ennifer Pantoja grew up in a traditional Mexican household where men and women upheld old-fashioned roles. She developed much of her grit by challenging the stereotypes of what girls were expected to do.
“I started playing sports despite my mother’s fear of me getting hurt because I was a girl. They eventually got accustomed to the idea and were extremely supportive in everything I decided to do, including joining one of the toughest branches in the military, the Marine Corps.”
Jennifer recalls being stuck in "an awkward phase" throughout high school, which later transitioned into "just a tad less awkward phase." She credits the teasing she endured during those years for shaping her individuality and confidence. "Learning not to care about what others think or say about you allows you to focus more on who you are as a person rather than trying to appease everyone else with your physical attributes."
Now that she’s an adult and has broken free from the constraints of her traditional upbringing, her mom has become one of her best friends and biggest supporters. "It’s funny how, when you’re younger, you’re so eager to grow up and get away from your parents, but the older I get, the more I seek out my mom. She’s been my rock throughout my whole life; there was never anything I needed that she wasn’t willing to give me."
Jennifer says deployments were the hardest part due to the time differences, but she would sometimes call her mom in the early hours of the morning, and "she would always answer and listen to me cry for about an hour until I finally calmed down."
On her good days, which seem to occur more often than not, Jennifer enjoys starting her morning with a black coffee alongside her boyfriend, whom she calls her best friend and "swolemate," before he heads to train at 24 Hour Fitness and she goes to work. As seen on her Instagram @jenn_isdaname, they bonded over their shared love of fitness and continue to grow stronger as a couple. "He’s the first person I see when I wake up and the last person I see when I go to sleep. He has this special place in my life. He knows me better than I know myself sometimes, so he always knows what to say, when to hug me, and when to give me a dose of reality."
Jennifer hasn’t always been so fortunate with the men in her life. A man she was involved with a few years before a recent deployment made her life incredibly difficult after her return. "The first week he found out I was home, he went to every duty hut, asking where I lived, and after knocking on people’s doors as early as 4 a.m., he found my room. It took two hours of me begging for him to leave, but that wasn’t the last I’d see of him."
The man continued to stalk and harass Jennifer, leading her into a deep depression. She began drinking herself to sleep, stopped training, and started smoking and overeating. "I no longer valued myself enough to take care of myself," she admits.
The turning point came suddenly one night when she got extremely intoxicated and stared at herself in the mirror until it felt like she had sobered up. "What the hell are you doing?" she thought to herself. "I looked at myself and actually felt sorry for the person I saw. I used to be this strong, confident woman, but the woman staring back at me was a complete stranger. I decided I’d stop smoking, stop drinking, and focus on bettering myself again, and I’ve never looked back."
Jennifer acknowledges that, while she’s in a much better place today, she still has days when depression hits her hard. "I’ve hit rock bottom more times than I’d like. I’ve thought about crashing my motorcycle, cried myself to sleep countless nights, and given up plenty of times. But I’ve always remembered to get back in the game."
Despite the uncertainties of life, her seemingly eternal optimism helps keep her afloat.
"If you sit and reflect on the negative or on everything you don’t have, you will have one miserable life. Instead, we have to try to remind ourselves to look at everything we’re lucky to have and remember we still have another day to work towards attaining those things. ‘The bad doesn’t last forever.’ That has been my motto throughout life. It helps snap me back to reality when I need it."
