[Music]
My uncle has quite an interesting history in bodybuilding.
Um, as far as I know, I'm pretty sure
he was the youngest Mr. Manitoba ever at 19 or 20 years old.
[Announcer] Contester number 12 (Audience Cheering)
Krishna Mankasingh (Audience Cheering)
(Whistling)
(Applause)
He had a reputation for working very hard.
As far as I understand
- my observation is I noticed he was in very good shape and,
he was good at things that he put his mind to.
[Announcer] And the second place, number 30
Krishna Mankasingh
(Cheering)
- My name,
is Krishna Mankasingh
I have an illness called schizophrenia,
but I don't like to use that to define me.
I'm, I view myself as a bodybuilder,
a track and field athlete when I was younger,
someone who thinks far ahead,
but I would like to make people aware of,
how it is to have this illness, If you're high functioning,
how it can be for a person when they're,
learning about this illness, when they're starting to experience it
and
what it's like to, cope with it very well.
Now, I would like people to know to, that it's not always,
possible for a person who has this illness to
perhaps way it's perceived
as well as I'm doing.
- Early 2017, I started going to good life.
Anxiety was so bad. I didn't want to deal or I didn't wanna touch on.
if anyone came near me,
I didn't want to deal with them.
I knew nothing about the gym,
but I looked up bodybuilding, I was like,
strange, you know,
but all I, all I cared about was,
just getting fit.
Good job Paul.
(Breathing deeply)
- The first time I heard schizophrenia,
I was probably about two or three.
I just had a negative association with it because,
of somebody in my life who, who had it.
- I got a little bit older.
I kept hearing family members talking about
some sort of mental illness that I didn't fully comprehend.
- Um, when I first heard he got diagnosed with schizophrenia,
when I was about 11 or 12,
I didn't know anything about it.
[Krishna] I felt very different. I didn't feel like myself.
I was very frightened.
It's like an intense fear going through your body
Like you just almost got hit by a car,
except that didn't shut off.
For many, many months.
I was frightened to go to the door.
I was frightened to talk to people.
For some reason, I was very, very like into this intense fear.
So my brain was like, my mind. I'm trying to make sense of like,
why are you so scared all the time? Like what's going on?
And then, uh,
that turned into also anxiety.
So I'd still try and force myself to go out,
uh, on, on at times.
And
there were really weird hallucination that I didn't actually acknowledge as a hallucination.
It was so natural that,
I didn't catch it. So...
I'd be talking to my friends and every now and again,
one friend would be going like this,
and be like, Hey Chris, how you doing? And you know
it's nice to see you and I'd be like,
well, okay, why is he doing that? Maybe his eye hurts or something.
And then the odd time they'd be going like this.
That was the other hallucination.
And this would kind of repeat on different people.
until one time I thought like, like, why are they doing this?
So I asked one friend, I'm like,
you know, like, what are you guys like trying to tell me
keep doing this and this
And then I saw the shock, on my friend's face like,
I don't know what you're talking about.
And I realize all that fear,
the anxiety.
And now these hallucinations,
I was able to identify that a lot of times
that's very difficult for someone who has schizophrenia.
[Kristy] When we got married,
We were at first. Okay.
It was okay. It was like a, a study.
The first few years
I wasn't giving him the support I should have.
Um, in hindsight, I realized that
not long after we were married,
I did not deal with it well.
I like being married. I loved being married.
Don't get me wrong.
There was a part of me that felt,
with him being
basically zombie zone
with the medication,
it was, bringing me down
in a sense that
I didn't feel like, we would have a life.
I did not cope well with it
at first, I thought I could.
I couldn't. I think that had I been more open about it,
had I, had someone like,
tell me, Hey, by the way,
yeah, you can hang out with your friends, but you have a husband at home.
I was up,
during the day.
And, he would be sleeping because of the medication.
So he would be up all night.
So there was only like a small window and,
I didn't take advantage of that.
I left it.
and it really, really hurt
our marriage
and really, really hurt him.
You have to,
work out
a schedule.
once or twice a month,
not every weekend or,
every, you know, every other day or something.
um,
or and make date nights.
Is there something we can play do together?
Can we play a game together?
Can we watch a movie together?
Just find something that you can, do even if,
even if your schedule is only overlapping
where both of you are awake for two hours, three hours.
Him sleeping a lot.
It basically is a tranquilizer.
it's so tranquilizers we'll dock them out.
Um, then we got a different medication. It was complete changed.
So, it does take time to find the medication.
It's a matter of talking with the doctors.
That's another thing is making sure you're talking with the doctors,
because the doctors are
also trying to figure it out for you because there's no,
one size fits all for medications.
Just make sure that,
the person bill is in there.
I didn't nurture it.
And the medication didn't help.
But once that all changed,
that person came back. They're not lost.
I thought I was doing okay.
I thought we were doing well,
kind of awesome times,
but buried my head because
I didn't know how to,
come back from it properly.
I didn't know
the conversation I should have had,
or the questions I should have had.
And it's taken me a while. Sometimes I still do that.
I still can be a detriment,
but I am trying to be better about that
because you don't ever want to be like I failed at this.
I...
realized that he had a lot more energy,
a lot more determination than I did.
And I had to keep up with that.
And that was a huge change for me
because, I wasn't used to someone
who also pushed, tried to push me
and has pushed me.
I have seen this person become way,
I'm going to use, keep using these words,
focused and determined.
He still got that 120% drive,
The bodybuilding, it's his mental awareness
mental awareness of others wanting to take that drive
that he used when he first changed medications
and took that 200,
that 155 person, (take a deep breath)
He took that person
and is now at a spot where
they have called,
call east together, together
and have come cohesive.
And he's using that drive
and what he wants to do to help people together.
So, the schizophrenia,
and it's not the forefront for me
because now I see a person who is just,
they want to do good
for others who have this illness, because,
he's done a lot of things that many people wouldn't
think that someone who has schizophrenia could do.
It's a huge change.
And it's day by day
Thursdays, where we get at each other.
There are a lot more days where,
we get along. We're doing things great.
We can laugh with one another.
I feel the dark days are really behind us,
from him being really sick
with the medication taking on to now,
it's a much more balanced the life that we have
In grade nine,
there were six of us scouted from Canada
to, uh, be in the US and trained for a couple months.
And I went home to tell my dad and they all,
I was kind of proud, you know,
six people in all of Canada, that's quite a special... thing.
So, my thing was like, triple jump, long jump and a hundred meters,
The relay four by 100.
So I went to, to ask my dad.
And of course he said, no. (Laughing)
And he didn't give a reason why.
So I lived in the north end a ways away from Kildonan place mall.
So I would take two buses thereafter my day at school.
And come home.
Uh, my dad was a fairly strict guy. So he,
I think he didn't want me to work so much.
Cause he thought maybe it would affect my wanting to go to school.
So what happened was, uh,
he started asking for rent and I'm 15. So of course
it would just so he could,
kind of push them around a little bit.
And I'm one of those people I don't like, I'll take bullying for a while,
But if you bully me to a point where,
because I've put in a lot of my own things, like I'm going to stand up for it.
Right. So,
probably wasn't the greatest move,
But I, ended up saying to him, uh,
you know, I think 80% of my check,
if I'm taking two buses to go to work,
you know, that's quite a bit, right? So,
ah, he, he basically put the thing out there.
Like if you don't like it, you can go,
in fact, you should just go.
You said you should, you shouldn't even live here
So I did, I just,
grabbed my stuff and left.
I stayed, I stayed at my brother's for a week or maybe a month.
I was working. I dropped out of school,
um, which caused some problems with, uh,
I guess a lot of people didn't kind of know what happened
in the religion we were in. So,
kind of made them a little bit upset,
but I don't think they understood what was happening
in our family.
What happened was I ended up rooming with someone.
They had schizophrenia.
And this is where I started to realize that,
people can have these health problems.
So the roommate I had was just, he was such a nice person,
but he wasn't well,
so every day he'd come home
and we had to share a room right.
Cause it wasn't really rich. It was in the
downtown area on Wolseley
Wolseley and Maryland is pretty much where I, where I lived there.
And, uh, I was very ill prepared,
And I'm not going to school. And now I'm going to work every day.
I wasn't making a hell of a lot of money.
So it was, quite something to learn how to budget
money,
Make my own food,
buy my groceries,
And you know,
half the time I would either have to make a choice of,
eating food,
or...
taking a bus to work.
I wouldn't always be able to do both.
And, uh, I didn't have
proper winter clothes. So,
a lot of times it was
pretty cold.
One person was very nice and, and uh,
they gave me a pair of gloves,
but most people didn't even ask,
you know, how you're doing or
Do you need any help?
Um, that kind of thing, uh,
I noticed was very prevalent
in the way I was treated.
I would wear earmuffs and they would snap in half.
Like you put an air Muff on,
that part would break sometimes on the way home.
Cause it was so cold.
So then I would have to walk like (laughing)
this with the gloves.
So that's quite a distance from downtown until Kildonan Place.
So I'd have to walk that a lot,
and not eat every day.
So it wasn't that enjoyable.
So I realized,
Okay, life isn't very easy.
And the, the guy I was rooming with was very unwell.
