JASON GRICE PERSONIFIES THE NEVER GIVE UP MENTALITY APEMAN STRIVES FOR
APEMAN Jason Grice didn’t exactly have it easy growing up.
And that’s an enormous understatement.
“I was born in 1976 and grew up in San Diego until I was 12,” Jason said. “During that time, my dad was a drug dealer and ran with the dregs of humanity. I was a sweet kid, very kind and always thought of others first. My mother told me that I had cried when watching ‘The Elephant Man’ because I didn’t understand why people would hurt him or be mean just because he looks different.”
Jason says he is a racial “mutt” and never quite fit in anywhere. His extended family were addicts and abusers.
“I was physically, mentally, emotionally, and sexually abused as a kid,” he said. “I tried to commit suicide twice when I was around six years old. I was exposed to the worst of humanity and it wrapped itself around me like a blanket trying to suffocate me. I always tried to do the right thing and live by a standard that was self-imposed. I escaped my reality by reading comic books, watching cartoons, and movies. Anything to get my head out of what was truly around me. I learned morals and values from Batman, Optimus Prime, He-Man, and Lion-O. I just wanted to escape my world. We moved frequently, I think I went to around 5 or 6 different elementary schools. I’m not sure, I don’t remember most of my childhood.”
He was bullied frequently for being the new kid. Others wanted to prove they were better than Jason.
“I wasn’t white enough for the white kids, Mexican enough for the Mexicans, or black enough for the black kids,” he said. “Once we had to move in the middle of the night due to the people who were after my dad. I had to leave all of my stuff behind.”
At 12, his family moved to Vegas and were more stable in living arrangements, but no better atmosphere wise. He had to grow up fast.
“I started working at a grocery store pushing carts and bagging groceries,” he said. “I fell in love with my high school sweetheart, but we were young and stupid. Almost every relationship I had, I was cheated on. Which in my mind reaffirmed that I wasn’t worth anything. I got married and had a kid at 21; I just wanted to start my own family and do it right. I was making a whopping $7.50 an hour. I busted my ass over the next several years, had another kid and climbed my way up through the ranks of the grocery world to a store manager, I felt like I was supposed to be more. I tested for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and tested very well. I got my bid into the academy and quit my grocery job to become a police officer, until I broke my thumb playing basketball right before my last physical fitness test. I was unemployed, I never had been up to this point, in a deep depression sitting on the couch numb to everything.”
Wanting to do things differently than his own family, Jason eventually started his own business as a mobile car detailer. It took off quickly and became his full-time gig. It was lucrative and he had high-end clientele.
But while work was awesome, his home life wasn’t.
“I was in a marriage strictly for the children and was in a relationship where I didn’t matter,” he said. “I thought that that was my lot in life. I wasn’t meant to be happy. At one point my doctor thought that I might have a brain tumor due to my symptoms. Turned out it was just stress. Home life was miserable aside from my kids. I was a very angry man, road rage, looking to fight, all of that. I did a lot of self-harm, hitting myself and biting myself because I was consumed with rage and afraid of hurting someone that I cared about. One time my oldest daughter was trying to calm me down after I rammed my head through a door a few times and then fell on the floor in the fetal position crying. The crap they saw. I am so ashamed of.”
Jason has been beaten up and brought to the brink of insanity and desperation. Suffered from anxiety and depression. He often questioned, “Why me? What did I do wrong? Why am I being punished?” He struggled so much, for so long.
“This brings me to a few weeks ago when I stumbled upon a cool looking shirt on a YouTube video and then my natural instinct to research more,” Jason said of APEMAN. “I saw your story. I read every saying with your shirts. I read your mission statement, I read about your foundation. I ordered 8 shirts to wear, today was the ninth. Because I want to support you and your mission in any way that I can.”
Jason dove headfirst into APEMAN YouTube videos.
“Obviously your stuff looks great, but your story… your story behind each word or phrase captivated me,” he said. “It was as if they were written specifically to me. As if my life was in full view and you decided to write about me.”
When Jason was younger, he was a scrawny kid. He’s 6’8” and when he graduated high school he weighed 180 pounds. He got into lifting and slowly started gaining weight… and more weight… and more weight. At 43, he was the heaviest he’s been at 330 pounds. But he started eating better because of APEMAN.
“Because of APEMAN, my life is reforming into who and what I have always wanted to be,” he said. “Being back in the gym, lifting, getting physically stronger is something that I have missed of myself. I cannot begin to articulate what APEMAN means to me. The stories that are behind the sayings on the shirts are so awe inspiring that I put together a binder with print outs of all of the ones that you have online. I read them daily to help keep me motivated.”
For those who are in the middle of a rough season in their lives, Jason wants you to know that you’re not alone.
“When you think that you are unable to stand on your own and fight, lean on us, allow us to lend you a hand to pull you up,” he said. “You have worth. You have value. There will always be people trying to knock you down, to silence you. Stand tall with your head held high and your shoulders squared. You are among your people, your tribe.
“Find your strong!”