regularly again, switched up my diet, and began to work back into the gym. First I must develop a schedule, a bodybuilding split with powerlifting form work to develop a basis, and then eventually I will ease my way back into powerlifting. Sometimes you fall into a hole and if you don’t pull yourself out soon enough, the hole gets deeper. That’s what happened to me; the hole got so deep and I hit pretty much rock bottom. So now I am climbing out. The comeback is officially starting. Updates soon.

The Entirety of My Mental Health Issues: Intertwined and Unfiltered

“Depression Fucking SUCKS” 

My name is Tommy Fucking Roel, and I’m here to tell you a little about my battles and what I have faced. I have an enzyme disorder in my brain called MTHFR Mutationwhere the B Enzyme Folic Acid cannot be broken down because I have an absence of the enzyme that does such, therefore I cannot naturally secrete normal levels of dopamine and serotonin. What’s this all mean? Depression, a fat fucking wad of depression. 

Secondly, I have G.A.D, or Generalized Anxiety Disorderwith frequent panic attacks, often 2-4 times a day, maybe 5. The anxiety has been nerve-wracking and crippling for almost ten years. Ever since I was a 13-year-old kid. Fuck man. 

Lastly, I am diagnosed with BPD, or Bi-Polar I. Yup, I’m a fucking nut. But if you’re fucking nuts like me, at least don’t be bland. 

Even though I’m not how I’m supposed to be, I still got some kick in me.

But,

To get you a little idea of how bad my shit really is; here is a list of medications that I have been on and failed. 

  1. Lexapro– This was the first one, an SSRI, WHICH I CLEARLY DIDN’T NEED. It made me fucking hallucinate. No joke.
  2. Lithium– This was firstly for my Bi-Polar. It made me feel alright, then crazy, then alright, then crazy. It also didn’t affect my acne very well.
  3. Abilify– Abilify is a mood stabilizer that, which is safe to say, doesn’t stabilize shit because I’m still sad.
  4. Seroquel: I was on Seroquel for a while and that helped a tiny bit, but it just made me hungry and gain weight.
  5. Rexulti: I have been on Rexulti for a month or so now, and felt minor improvements, however nothing major and the sadness relapsed.
  6. Lamotrigine: This med is the only med of these that I continue to take because it helps a little. Granted, I’m throwing it on the list of shit that’s failed because it hasn’t prevailed yet, but there is some room for hope still. 
  7. Divalproex: The newest med I’m on. How many meds does it take to get to the center of a depressed kid’s heart? The world may never know.

There you go, six or seven different meds (and a suicide attempt) later and I’m still here battling the demons. Now why would I ever be so open with my medical history? 

BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE IS AND ITS TIME TO OPEN MY MOUTH FOR EVERYONE.

No one has completely helped me through this. Now plenty of people and counseling have provided aid, but ultimately the sadness is my own battle. Me vs. Depression. 

And one day I WILL fucking win, man. In order to avoid delving in too deep and even furthermore than I have before, I wanted to tie everything I have written about anxiety and depression together. Here is a combined excerpt of what it feels like to be lonely, and what it feels like to be depressed.

ANXIETY: “Razors”

The world feels like a room full of razorblades and no matter where you move or walk, you’ll get cut, and that’s what anxiety is like, the world is the room and we’re in the center with all the razor blades around us and we just are scared of life and moving forward because we are scared we are going to get cut and hurt or that we might even get so hurt where bleed out. So, we stay stagnant and sit in our spot not moving so that we don’t get cut by the razors, we don’t get hurt. But how can we feel anything if we don’t move? Finally, the fear of the blades and anxiety becomes too much, so we need to move. but instead of making an incision in order to end it all, I realize that I cannot stay stagnant or end it, so I realize I must fight the razors. I put my head down, and I move forward towards the door. Despite all the pain from the razors and anxiety, I move. And finally, I think, I’ve made it out the door. I have plenty of scars and cuts and wounds. But here I am. Outside. 

  • Yup. In my best words, this is what anxiety feels like. I finally have been able to overcome some of it, but however, depression and anxiety have a funny but not-so funny way of relapsing.
  • On to the next one!

Depression, MTHFR Mutation, and Bi-Polar: What It Feels Like To Be Lonely

What It Feels Like To Be Lonely”

Being lonely is different than from what you think. It’s a mental thing. It’s not just being alone physically, not simply the physical absence of company causing you to yearn to surround yourself with individuals just because you want to socialize. You yearn to surround yourself with people around you so that the presence of others can distract you from loneliness. Loneliness, see, it is a constant and consistent feeling, the fear, the sadness, the desperation of wanting something, but yet you do not know what it is. You are lonely and empty, and the loneliness actually causes the emptiness, forcing you to try and find something, anything, to fill up that emptiness. You are alone. Mentally, even if you physically aren’t. Like mentioned before, You fill yourself in rooms full of people, familiar and friendly faces, momentarily filling up the deep darkness and emptiness inside of you. And for a brief moment, you are content. But in an instance your being content with the situation changes and the loneliness comes back, and the momentary happiness slips away into thin air. It is a vicious cycle. We strive to fill our loneliness. But we don’t know how to fill it, or what to fill it with. We try to find passions, careers, relationships. Or we use external methods of escape such as facing the bottle or taking that pill. But the artificial happiness created by external factors such as love and other drugs soon and suddenly evaporate. We find or search for pointless careers in which we try to find a purpose within such careers hoping we find our calling, or purpose. Some lucky ones find such purpose, but us, the lonely, cannot. Soon such loneliness will return to haunt us. The empty space within us will always fill up with momentary and artificial happiness before we are drained and stripped of such happiness or empathy, leaving us just as empty as we were before. But despite our faults, our loneliness, we smile through the pain, through the despair, the emptiness, and through the loneliness. We don’t know how to solve it, but we are trying to. There is no scientific cure for loneliness as I believe that loneliness correlates with our souls, not simply our genetic makeup regarding cognitive function. Loneliness is a matter of the soul, a soul who feels empty and alone, yet through the pain, we know we must persevere. So we smile, we are lonely, but we smile because that is exactly what we need to do. We cannot let our loneliness engulf us, we cannot let our sadness bury us. We cannot hide it, but what we can do, is fight it. Smile, day by day, fight by fight, battle with loneliness, and eventually one lone-full night, the loneliness will evaporate because we have won the fight. You cannot give up, be brave and be bright. Loneliness sucks, but we must persevere and not let it take our lives. Smile, because someday everything will be alright.

  • This, in every word, is how I have felt for the past, God I don’t know, nine years at least. I know I will win the battle and continue to fight, but God is with me and so are my parents, family, friends, and support from my medical professionals. Together we can beat our ravaging depression. NO MORE attempts. The only attempt we need is to further our lives, better ourselves, and never look back; only forward. Hold each others hands, hug the ones you love, because in times of turmoil these are the ones that truly matter to us, and make us realize that life itself is a gift because it gave us the ones we love. And it gave us the ability to love. And although I am massively and seemingly helplessly depressed, I am SO GLAD to be able to feel these feelings because before I could not feel anything at all. Now I feel again, and I feel alive, more-so than I have ever been. Without heartbreak, there will never be love. Because love is the only thing that can put our hearts back together. Never give up, never stop caring, never stop fighting, be proud of who you are, and spread the love as far and as wide as you can. Together, we shall conquer sadness by creating beauty. 
  • From one mind of an incredibly fucked up Kid,
  • Thank You
  • Tommy Roel