So a lot of nights I didn't get a
good sleep, but,
uh, and I don't blame the, the fellow.
Um, I, I think to a lot of bad things that happened to him.
So he would come home,
from work.
you know, he would shovel snow and things like that.
And, uh,
you know, with his schizophrenia, he would think the bus driver wanted to,
kill him
And I have to talk him through this, at night.
And I'm 15.
So it was kind a like unnerving to think that,
somebody really, and he really did believe it.
He was a little delusional, but,
he had this paranoia in him that somebody was trying to hurt him.
It was one of those things where I learned how to be
really compassionate.
And not angry. You know,
I realized too, I was very lucky at that point
to be able to,
rationalize things.
uh, at about 16 or 17,
some family members. And I don't want to mention
what happened exactly because it's,
these people have to live a life and it's been many years ago.
Um, two family members,
I think one intentionally,
uh, took me out and I was,
under age. Um,
we went to a, uh, social
that was out of town.
And anyhow,
he brought some friends with him they are a little bit rowdy. And,
we went to someone's house,
uh, after
for whatever reason it started attacking me. And,
And the one fellow almost killed me.
when I got dropped off, whom I got raped by the
one of the person's wives.
then thrown out of my religion because they,
were all in this religion. And they all kind of had the story that,
it was my fault
So it was one of those things. Now I don't have a family to talk to
because in our religion,
if you do something wrong
and you don't repent,
what happens is,
your family will not talk to you.
because now,
you're not repentant. Then you've turned your back on God,
according to them.
So in my mind, uh, they were taught this thing where
if you,
if you don't turn to God,
you're going to die.
So I actually thought I was going to die, for
four years after,
uh, until I realized,
a little bit more about life, right.
So, I was kind of depressed.
and I didn't really have much contact with family.
And I'm a young person who's just been raped and beaten.
So there was a lot of problems
that I was going through at that point.
And I wasn't in school.
Who could you talk to at that point? Right?
Because you can't talk to your friends about something like that.
Right. I didn't really have a whole lot to begin with
because I was working,
uh, I was younger than everyone
in the work that I was at.
So there isn't anyone who's really like that age that works.
Full time!
uh, most people are in school,
so I didn't really have anyone to talk to.
I just kind of managed it through exercise and,
self-improvement, and
I made a lot of mistakes. I've gone and got into, uh,
some people who were,
uh, you know, very kind to me.
And they gave me an opportunity.
I got involved in that.
and I did very well,
But when I started to realize that it's, uh,
it's not who I am, I'm a good person.
I kind of left that.
I met this guy named, Henry.
He goes by Hendrix.
First of all,
this guy had an incredible physique.
It's one of those things when you're into working out,
and you see someone like at that level,
you're like,
wow,
I didn't know Winnipeg had that.
And so this guy was like,
uh, kind of took me under his wing.
If it wasn't for him, I would not have known I was,
that good at stuff.
or had any kind of potential.
I just kind of went and did stuff.
And was a very determined person.
But I wasn't aware,
that, that was even a talent.
I think he kind of realized I had a raw deal.
He didn't know a lot about my life. I don't think.
so, He took me to the gym and you know,
worked out with me a bit and,
introduced me to like cool people.
Um, so I, I met like
the who's who of kind of like the,
like the bodybuilding community really.
And I don't have experience of working out with bodybuilders
or any body building community.
Those communities don't really start for,
for kids at that time period.
This was back in the, in the late nineties,
the way things are now, aren't the way they were back then.
Okay. So you didn't have people my age
hanging out with
the guys who were winning Mr. Manitoba, and all this stuff.
took me to these people that really were inspiring
and that were goal getters.
So he would take me to, um,
the gym. He bought my gym memberships.
He helped me learn how to diet. So,
all I could afford was tuna,
broccoli and rice.
He took me to my first show.
I didn't never seen a bodybuilding show live.
And then, uh, this music starts playing that like
flex Wheeler poses too.
I'm like, well, what's this music.
And then flex Wheeler comes out
and it's like, and he's in shape.
And I was actually so star struck, I couldn't even say hi,
But actually seeing him on stage,
And then some of the amateur guys,
I realized that I could, uh, can maybe do this thing.
So that kind of inspired me to, to actually do it,
to do the bodybuilding.
So my first show was, uh,
at 19,
I went into the juniors.
Now the junior class I happened to go into (Laughing)
was so ridiculously stacked.
It was probably the, one of the best classes you could ever have
as a junior.
So that was my first taste of bodybuilding
And I went up there like a show off and,
and did the robot,
uh, the crowd loved it.
I'll tell you right now, most of the time, when you have a
19 year old bodybuilder,
they don't know anything about posing, especially back then.
Now there are a lot better because they actually practice,
but it was, it's usually just kind of comical when they,
when we go up there and we're young.
Um, it was for me really.
The next year I got to 159
and it was the qualifier. So I had to qualify for the
men's division.
I weighed 159. So I was the second heaviest in my class.
I ended up taking a second place there
out of all the men at 20,
because I didn't win the qualifier,
and I'm a super competitive person.
I decided to put things
into overdrive.
So I started developing and learning all these different, um,
workouts that were just like ridiculously high reps.
So I'd be so ripped.
There should be no,
question.
So there was this guy, uh,
Brian duet, who
would do 30 reps on his hack squat per set.
So I started upping at the 50
when I would do leg extensions.
Uh, I would do 90 reps, a set.
So I just went crazy with
it was lighter weight. So when I would do the hacks squats,
for an example, it was just one plate aside, like saw 45 and 45,
on a hacks squat
And when I would do a leg extensions,
it would be 90 pounds on it, but it was very light 90 pounds.
The whole idea was
to just do so much hard work,
uh, so much cardio
that there's no one who's working harder than me.
It's not possible,
Not possible for someone to eat better and work harder.
Uh, and my work paid off.
So when I went to the, uh,
uh, provincials, there was this guy named
Brad Campbell,
Really competitive. He was about 37. I think
he, he did well a lot.
In fact, a couple of years later, he won the overall.
So he was a very good bodybuilder.
It was an honor to really be onstage with a person of that quality.
So I ended up winning and Brad got second.
um,
which, I mean, I was,
it was such a relief and,
I went home to visit.
So I hadn't been home
in a long, long time.
Okay,
So it was kind of nervous for me.
And when I went home,
my mom was downstairs. My dad was,
you know, I said hi to him or whatever.
It was kind of normal. He was very nice.
The man cared. He wanted me to,
uh,
be really intelligent the way he wanted me to be.
He thought he could force it
out of a person.
Um, and I think I still have that kind of intelligence
just in a different way
that he wanted.
So I just want people to realize this.
He didn't mean, well,
he just didn't have,
he's not from our country. So,
and he wasn't treated very well.
So anyhow, I, I come back home,
and I hear this scream
right away like, um,
Okay. So,
I've lived on my own for awhile.
I know what different noises mean,
different noises, sometimes signal problems.
And I heard something
and I saw, I broke through the door.
The door was locked in the bathroom.
My dad was beside the toilet shaking
and his mouth was forming and the toilet was full of blood.
It was leaking over the top. It was blood.
So I yelled down stairs for my mum to, uh,
phone the ambulance.
And, uh, they came low and behold and,
quick, just quick enough to save his life.
Um, after that, it was found out he had like some kind of prostate cancer.
And uh, they, they said something about the timeframe he had and,
because of my background, working
at Sears health, food, and fitness,
And we had people come in who had cancer.
And it's not something that works on everyone.
I hope people don't get this. And think
this is saying that this stuff cures,
it doesn't,
it doesn't always work. I think the type he had,
uh, it helped reduce his cancer
to such a small extent that it wasn't a problem anymore.
At least he says,
you never know sometimes with a parent, what they might say,
you know, to please their child.
So he was doing well.
Um, so I'm, um, I'm fast forwarding now to,
you know, my dad and I are good type thing.
Um, he was supporting me.
So I'm not used to people coming to watch my shows that are family.
I didn't have anyone
Now at 20,
my dad and my mom, I paid for their ticket.
And I said, you guys have no excuse.
You guys are coming. (Laughing)
So they came.
and, uh,
you know what? I didn't expect my dad to be that proud.
Uh, it's something that really today,
if anyone feels that their dad is hard on them
or their mom or some kind of family member,
um, is hating on them or whatever they feel,
you never know until,
you in the future. Okay. So please,
if you're feeling like that, think about that in that way.
The people that came up to my dad to shake his hand and
thank him
And to,
give compliments about his son, because
I'm a very polite and kind hearted person, I guess
my reputation was so good
that my dad,
when he was hearing this, because he used to meeting these people and
seeing this bodybuilding for the first time
He was so overwhelmed.
And he said to me,
I don't think he said this to anyone.
He said about being very proud of me.
And I had never, uh,
experienced that before from,
uh, my dad.
I never had,
you know, you're doing good or you're proud. I'm proud of you or,
there's anything, if anything, I was called dumb (Laughing)
all the time. So,
uh, it was kind of nice to get his respect
and he respected the reputation
more than the bodybuilding.
But what he said, when he was watching in the audience,
he's like,
son, you should,
you should start doing this.
You know,
you should be like, you should do this professionally.
And I was like, what?
Cause that's like the last thing my dad would ever sees, the
scientists for crying out loud. Right.
So he thought I should be
doing this professionally.
Cause I guess he could see the age and all those different things. Right,
So I qualified for this, uh, nationals. And
uh, for some reason, I started getting sick.
Okay. So I started getting paranoid
and uh, I didn't think much of my paranoia
I thought it was just like, it was real.
Like I was, people were out to get me or whatever.
My dad was like, son, I set up a place for you to go.
It was in Toronto
He really wanted me to go.
And you know what I should have because
the, the guy that I beat,
he ended up getting third and was in flex magazine.
I got to find out, I had a lot in common with him and
he was not a bad guy.
It's probably the most special time in my life. Was that,
not the bodybuilding so much,
But getting to know the person that
I had the problem with,
uh, in my life,
that at the same time, I never really ever hated my dad.
I always loved him.
I always did believe that he was misunderstood
and he wanted the best for me.
There's a genuineness about what he did.
Now, There are others out there
maybe who are in situations like that,
where it's not genuine. And the person genuinely is trying to hurt you.
But with my dad, I don't think it was
because when I did leave home
and I came back, it was a totally different story.
So he had changed his entire life.
He became a much more mellow guy.
He was looking out for me.
Um, he did a lot of
kind things for me on that job.
He taught me how to be a person who looks ahead,
who, uh, learns how to manage things.
So in doing that job with him,
we got to know each other very well.
And he would tell me he was proud and he taught me how to drive.
I didn't know how to drive.
Um, so I don't drive now because of my illness
because the medicine. But, uh,
I remember coming home from the, uh,
the job one day
and I saw the ambulance is outside the house.
And I had just talked to my dad.
I was negotiating for a higher contract.
My dad phoned me.
It must've been the last words he said,
ever to anyone.
And it was about an hour before I got home
or half an hour.
He said, uh,
don't take anything less than,
a 90
So the, my subsidy was 90 per day.
So I was going to get $90 a day in addition to what I would make
in the district in doing that, uh,
I listened to him.
So I turned the job down
and it was probably a good idea because I kind of needed him for that job.
And so when I got home, uh,
you know, the ambulance and the
paramedics are there and, uh,
you know, my dad died. So,
it's the last I saw of him,
but I can't think
whatever's out there if there's a God or whatever.
I can't think that enough,
before having that time with him, where I did really get to know
who that person is.
Um, and I got to understand why he did
what he did.
So I have,
a bunch of people in the family. I have a,
I have two brothers,
I have an oldest brother
and I have one that's close to me,
in age.
and I have one that's passed away.
He was a bit, he was the second oldest.
Um, he died at a
age before I was even born.
So I never got to meet him.
Uh, I have, uh,
the oldest in our family is my sister.
So, that's that's our family.
So the oldest brother,
he has severe autism.
So he hasn't lived with the family ever
from when I've been alive,
he's always been in a group home.
So we would always have to go visit him,
or, you know, he had a bunch of people watching him.
He was not, well, he can't actually talk properly.
or communicate very well. He can say the odd word.
Uh, he's very troubled in the sense that, uh,
he's in a lot of pain.
So he's pulled his teeth out of his face, like the front tooth
He's pulled them out of his face.
He's tried to rip his ears off.
Uh, he's pulled hair out of his head.
Uh, so he's a very sick person.
And these things to me,
when people
kind of laugh at someone who may have autism,
maybe it's more mild than what my brother has
or laugh at someone with down syndrome
or laugh at someone with schizophrenia. They make a joke.
I know they don't really mean those things,
but I kind of look at my brother. And I think like,
can you imagine going through that?
I'm sure in his mind, in some way
he understands sort of what's going on in life.
They have,
they cry too. They have feelings.
They miss their family too.
They want to be loved.
And I think really,
if people just take the time to be caring
and loving
you break down the reason for them to feel paranoid,
the reason for someone to feel guilty,
the reason for someone to feel like they're ashamed
or someone like,
my brother, who's very ill.
Uh, the reason for him to feel like an outcast or that he doesn't belong.
So I think if people were just,
embracing these individuals,
I know it's a very tough thing to do
because it's not a natural thing when somebody is different.
But the toughest moment, I think, uh,
mentally for me sat like
as far as like crying,
was, um,
seeing the funeral,
my dad had always been very kind to,
that brother.
So my brother, he had to learn what death was.
He didn't know what that meant.
I saw him with his handlers come in,
and it was an open casket,
but he's calling out to my dad,
dad, wake up!
He doesn't really talk much, but, this year that,
that got to me in such a way, I think maybe even triggered,
uh, the schizophrenia much further.
because I realized,
as much as I'm sad. And I had my dad the whole time,
even though it was kind of broken up,
he never had him.
and he didn't even know what death was.
And he's finding out at the funeral
that this, uh, person stopped living at a certain point.
He had no one telling him this.
So he was trying to touch him in the casket.
And then he started crying like,
in such a way that was so, uh,
it hurts because I could feel it,
I could feel his pain,
and his confusion.
And it was probably the most terrible thing I've ever felt.
[Paul] So remembering back,
I really didn't know my real father,
he had left when I was three,
basically did it for the safety of my mother.
And I didn't know for years, like my sister and my mother,
held that back from me.
Uh, maybe think, I, I wouldn't understand.
And I did, um,
turns out he had schizophrenia.
And, you know, I didn't know about that. Right,
Um, I remember back when I was like,
I want to say six or seven,
um, we would have you know, visitations,
and my mother would just take me downtown
and we sit down and we'd have AW and
very soft-spoken individual, like,
looking back, I could probably see the pain.
He wished he probably could have been born with life, but
also distant, like,
you know, knowing about schizophrenia,
uh, you know, it takes a whole different life. And it,
I know it, it,
you know, it tore my mom's soul. because you know,
he was the love of her life.
They got married, very young,
um, had my sister and myself
and, um,
fortunately, uh, things happened were, for the safety of the family,
he had to make the decision,
to leave.
And, you know, I, I know him today
my mother hurts. Sometimes I'll
I'll play a song on the radio and she'll start
tearing up a bit.
And I know it's because perhaps she's remembering to,
um, the yesteryears, you know,
the way it was.
and my sister recounts that you would see him on the bus,
but they never really exchanged words or anything.
He was at a halfway house for a number of, number of years.
Actually, not that far, I'm going to say within five minutes,
He never approached the house.
He was obviously, there were respectful.
One day he literally,
showed up at the front door.
And he asked me how I was doing?, how was my sister?
He asked, How is my mother? I said, you know, my mom's happily remarried.
He, he did seem happy, but he also seemed distant.
And at that time, I knew he had mental issues, but
I never really asked.
So it wasn't until after that he left,
I called my sister up, she came over, we had the discussion.
She says, well, he had schizophrenia.
And I was like,
what, I did know this.
And I knew some details, but I really had to do my
research after the fact, because
I didn't know anything about mental illnesses at all,
you know, and then I figured out, no, what happened? And
my sister told me what happened
my mother told me what happened,
looking back, um,
you know, I'm glad he did it.
Um, you know, um,
break some hearts that he had to, but,
um, I respect him, left him for making that decision
for the safety of the family.
Um, it wouldn't be until years later,
um,
my mother brought it to my attention that
my father and his mother had passed away
and it was in the story And I took the decision to seek out,
uh, what would be my
first cousin.
And I said, listen to what happened to my real father.
And it turned out six or seven years previous to that.
Um, he had committed himself to Selkirk institution,
out on his own free will.
Um, I ended up going out there by myself
and visiting him and, you know, that was,
quite the experience.
Um, he was, you know, obviously older.
um,
Um, and then I introduced myself as it's me, Paul, your son.
and
and then he hit me, like he went, he wasn't violent or anything like that, but,
he sat there and his mind instantly went to,
oh, you you're not him.
I'm going to call the FBI. I'm going to call the RCMP. And,
you kow, because obviously it triggered something to him
because he still thinks of me
as that little boy.
He doesn't know,
he stuck in the past, I guess,
you know, he doesn't know that. So I obviously I stopped pressing,
and I just simply asked, how are you?, are you happy here?
He still paints. Um,
When he was younger, he actually did advertising
and he was still doing up until many years ago. Um,
and then I took a tour of the facility, uh, with his,
uh, psychologist, you know, the person looked after him there
and he was still painting and,
he's quite talented. My sister actually has
one of his drawings. He did when he was
very young, incredibly talented,
um, you know, unfortunately
schizophrenia, um, took the best of him away.
Um, and now I know there's various levels of schizophrenia.
Um, one of my best friends, I personally consider him like a brother.
Uh, Chris,
uh, when I first met Chris,
I didn't know he had schizophrenia.
I just saw a big guy working nights at the gym
who is approachable, teaching me things. And then
I think it was a
couple of weeks after I met him. He said,
oh, by the way I have schizophrenia, if,
if I could deal with this,
I can help you deal. I can teach you the tools.
You need, to become a better,
better self. And he really did.
um,
and it wasn't until later I told him, Hey, by the way,
you know, I know, about schizophrenia, my
father had it or has it.
and,
I didn't,
tell him. I didn't,
notice anything normal. It was until later,
you know, he showed me the medications and,
until I really got me, he quickly invited me over to his house.
He really opened himself up to me. Like I,
I never seen anyone who welcomed me so quickly
and to his, his, his home in it. And it's hard. Like he
told me everything about his life.
Like he was an open book
there, there was, there was no hidden secrets. He didn't want to do that.
until he actually brought it to my attention.
Uh that's, that's the weird thing about it is
I, I, to me, when I think schizophrenia, I think
person talking out loud,
disassociated, you know, um, it's like, they're separate from reality
and Chris, wasn't this, you know,
I, I, then I learned there's,
various levels of how it can affect a person,
how some people can feel it better than others.
And, you know, unfortunately he wasn't able to...
[Kris] This fellow named Paul walks in, he was about 370, I think he said,
uh, maybe 75.
and uh,
I could tell, by the way he walked in, he had like anxiety. It was like,
two in the morning,
he was on regular. So I talked to, uh, he would walk in like this kind of,
you know, big guy.
And when he would go on the,
elliptical, he'd be on the for 90 minutes, almost
like 80, 90 minutes somewhere in there.
So this guy could work out, really hard,
but he didn't know what he was doing.
So I knew like if I was able to,
approach him in a way where he's not going to be,
uh, anxious around me,
I could probably help him lose a lot of weight
or at least get
more confidence in unbelt, like what he's able to do. Cause he's,
can you imagine, uh, just for people
just thinking about it, if you're,
if you're nearly 400 pounds and you can do cardio for 90 minutes on an elliptical,
it's almost like jogging for 90 minutes.
It's really the same thing.
It's just without the weight on your joints.
So you gotta be in fairly good strength
and health to do that.
And that's, to me that's extremely impressive,
especially since he was in about his mid thirties
there. So,
um,
that's not an easy feat to do.
That's very hard. And he would come in at night and he would do that
and nobody would see it.
So it was impressive for me to witness this.
Right. I want, uh, I want Paul to know,
that impressed the hell out of me
to see someone try hard and when no one's watching.
Okay?
So anyhow, eventually I regained his, uh,
I started to gain his confidence.
And I started to explain to him like, you know, what
was wrong with me. And I have schizophrenia and anxiety. I understand,
the difficulties of things, etc, etc
So I started to become friends with this, uh, this nice guy.
[Paul] So, over the years, you know, I
made some attempts to go to the gym.
I remember an old, boss of mine.
um, we are not really friends anymore anyways,
but he tried to get me to go into the wellness center.
I tried that, my anxiety was too much though.
Uh, so hark you know, back to, I was 34
back in say, let's say,
fall of 2016,
early 2017, I started going to good life.
and like, two in the morning,
you can imagine the big hoodie,
not anxiety was so bad.
I didn't want to deal anyway. I didn't wanna touch on, if anyone came near me,
I didn't want to deal with them.
And I knew nothing about the gym.
I knew nothing. Right. um,
but I looked at bodybuilding. I was like,
strange! you know, but all I, all I cared about was,
just getting fit.
So I would get on the treadmill,
and I would just walk.
And,
walk and walk and walk.
like we're talking like sometimes two hours.
And the incliner would get higher. And then,
like, and then that's how I met Kris.
Um, I didn't know, Kris, like,
obviously saw me looking back.
He told me how it was when I first there, how,
he could tell the body language. He could see,
um, the anxiety,
the depression without like
it was coming off of me, ebbs and flows, basically.
I'm sure it was, you could sense it.
Um, He approached me slowly.
Um, I just saw this big muscly guy, you know,
um, big smile, but I could tell he was, he was very gentle.
He knew how to approach me.
And he started teaching me,
um, different aspects, how to approach things,
how not to push myself.
That was a key thing was
I was like,
from standstill to just go, go, go to the point
where I would hurt myself,
like being the way that I was
my knee, specially my left knee now,
it's, it's, it's pretty bad.
So, um, you know,
trying to lose the weight more weight, um,
at this point now I'm
just a little over 300, I think,
uh, put on quite a bit of muscle guys at the gym, or,
I mean, obviously it's been three years to work
ups and downs,
but exercise has really taught me
discipline.
and you know, everything's connected,
healthy mind, healthy body, healthy mind.
Um, like the fogginess has gone.
Obviously,
being physical fit people look at me differently.
They approach me differently.
A lot of people just saw this,
overweight.
Obviously people say, stay strong. I guess. I mean,
just being the size. I was, I was always strong, but
obviously covered under like 200 pounds of fat basically.
um,
it really put a hindrance on myself. I didn't
try things that I wanted to do. Different jobs I wanted to do.
because I was so scared of how people will look at me, like,
I hated bending over and,
you know, everything that comes with being overweight,
if anyone's ever been my size, how
hard it could be,
you know, being stuck, going to Mr. Big at all
and wearing four X shirts,
um, jeans and you know,
It was rough.
Uh, so now I'm down to about a,
uh, two X. Um,
I've learned to get more, uh,
you know, uh, comfortable with myself.
Um, I mean, everyone knows, these shirts,
I went decades as well. I, you've never seen me walk around with just a t-shirt
Now I'll get to the point where I have find walking around on a t-shirt. You can,
when I'm not, you can see my traps, you can see my shoulders, my back.
Like I can pull down,
basically all the way. It's a good life on the back. When I'm doing, working out my back,
uh, you know, see a lot of people looking at me now going,
yeah, he's a big guy, but
holy crap, he can push a lot of weight.
So I get a lot of respect the aspects, you know, I get,
you know, you know, the,
the gym addict and your fist bumps, all that stuff
while I was like, can't do it now with COVID.
Uh, um,
it's, it's a great atmosphere.
I've made a lot of friends.
Um, actually some of my best friends,
I have now met at the gym because a lot of them have
gone through the hardships and some of them have really opened up to me.
You know, I'm not the only one who's dealt with
depression, anxiety, all my life,
uh, new doors, and windows have been opened to,
everyone, a lot of people have gone through things,
but because society has been set up in a way where
it's taboo to, you know, have a
mental disorder or,
anything, you know, that's not normal.
Um, everyone's learned that it's okay to
be a bit broken, a little bit.
Everyone's gone through things and
I've become more comfortable with myself.
I I'm, I find them more approachable
and confidence. That's the key thing, its,
it's confidence. I didn't have any before for
a couple of decades.
And now I do.
- you know, I think we went real hard for about, uh,
three or four months, something like that for months
And he lost,
uh, it must've been around 65 pounds
in, uh, in a very short time.
And his confidence and his life just really changed.
I remember, getting him to grab, uh,
like in total, I think he was, uh, 430, I think he said 438.
So he went from 438. He lost a lot on his own. And then,
a little bit with my help. He got down to 306. That's a lot of weight.
In fact, we didn't have a dumbbell in the gym,
like one on one arm dumbbell that was that heavy.
So one day I asked him to grab like a, I think it was 70 pounds.
Cause that's what he lost with me.
And I remember it being like a big deal to me,
uh, that he lost the 70 pounds.
And I know it was for him too, but I would get them to do all these crazy workouts
because the guy was so strong.
If you can do 90 minutes of cardio, like, what else can you do?
You can do a lot of stuff. You just need to learn.
So he walked around with the 70 pound dumbbell.
I made him walk around the gym a whole bunch of times until he couldn't
and then he put it down. I'm like, how do you feel when you put that weight down?
And he's like, well, you know, I feel pretty good.
Like a way better, you know, than carrying it.
So you tired. He's like, yeah. I'm like, well,
you used to carry that weight around four months ago
all the time.
And you just put it down,
you know, don't put it back on your body.
So that was a teaching point for me to him that
you're capable of so much. Um,
your strength is not always witnessed by everyone, but it's still
very, very strong, very powerful,
even if people don't see it.
So you could, uh, you could have that kind of strength and not know it sometimes.
So he would do at night job.
I remember, uh, realizing that he,
worked the same job for quite some time at night,
uh, at McDonald's and
the guy's like extremely intelligent.
So one thing that I wanted
was a kind of like a mission for me, for him to see his intelligence
and his strength.
And to realize he could do something during the day.
and have like a regular evening and night.
Um, he didn't have to live his life this way,
the rest of his life.
And eventually did come to that where he got a warehouse job. He was,
you know, doing things in the daytime and working out at a regular time in the gym,
as he was very shy to do that before.
And now he's working at a call center.
He does goes to the gym every day on his own.
He's doing all these great things that he didn't think he would ever.
I remember him telling me specific.
There's no way I could do that.
I said really?
Is there any way, most people who are that weight in my mind, I'm thinking,
can they do 90 minutes of cardio? And then,
like, cause sometimes he was working out four hours at the gym
for hours and he's
big guy, you know?
And it wasn't the thing, even big weights.
And I remember looking at him like you can lift a lot of weight in my own mind.
So one, one time I started getting him to strength training,
and he was, uh, I think he would put on the Olympic bar, 10 pounds on each side.
So that's, the bar weighs 45 pounds and then just 10 and 10.
SO that's 55, 65 pounds.
And he would never go above that. He would yell if you put more weight on it.
So now, you know what, this guy's benching is 225 pounds in the gym.
Yeah.
And he's one of the strongest guys, usually in the gym.
So, this is the, this is what
a person has in them a lot of times,
sometimes you're carrying the pain and the anxiety too much.
We're not sure that strength.
and what's, what are you going to lose? You know, what are you gonna lose by that?.
[Ainzli] My first experience with it, um,
was in the hospital and BC, and she had admitted Peter for,
because he was having an episode.
He didn't think he was sick. So he was like trying to escape the hospital.
I was so young. I didn't understand like what was happening.
So it was really traumatic. Like,
we're like running through the hospital, trying to find him
when I was like 12,
Um, he was like living in a trailer in the driveway. Like it was,
it was not, he was not in a good space.
He just refused to help the whole time.
Um, and he was very, paranoid.
Like, he was big into conspiracy theories.
And I was so young that I didn't understand.
So it really would like affect me, you know? Like I would,
hear him talking about these things and I'd think it was so real
because I didn't have the understanding to like
differentiate that like,
okay, this is conspiracy theories that he's clearly gone down this rabbit hole. You know?
the first time I heard schizophrenia, I was probably about two or three,
right from that first time in the hospital.
That's the only correlation I had so far. I was so young. I didn't have much.
And I learned about it
because of somebody in my life who had it.
I feel like my relationship with him wasn't so negative yet.
His first language is French.
So I was helping him learn English just by day-to-day,
life.
I think at the beginning it was very positive.
I just had fear around the word schizophrenia because I was so young.
I didn't understand.
His illness really started getting hard. Like it really affected my mom.
Like he was, really controlling.
So yeah, like I saw it like affect her a lot,
but we always stayed strong as a family.
My mom,
My mom always drove home like, love is all you need.
So having our little family
we were there for each other and that's, that's definitely what got me through it.
all throughout growing up, my mom was very active with us.
I was in ballet when I was five.
We were in four H, I did like public speaking.
I was in kickboxing when I was 12.
I was never really big into team sports. But
even just having that reason to leave and go see friends at four H
friends at swimming,
we were in all kinds of stuff.
Community is really big.
Peter, didn't have much of a community.
He had a few friends, but I feel like he was a lot more reclusive as the years went on.
We went to church from,
I was quite young when we started going like eight maybe
And we went well into my teens.
And so he had some friends at church, but
no real other community for him that wasn't, I don't think that was the healthiest.
There was so much less,
conversation about it and,
how hard that must have been for him to admit that to
himself, even that he was sick. You know, when there
there's so much more conversation now and we know that like, it's something that you can deal with and
still live a perfectly,
fulfilled life.
The medication the doctor gave me
which is not his fault, it's what they're supposed to prescribe
at the time was called a olanzapine.
And so Talopram, I think were the two
very quickly within,
three to five years, I think it was my weight doubled
from bodybuilding.
to just being overweight, from the medication.
Basically they are very strong tranquilizers that help with the mind in a certain way.
But the side effect is weight gain.
So I gained like,
nearly 150 pounds.
I was 315 pounds at the height, of everything,
bumping into someone when you're going shopping.
Right. And it was very rare that I went out, but
sometimes Iwould see someone I knew
and the odd time I had the strength to go and say hi to them.
And they didn't recognize me.
My face didn't look like this.
You probably won't even know it was me. If I was saying hi to you.
my body's gone through so many transformations. It's ridiculous.
I was 315 pounds and I used to compete at 151 at the first show,
155 at the second, 159. So I'm not a big
heavy person, really.
cardio good diet exercise is our regular routine of helping yourself.
Even if you can't do anything else,
if you're a family member,
if they don't like going to a gym, walk outside with the person
or help them in some way, get a treadmill
get a bike, let them sit on an exercise bike
while they're watching something. Just even for five minutes,
it gives them a goal to get another minute in the next time,
these are things that can help them.
And it helped me.
For some time, I've had a heart condition.
For some time, I've had diabetes.
lots of medicines for my blood sugar
even with the medicines, my blood sugar was 20.
So you have diabetes when you're around seven.
So when you, when you're six and above, you have like a mild diabetes.
20 is like, you should be in the emergency
Mine was always around 20 for quite some time.
So the doctor actually at some point, uh, sat me down
and said, well, Kris,
you might have two months to live. You could die any day.
You could live maybe two years. He says, but I'm really don't think it's going to happen.
If you lose a lot of weight,
it'll make a big difference. You might be able to,
continue, uh, doing well.
So one of the reasons why I didn't exercise is, uh,
the medication that they used to use,
And after that was, was Risperidone for a awhile,
they're tranquilizers.
So was extremely difficult
to work out with a tranquilizer,
especially the doses I was had to take.
So eventually a new medicine came out in 2012.
That wasn't yet okay by the FDA, but they put me on, it
was called Abilify.
I continued using that with the, uh, citalopram
and the thing I noticed, I went on a low dosage.
I said to the doctor this time,
listen, I want just a small amount because
you give me a big or small amount.
It seems to do the same thing. It's just like the bigger amount. Just knocks me out.
If I have to lose weight, I need energy.
So I noticed my normal motivation came back.
Okay. My belly was so big. I wore a five XL shirt.
Okay. Even people who are 500 pounds sometimes don't wear a shirt like that.
My stomach was like that.
I literally could put a dinner plate and eat like this off of it.
And I did.
So the very next day I had this little window open, like this.
I'm like, screw this, I'm opening the door, I'm walking.
So I walked outside like that with that big stomach,
I think I lasted nine and a half minutes total.
So I walked five minutes, one way.
And I started getting shin splints on my shins were swelling.
I was out of breath because I had a heart condition.
And then I walked back home.
and I had a big smile on my face. Cause I knew I was going to do it again tomorrow.
And I was pouring sweat for nine and a half minutes.
Every day I added another minute or two,
until the, uh, about two weeks, I started getting a little bit fit.
And at the end of the month, it was an hour and a half,
nearly two hours
of walking every day. I didn't miss one day.
I changed my diet.
I changed my mindset and I think the medication help
and these things I did by myself, there wasn't a family member
aying, you know what? You got to,
we don't wantyou to die. We're going to walk with you.
No one cared enough
about me to walk with me.
And that is something I still am very, uh, I guess I could say a little upset.
So please, if you're somebody, who is in a family
and you have the ability to help that person, please,
if it's just 10 minutes,
I know when something is like two hours of walking could be a lot.
If you can do some of it with that person, it will help them to do it.
Maybe in some ways, the fact that I did it myself
was good because then now I didn't have to rely on anyone.
But it was like, when I got back from the walk, it wasn't somebody saying,
Hey, you know, you did a good thing by doing this.
So there was no support.
In fact, when I got back home, people were like, well,
Do you really need to walk that much? Do you really need this? Do you really need to eat that?
You really need to not eat this.
So it was very difficult.
I had to kind of just kinda zone those things out and worry about my health.
And uh,
the next, so that first month I lost 30 pounds
just by doing that.
I didn't have enough money for a gym.
And that was to schizophrenia to go to a gym. I'm going to tell you that right now,
it started going up to four hours.
So from one month,
nine and a half minutes,
end of the month, nearly two hours
next month, it was about four hours each day, each day,
not one day off, even in the rain,
walked again and I ate properly and I got more motivated now.
because now I lost another 30 pounds in the first three months.
My snoring went away after I lost 60.
Okay. So the first two months was 60 pounds.
Third month diabetes has gone.
It's not there anymore.
Within six months, I lost all the weight. Some days I was walking, uh,
six hours.
So a lot of days where like that near the end.
And then I realized I got to go to a gym. This is not very efficient.
Um, and I didn't have a lot of money,
and I'm gonna thank my mom, who did
house me the whole time,
and help,
quit a bit,
uh, in some ways as best she could.
Uh, she paid for my gym membership at the wellness center.
Now this is where things get very interesting
is the wellness Institute is probably
he lifesaving thing for me.
that got me back into actually having a life that's worth living,
other than just walking outside by yourself,
losing weight and still living is great, but
why not have a life worth living?
So I started going to the wellness center.
Now,
I knew I was going to have to go there.
I didn't want to go to a regular gym because
for me that's very intimidating.
I was a bodybuilder,
I've got schizophrenia. I don't even want someone near me
because I'm afraid.
Basically. I was so afraid of anyone being in near me
that I didn't know what they were going to do to me.
Right. I had this fear of everything.
So what I did to soften that fears, as I'd go on my walk,
I'd walk past the wellness center.
And sometimes I'd walk inside the hospital, which is because it's connected to the,
to the wellness center. And I would look in the window
and there's a big window there. You can look in and just look at the place and,
a couple of times I walked around.
I asked them if I could walk around, take a tour.
I did that. And that was scary for me.
So I desensitize myself slowly.
So, if you have this illness and there's no one helping you,
I'm going to tell you right now, you need to exercise.
You very much need a hobby that's
therapeutic for me, it was video games. Video games saved my life.
Um,
cause if you don't have anyone to talk to or,
do anything, you need something to distract you.
So you either read a lot.
And if you're reading, you should read all kinds of things,
not just, one type of thing.
you should read about, how to get better,
how to improve,
certain kinds of,
things that just have a story.
Uh, all kinds of things.
If you have a hobby, if you like art, if you're a good painter,
and you just enjoy doing it, it's therapeutic
You should do that.
The number one thing is cardio.
A tiny bit of weightlifting. You can do to,
cardio will help heal you the most, your brain and
all those different things in your body.
Those things are so important.
Um,
but it doesn't help you get anywhere.
Exercising will make you in better shape,
You'll make you function better in life.
It'll make you more confident because you're doing something that you can see it's working on you.
It gives you this thing where,
Hey, you know what? I lost 20 pounds. Okay? actually could do something
I have some worth.
And as you do that, maybe you see another person who's not well.
And you tell them, Hey,
why don't you walk with me?
And then you can lose 20 pounds too.
And this is what I started doing this. I started helping people at the gym
when I started going there.
and I would work out with people. I'd be like, well, I was, you know,
the odd time I would strike a conversation with someone.
at first, if someone got near me, I would just kind of back away
and kind of, be scared of them.
But after you're there for a few months,
you get to all the faces seem normal to you.
Right?
So when people's faces seem normal to you, you're desensitized.
And there was this fellow named David
and he was the most outgoing person.
And he took a liking to me and he was social butterfly.
He talked to everybody,
he talked to the receptionist,
he talked to the cleaner
and he was just kindhearted to every human being.
And honestly, I would observe him from far away,
and I was,
very taken by, I used to say to myself, I wish I could communicate,
like that. Like I used to be able to talk like him when I was younger.
I was a very positive and good communicator,
but because of getting sick and being isolated for so long.
And when your schizophrenia, the thoughts that are in your head,
aren't, aren't the greatest.
You see someone who reminds you of what you could be.
right?
And I looked at David I'm like, I would like to talk like that guy.
I would like to be kind like him.
I am kind inside.
I want to show people that kindness.
And so he started befriending me,
if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be having a job.
I wouldn't be able to,
go on stage and compete or believe in anything that I could do.
when David would go talk to people, I would just kind of tag along.
I started to learn how he could talk to people,
about any subject, even if he didn't agree with it, or
if they got offended by him, he would have some way of getting out of the offense.
And the thing that I noticed, he was just very honest and kind,
he would tell people what he liked about them.
And honestly, I think that's within everybody.
It's free to be kind.
It doesn't cost you a penny.
It's free to show your love to people. It's free to give someone a compliment.
It doesn't cost you anything.
So this is something I noticed from David, and I want it to be like that.
And if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't, uh, been able to do it.
I started noticing, Hey, you know what?
I lost all this weight,
It's like over a hundred pounds now, you know, quite a bit over that.
I think it was totally lost very quickly just by walking was like 130.
And, uh, it didn't look the greatest,
but,
so I went through these, uh,
went to my doctor and he said, you know, you qualify for skin removal surgery.
Uh, most of it will be,
could be paid for, it could be covered.
Um, like I brought up to him how I wouldn't show my wife,
what my body looked like.
because it was, pretty terrible looking because, uh,
uh, uh, my skin was like all hanging everywhere. So,
my nipples were down here. So people can see, like there
was like a flap
and the, my skin went down like that and it was empty
It wasn't like fat in it or anything. It was just like the stick skin.
So I went to the doctor and he saw the weight.
He said, I actually had the record, uh, in his practice for the most weight loss.
And, uh, I went to go see a doctor,
uh, downtown on St. Mary's,
uh, hope I can say his name, but it's
Gurbir Singh. I think his first name is Gurbir.
Um,
wonderful doctor, and very kindhearted.
uh, helped me. I had to go through a couple surgeries.
So one of the surgeries he had the cut
So, like there's this flap here. So my nipples down at the bottom,
he had the cut all the way to my back, like from the middle of my chest,
my back. So I have these scars there now
that you can't miss them.
And need to cut my nipple off and then sew it onto my body.
my nipples are literally,
cut off another piece of skin and then put it back onto my body on both sides.
My,
um, waist,
which was 60 when I was really heavy
a 60 inch waste. Yep.
And when I did my, I did a bodybuilding show I'll talk about later
in 2016,
my waist got down to 28.
So, um,
uh, it was less than half at some point.
But I think when I got the surgery, it was like 32 or 33.
So they cut all the way around my waist,
and drilled a hole from my belly button. And it went all the way around my back.
So I went through that and I was super happy to go through it.
That uh,
I went back to the gym too quickly and I ripped my back open.
So can imagine your back, it ripped open like that. So you could see,
you could see through the skin. I had to put my hand in there, like that,
which I had to do every day and Wash inside my back,
well, there's a hole in it and I still kept going to the gym,
because, I don't have a car. I, I would take the bus or walk.
And, uh, and I had this binder on
and these tubes coming out of my legs,
if anyone knows, if they've had the surgery,
they put these tubes in there and they collect the fluid,
that's welling up at your body. So, I had four of them
I had them in my hips and in my chest.
So these things they had to eventually, you know, after a couple of weeks, they take them out.
And I had hid them in my, uh,
sweater and things like that when I went to the gym.
and then when they removed those, I had, like I said, I had a hole in my back
and they can't sell that up right away.
I don't know if people understand this. So if you've had surgery
and they like give you a bunch of stitches,
I'm like, I was stitched all the way around my whole waist. It's like a belt.
that ripped open. So they can't do that for two weeks. Because your skin is too, uh,
too soft. So I had to go two weeks with no, you know,
with a hole on my back for lack of a better word. And every day it's getting bigger, Right.
And I kept working out, showing up to the gym.
Um, finally he sewed it up and I did take some time. Again,
I didn't like missing time because my habits really changed fast.
So if I have a bad habit, it'll turn into a bad habit quick.
Right. And it'll be a bad habit for a while. Because it's hard to get out of it after.
um,
so I had to go through that. And then, uh,
after I saw like when the swelling and everything, when you go through that surgery,
your body's all like swollen,
black and blue,
everything was doesn't look good
It was scary because they looked at my body.
I'm like, wow,man, I looked like Frankenstein.
It literally didn't look good because
you could just see the whole thing was sewn together.
And if you look at my scars,
if you ever to see them there,
you can't miss them. People are always like, what happened to you?
you're in another country and something you don't like,
it doesn't look like that normal scar. Right, because
there things ripped on my body and things like that. Right? So
I didn't take any painkillers because of schizophrenia
you don't want it. If you have schizophrenia
and you're given painkillers,
you might stay on them.
You know? So I didn't actually take those unless,
during the surgery, they might've given me them.
But when I came out, I didn't take anything but
Regular Tylenol. I don't even take Tylenol three.
because I do not want to be addicted to something that
puts me back into being
someone who just sits in a chair and does nothing.
That for me was not,
a good life. I didn't like that. And I realized I can do more.
Once you realize you can do more,
try and do it.
Don't take another day, just try and do it.
and just keep trying.
no matter how much, uh, how difficult it is.
So, uh,
as, as my body healed and it was working out, I could see,
you know what, I think I could do a competition. Maybe that'll give me a purpose.
Because no one in my family seems to see,
it seems to say anything. I lost like 150 pounds here.
And uh,
you know, I'm just kind of going about it. People in the gym seem to like me.
I would make so many friends in the gym, I'd work out with uh,
you know, dozens of people.
my average workout was,
you know, six to eight hours a day,
like pure working out.
And this is as someone who's natural.
So I actually found,
being a natural bodybuilder was,
far easier
and more enjoyable than being someone who's on steroids.
So, uh, 2016, I was,
I wasn't natural bodybuilder.
I went into a natural, well, not a natural bodybuilding show,
but it was, uh, a show where there's no testing
I weighed in at 157.
And I won my first show.
um,
I probably thought I was better than I was. I mean, my body fat was
canned at the wellness center.
Um, I can't remember the name of the scanner, but they use it in the NFL
on the show, the biggest loser they use it,
uh, in the NBA as well.
uh,
so anyhow it gave me a 3% readout.
ike right on the nose. So I have the record for Manitoba
with the lowest recorded body fat percentage on a scanner.
And when it does that, it breaks down how much fat's in each arm. So I had,
I think I had 0.1 pounds
0.01 or 0.1 I can't remember exactly how it worked,
in my left and right arm.
And that tells you amount of muscle in each arm,
muscle in each leg,
muscle in your torso.
Also the fat in each part of your body and if it's visceral.
So it's fit in between your organs.
so it's a very, very informative scan.
And uh,
And uh, yeah, so I had the record
and I did that naturally. So I'm very proud of that.
I didn't even use when I went to the show, a diuretic
from, um, you know, that you can't buy off the shelf.
So I was that level of natural.
And I kept continuing being natural for two years until 2018,
where I almost died in 2017 from
continuing to be natural because
when you're, when you're around 40 years old, which I was,
Um,
when you're working out eight hours a day and working a
full-time job,
your body can't really handle that. So,
So, uh, I got to a point where, uh,
the,
doing the bodybuilding naturally was,
causing me bodily harm
because of the amount of time I'd spent in the gym, my body couldn't properly recover.
My lungs got avery bad infection and at the,
end of the 2017 show,
and, uh, I almost, I really didn't work much for four months.
Like I couldn't,
my lungs were filled with like a jello,
like coagulated blood inside my lungs.
And it took lots of antibiotics and things like that to fix it.
It was literally from over-training and getting a little bit sick during my contest prep.
Because my diet was so hard.
And I would like, if you're working out that many hours a day and you're not eating much
and you get a cold you're, you're in big trouble
my lungs got infected and I had pneumonia
Uh, so I wasn't good.
And uh, come December of that year,
going into 2018,
I talked to my doctor and told him, you know what,
he says, I don't think you can do this anymore
If, this is what's going to happen.
he says that you shouldn't do it you'll, you could die
and your body can't recover.
And uh, like he kind of mentioned that and I said, well, you know what?
I need a purpose in life. And bodybuilding is really the thing, giving me some kind of purpose.
It allows me to,
to go to the gym and kind of be an example of something.
and to show people like they can do something too. It's not that hard.
Like it is hard, but they can do it if they apply themselves.
So it was giving me like a reason and a purpose to be helpful to other people.
And that's kind of how I am. I just like to help people.
And so I started, I told them, I'm going to go on steroids
I have a large
knowledge of it. Cause when I was younger,
when I did mention before,
when I decided to do steroids, when I was younger, I was the kind that would go to the
library and look up,
what they all were.
So I learned a lot about them.
So it allowed me to use them very well.
So I, I went back on them.
and the doctor said he understood actually.
And so he would monitor my blood and all that stuff.
um,
and since then I've been, been using them off and on.
I know there's a stigma with these things,
and a lot of people claim they don't use them.
I happened to know a lot about it and,
I'm not saying I'm an expert or anything,
or it gives me the ability to tell people what they should do or not do.
But I know that when I got the schizophrenia, the overeating
was way, way...
It was a lot more unhealthy than the steroid use.
I also know that when I was
drinking a little bit too much at certain times of my life,
I didn't make good decisions.
So some of those decisions cost me a lot.
So those are things that didn't benefit me,
but the bodybuilding gave me a purpose.
It gave me something to achieve. It made me go to the gym and eat good.
Not to say that people should go on steroids. I'm not trying to promote them or anything.
But if someone wants to be a very good athlete and they end up
doing that and,
maybe they keep it hidden or whatever, whatever their reason is,
those things are helping them achieve something. At least
whereas most drugs,
recreational or whatever,
they don't really help you achieve things.
hey, they cause you issues or side effects that are
uh, are detrimental to your, you know, your life in general.
So this was something that helped me to keep going.
I wouldn't have been able to body build any more.
if I probably, if I didn't take those.
So that's my reason for those. I'm not trying to tell,
especially young people, I would say don't do those.
Because they mess up your natural balance of hormones in your body.
You should always wait until you've built enough muscle mass,
to know if you actually like bodybuilding,
go through the contest prep,
go through the suffering, no matter how good you do or, or don't do,
do the process
learn if you like bodybuilding,
whatever sport it is.
And if you want to be the best that it will, then you have to,
I think a person then at that time, what should decide what they do.
um,
but if it's something you're not going to continue doing,
what's the point of
jeopardizing that habit.
you know, and damaging potentially your hormonal balance
and things like that.
I'm at an age where my hormones are already,
after 30, your hormones start to shut down
1% a year for men.
testosterone on average.
So I'm 43,
and I started around 40, you know,
So, uh, the anxiety I felt
was as if,
I was on stage still for about a week.
So my heart was beating so fast.
Um, the anxiety was still there.
and, but it went away after a week.
So the following show that was, uh, the same year,
uh, in 2016, I think it was, uh,
end of may or in June or beginning of June or something.
I ended up getting dead last.
So,
dreams were kind of crushed. It was a higher level. I got crushed.
uh,
but this time, what I learned is,
uh,
How can I say it,
I felt like I was on stage for about a day only.
So when I left the stage, got home,
my heart was just going fast for a day.
So I realized, oh, it's an improvement from the last one was like a week.
So maybe I'm getting better at this. Maybe it's not so bad.
Maybe I can work.
So bodybuilding helped me realize I can work
and what really sealed the deal. And sometimes I get emotional.
I don't know if I will saying it this time, but
I went to burger king one day as one of the cheap things I did after the contest.
And there was a young,
I mean, this girl will never know she had an impact on me.
It was, uh, in the north end,
then the burger king there.
And there was a girl who was working,
uh, just cleaning up and putting the trays away.
She had down syndrome.
and, she was not having a good time.
She was crying very loudly as she's working.
And I was so proud of her,
and I didn't talk to her or anything.
She was doing a job, that was causing her the amount of pain of crying and like,
it was painful, but I was very proud of her.
And I said to myself, well, you just did a bodybuilding show.
You did all these things.
Can you not work, man?
Like I got a pension and everything.
And I was like, questioned myself. I was like, this,
this person is suffering,
And yes, I'm suffering too. Maybe I wouldn't cry out loud like that.
You know, you feel like that too. I understood what she was feeling.
And so it made me really questioned myself.
So I started asking friends of mine,
if they knew of any gyms or anything like that. Cause I thought, you know, what a perfect fit for me
is to do a night shift at a gym. So what gyms are open overnight. well,
there's a certain one in my area and uh,
uh, it was good life,
which I started working out at and I liked their gym. I,
I started scanning it out.
It was um,
It was a comfortable atmosphere. I loved it.
I got to see who's there at night.
So I knew that it's not that busy.
And so a friend of mine helped me get a job at good life.
And I was completely honest with them about my credentials
and things like that, how long I haven't been working. So
it was a long time, a long layoff, uh,
you know, 2000, right? So,
it was 2016. So,
it was at the end of the year I got hired and,
so I started working at good life.
I told them my goal working overnight.
I said, I really should be a trainer, but I'm
cause I have schizophrenia. I'm not comfortable
doing that, but I want to help people who at night.
Okay. So if you want me to just sit at the desk, that's not what I want to do.
So I started working at the gym,
and...
- my manager comes in one day,
and she's like,
I heard this new trainer,
He's so awesome.
You're going to get to hear his whole story.
He's got this crazy story.
and he's very open. He'll tell you everything.
I was like, okay. Okay.
And she's like, he has schizophrenia.
She was like, it's so cool. Like, he tells you about the whole thing.
And I was like,
oh my goodness. I'm so excited,
to have another experience with this. Like,
I've only ever,
had this one experience,
with, with schizophrenia. So,
I was,
yeah, I was really excited.
um,
So I met Chris and of course I think the first day he told me,
um, his entire story,
he was like, hi, I'm Chris saying. Um,
yeah, I, this is, these are my pictures. I, uh,
I lost this much weight. I used to compete, blah, blah, blah.
Working with Chris was, um,
he was awesome.
He was,
uh,
the most generous.
So he was always the one coming into work, treating everybody.
[Tim] When I had a chance to interview Chris,
um,
um, uh, he's you know, big, powerful man here.
And I was like, okay, this is a big intimidating guy here.
Uh, here's the Zangief of street fighter. Yeah,
Um, it's like,
He could probably Apollo drive me. I ended the ground there. Yeah,
But when I put him through the,
uh, one of the, the parts of interviewing,
um, people, uh,
trainees, uh, at our club here is putting them through the workout here.
Now I don't necessarily need, uh, everyone to,
this is quote called, kill it, you know, and
you know, show them the best round houses and they're spinning backaches
It doesn't, you know, that's not what I need there.
I need someone that actually just enjoyed the workout,
but that loves the exercise there
that does with good attitude,
with purpose and intent there. Yeah,
So let's talk about, um,
you know, IE squared in eight, nine round here,
energy and enthusiasm. They have that there,
That helps,
portray, our culture in our, in our club here.
So after talking to Kris there,
um, putting him through the workout,
uh, which is he finished it there. He did awesome.
Not all trainers. That's you finished all the workouts there
even one of my other top trainers, uh
uh, JP or Juan Pablo Alverez.
They got, he, he finished off at round five. He, yield it half,
the work out there,
but he was one of our top trainers, phenomenal, skip Roper,
um,
immensely strong, fair, powerful roundhouse kicks there.
Yeah. So,
I, he still, I still brought him onto the team there,
That's not, what they,
you know, initial workout was necessarily meant to be for. Yes,
Can you finish it or not? It's not that.
So I took risks to the side there
had a chance to speak with him there. Yeah.
And,
And you know, you got to know him, uh, through the interview,
about his background.
And kind of thought, why, why now? Why do you want to be here? Yeah
And, uh, he was very upfront about his, uh, his mental illness. Yeah.
And, you know, told his story of, of how he was,
uh, overweight, uh, at home.
how he was the youngest, uh, bodybuilder to, to win a championship,
like bodybuilder in Manitoba here,
which was a phenomenal story.
And he talked about this mental illness of schizophrenia there.
And, um,
personally I have other friends and family,
that have the schizophrenia.
And I thought,
Okay, like,
they're not bad people. Yeah.
Um, maybe there's some instability,
How would my patrons, uh, my members
portray that if,
if Chris was on the team here,
Chris was very, very open about it there.
And because of his awareness of who he was there,
even though he'd never told me that he had martial arts,
I could see the martial arts in him,
of his self-awareness. Yeah.
And he was transparent about it.
Uh, he showed his caring yeah, for,
for people.
Yeah. And that's what had resonated me for me,
to hire himonto the team.
There's a saying sometimes like,
people don't necessarily care about how much, you know,
they want to know how much you care.
and Chris cared immensely,
so much. Yeah
Obviously as an employer, um,
you, one,
there's Sarah's several criterias like,
can they do the job there? You know,
physically, mentally there. Yeah.
If they have the potential to do that there,
or if they have, uh, alternative ways to make it happen,
to deliver the results of the company, they are,
Great. Yeah,
that's when you can start looking past the, the disability there. Yeah
Uh, whether it's physical or mental there,
and, uh, the hiring process I've always had with,
my, you know, ups or, or like a video store or,
you know, nine round right now is
I hire for attitude.
Yup.
Yup. um,
There's a lot of, you know, talented people that I've always
uh, you know, that I've come across me before,
It's like, wow, look, what I can do. I can do this. I can do that there.
But if they didn't have the
energy and enthusiasm
and the care. Yeah.
for that, that wasn't a fit for me. And, and, uh,
that the culture that I want to portray in my, my club or my teams
I was like this line in the Cobra Kai
there's never, ever a bad,
student, there's only a bad teachers
Yeah. So,
if someone is not getting it,
I have to put it on myself
to become better,
to make it more manageable for others. Yeah,
And to learn.
So with, uh, with Kris there,
though he was, um
maybe off on a tangent or had a little focus, uh,
You know,
just personal trainer. He's, that's what he's used to,
whereas in nine round were you used to training
multiple people,
you know, nine people
in three minutes.
you know, personal training. Yeah. That's the hybrid part here
So, um,
it, it just, we have to be patient.
Yeah. We have to be patient with your team.
Um, you have to set them up for success
by giving them, uh, goals that they can win at there
Yeah. Now I'm not trying to, uh, say that, um,
you know, trying to be soft on others here,
but we still want to be the best that we can at everything that we do
with the purpose and intent.
Yeah. So this is when your task is here
Yeah, make it the best you can here,
and then let's move on and let's level up.
[Yakir] I think I didn't even really view it and,
like, I didn't make the connection of the mental illness to
how hard,
Kris was working and how much he was trying to lose weight
And, and even though if he, if he was putting in six hours a day at the gym,
there was days where I would be,
I would come to the gym for my first session
and would see Chris there
I would leave home, go eat
rest for two, three hours. I'd come back. And Chris would still be there
sometimes on the same machine doing cardio.
Um, but I, I never thought of it as like,
oh, that guys is crazy. He is,
training too much,
Or I never, I never put it like that. I just saw it as a hard working person. who is,
who's chasing a goal. I knew that I could never do it.
And maybe to an extent. It was crazy, but
it was admirable. And I,
I didn't even the mental illness aspect didn't even,
come to mind.
I think some of the worst to that as
crazy great work ethic and, uh
pretty much can do whatever they set their mind to.
Because if you work that hard and one thing,
what's stopping you from working out harder, than other thing.
I think if you would, pretty much talk to,
almost anybody who's met Chris, and especially through the gym and,
Chris has tried to help them
in some shape or form.
People don't have a lot of negative stuff to say like,
I, I'm actually thinking pretty hard right now.
There's only one individual comes to mind that,
I know Chris butt heads with, but it had well, a couple individual,
but one that I've seen personally that he butt heads with And it was, uh,
He was almost like justified on Khris's side. Because,
that other person was giving unsolicited advice and,
Khris kind of wasn't appreciating it. And, uh,
yeah. And the person was in a way, you could almost say your gym bully. He was,
you could kind of say a bigger guy, maybe
spend living in the past. And he was always
pushing his advice onto younger guys. And I was actually
not that want to say victim,
but he tried to push some of his advises, me too. And,
and men, other than that person who didn't like Chris, for that reason that he called them out.
There's not too many people,
There's not too many people that have a lot of negative stuff to say about Kris
all the time. You'll hear how nice of a guy Chris is,
how much he's willing to go out of his way to help somebody,
especially, or even if he barely knows the person. That's
one thing that I keep hearing again and again, and I
don't know if there's many people that,
I know there are like that,
- What could have helped me,
and probably a lot of people, um,
if there was more,
it all comes back to the discussion about it, right? Like we need to be talking about this. So,
um,
if there was more funding and they were
because I had no,
other experiences other than I had someone in my life dealing with this,
I wasn't taught any about anything about this in school. Or,
I had no other like, experiences with it.
If there was more funding and,
they talked about this stuff more and it was more normalized. And we learned
from a younger age,
I think there would be less fear around it,
I think that,
I think that with discussion, you're going to learn different parts and
things are going to come together and,
that's the only way we're gonna,
get ahead of this. We're going to actually start to help people.
We need to talk about it. We need to learn as much as we possibly can.
We need to not be scared about it.
- Um, I don't know if I have any new ideas that I think people need to hear.
but I do think the information that is there.
that I kind of think everybody knows in the back of their mind without thinking about it is.
I think if
we're able to be educated on how to make,
who we are better.
If we're able to accomplish the things we want to accomplish,
be able to follow our dreams, and know who we are,
know exactly what problems we're dealing with,
Cause everybody definitely does deal with problems. It doesn't matter who you are.
You could be from the nicest richest family, or the,
poorest lowliest family.
I think everybody deals with their own issues.
Um, so I think if we're able to be educated on
how to change what we want to change about ourselves,
like how to author ourselves in a way,
where, um, we, we can grow as individuals.
because that's going to be different for everybody.
It's hard to kind of just give general information,
for people to follow because it's not going to work for everybody.
Um, so yeah, I think it's important to teach people,
uh, definitely how to take care of themselves mentally better.
So I don't, I can't think of anything specific that I would need,
but I definitely think it would help if there wasn't a stigma
If there was a kind of more focus put on,
uh, like I was saying earlier,
if there was more focus put on success stories
So like for example, if people had someone to turn to,
uh, for somebody that was very successful in dealing with depression
or somebody like my uncle, who's very successful,
in dealing with schizophrenia, which is, I think a big reason why
we're doing this documentary here is to,
kind of end a stigma and,
help people realize that there's a lot of people going through similar issues and,
that they're not alone. And that there,
is something to look up to for sure.
It's not, it's not impossible to feel better.
- Now, looking back, one thing I think I really wish was,
perhaps taught in school and obviously it's been about
20 years since I've been in school but,
what really would help me out was, just class,
about mental health and how can it be approached and,
how it affects people in their life, I
really back then, like I said, that the culture has changed where
if you opened about your feelings,
you're made fun of you're picked on and belittled. And,
now it's not so much, like
people are aware that everyone has issues. People go through things in their life.
And I really wish,
there were options for a person like me in school, obviously, you know,
they had counselors but,
but it felt really forced upon myself,
And I really wasn't open to it,
I think if they had maybe some curriculum or,
something that was there for a class, like obviously
not optional,
but like taught in the lasses of regular curriculum.
I think it would be helped if they had just something in there
And I think they are making strides forward.
Um, I just, I wish it would be there.
obviously outside of that, you know, out, you know, the world we are now,
um,
I do hope,
and you know, obviously we, in just five years we see great strides
in mental health awareness.
and how it facts, especially in this,
day and age right now, you know, we're dealing with COVID and
people talk about the deaths associated with the virus itself.
People are talking about the suicide rate.
people being stuck inside.
I myself, am actually on a mental health leave right now.
Uh, for a couple of days, my anxiety was all time high.
I have been working home since March 15th.
- It's free to be kind.
It doesn't cost you a penny.
It's free to show your love to people. It's free to give someone a compliment.
It doesn't cost you anything.
How do you use your freedom?
Like, I want it. People who are watching this,
to think you'll have some freedom.
Do you use it to be negative?
Do you use it to say, Hey, I don't like that guy.
I don't like this. I don't like that.
Do you use it to complain?
Do you use it to help someone? Do you use it to help yourself?
Do you use it to bring people up?
That's your freedom.
your brother, your sister, your daughter,
whoever ended up having schizophrenia, autism
what do you know about it?
What if it's someone's um,
let's say someone's getting bullied,
Your son. Let's say your son or daughter is bullying someone who has
autism.
What do you know about it?
So I think there needs to be a dialogue,
amongst people. I really encourage it. Please, [Music]
have a dialogue, [Music]
And I encourage the governments to, um, [Music]
promote not just depression, please. [Music]
Uh, depression is a very important thing and more, more people have that, [Music]
but all aspects, [Music]
why not have it in school, [Music]
mental health, a subject on mental health. [Music]
Uh, you have psychology already. So, [Music]
I mean, the brain is the thing that makes you make decisions. [Music]
if your mind is not working properly, [Music]
at a certain age and it was working properly before, [Music]
how would you even know you had something wrong with you? [Music]
It's your actual brain, [Music]
doing the thing incorrectly. [Music]
So other people who are aware, that would be family, [Music]
could be friends, could be a teacher, could be a employer, [Music]
could actually notice this, [Music]
and get help for that person or help them, [Music]
find help. [Music]
without any education that goes untreated a lot of times, or [Music]
it gets neglected. [Music]
So what if you can catch it where you could help that person still before, [Music]
it got to a point where it's a, [Music]
PTSD or whatever it ends up being, [Music]
maybe they have a bad episode and then you feel they can't go back to work or, [Music]
whatever it may be. [Music]