Thanks for asking.
Yes, yes I have tried counselling.
I grew up in an environment in which mental health issues were not acknowledged.
In fact, the environment that I grew up in, mental health issues were to be kept hidden due to the stigma that Canadian Armed Forces placed upon mental illness.
And for the last time, NO, the attitudes of the military didn’t stop at the front door of the PMQ. The attitudes of the Canadian Armed Forces permeated through everyone that lived on a military base. There was no escaping the military in the PMQs on base.
My father used booze to treat his mental health issues.
And back in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s my father wasn’t the only one self medicating.
I know that my father also had a thing for prescription pain killers.
But no matter how much his drinking and his pain killers fucked with his brain and almost got him booted out of the military, there was no fucking way on earth that Richard would ever have gone to see a psychologist or a psychiatrist.
Richard would have rather taken a bullet to the temple than talk to a head shrinker.
As mentioned elsewhere, my brain was completely fucked up in the aftermath of Canadian Forces Base Namao. On Namao, it wasn’t just the sexual abuse at the hands of the babysitter for 2 years, nor was it the frequent visits to the chapel that ended with the “sickly sweet grape juice”. It was also the fall out from my mentally and physically abusive father, and his very own mother that he had brought into the PMQ on base to raise my brother and I.
She was an Indian Residential School survivor. She was very angry, very domineering, and very cruel at times. She was also as much of an alcoholic, if not more than my father. It was the excessive drinking of her and her husband in the PMQ on CFB Namao that led to my brother frequently being placed into the care of the babysitter.
When my family was punted off CFB Namao and relocated to CFB Griesbach in the aftermath of the CFB Namao child sex abuse scandal I was quickly brought to the attention of the military social worker, Captain Terry Totzke.
I only knew Terry as Terry until August of 2011 when I learnt that Terry was a Captain in the Canadian Armed Forces.
Terry was not a pleasant man.
Terry was always angry with me.
Angry for what I had done on CFB Namao when I repeatedly had sex with the babysitter.
Terry was upset that I had allowed the babysitter to molest my younger brother and that I didn’t do anything to stop it.
I was sent to see specialists, during which Terry would often remark that I was “acting out for attention”. My father would often repeat this.
Terry always wanted to know what I intended to do to change my ways.
Once Terry and my father picked me up from Major General Griesbach School, which was the school on base for children of military families. We drove over to Terry’s office which was located over by base HQ on CFB Griesbach. As we drove past the brig, Terry mentioned to me that if I continued to be attracted to boys that I would end up in prison just like the priest.
At the time I had no idea about who the “priest” was as everything on Canadian Forces Base Namao had been hushed up. It wouldn’t be until May 3rd, 2011 that I would learn about the twisted connection between the warning of the priest in the brig, the “sickly sweet grape juice”, and my babysitter.
Due to my interactions with Canadian Armed Forces personnel Captain Terry Totzke and Master Corporal Richard Wayne Gill and the way in which the two blamed me for what had happened to myself and to my brother on Canadian Forces Base Namao I am forever immune to counselling.
I remember Terry voicing his concerns about me ever being allowed to be around naked boys in places like swimming pool change rooms because I would be too tempted.
Terry would also remind me that he had the base military police watching me to make sure that I wasn’t kissing or touching other boys.
And it gets much worse.
After we lived on Canadian Forces Base Griesbach for about a year, I started seeing other people in addition to Terry. The thing was I would never go to see these people unless my father was there or Terry was there.
I never went to see these people at Terry’s office. And these people never came to see me at MGG School. We always had to go off-base to see these people. One of these places that we’d go to had a room with a large one-way mirror. Terry would always go into the room on the other side of the mirror.
On the way over to these meetings my father would always remind me that I had to keep my mouth shut and not say a thing otherwise these people would find out what I had done on CFB Namao and that these people would twist my words and that this would put me in a “world of shit”.
When I obtained my social services paperwork in the summer of 2011 I would learn that Pat, Wayne, Laura, Aviva, and many others were the “good people” and that my father and Captain Totzke were the “bad people”. The reality was a complete 180 from what Terry and my father were drilling into my head.
According to the paperwork, when I first went into Terry’s care, he had my family evaluated by a psychiatrist that specialized in dysfunctional families.
I was found to be suffering from major depression, severe anxiety, I was terrified of men and convinced that my father was going to kill me by drowning me in a toilet, I was afraid of being touched, I talked about death and dying, and I could not express any type of emotion.
My father was found to have issues controlling his anger, felt like he was the victim, blamed his problems on others, didn’t want to take responsibility for his family, expected others to solve his problems for him.
Not once during my time in Totzke’s care was I ever sent for counselling, or received medication for my severe anxiety or major depression. Terry was adamant that I was wetting the bed for attention and acting up for attention. Terry was even more concerned about the homosexuality that I had exhibited when I allowed the sex with the babysitter to go on for so long.
Around the summer of 1982 I started going to a “special school”. Again, every day before catching the literal “short yellow bus” to go to school, my father would remind me to keep my mouth shut and to talk as little as possible to Pat and Wayne otherwise they would twist my words and make me say things that I didn’t say. Terry would also show up at this special school on occasion.
As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, in the spring of 1983 my father received a sudden posting to Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario. This came right after I had apparently been “expelled” from the “special school” as apparently I was still attracted to boys.
As we drove from CFB Griesbach in Edmonton towards CFB Downsview in Toronto, I asked my father why we had to move. He said that he was saving me from the drugs that my teachers wanted to give me to make me stop being attracted to boys.
When we got to CFB Downsview and got settled into our first PMQ on that base, Richard would rage out on me frequently for “fucking with his military career”. Richard was smart. He never hit on the face. It was always on the back of the head or some other part of my body that wouldn’t show the bruising.
In 2011 I would learn that Richard was not saving me from the drugs. Richard, and possibly Terry were saving their own asses. Alberta social services informed Captain Totzke of their intentions to remove me from the home and place me into foster care. It would be safe to say that my “treatment” at the hands of Terry was to ensure that I never talked to any type of civilian authority or official about what had happened on CFB Namao least someone get curious about the entire Captain Father Angus McRae fiasco.
If I got pulled out of Richards PMQ where both Captain Totzke and my father were busy gaslighting me about CFB Namao and instead I was placed into either foster care or residential care, there was the possibility that I could have calmed down and once comfortable that I would start talking to my civilian social workers about what had truly happened on CFB Namao.
On January 26th, 1983 Totzke was informed about the intentions of Alberta Social Services to remove me from the home for my protection.
On January 28th, 1983 Totzke tells my child care worker that my father has just received a posting order from the Canadian Forces.
After my family arrives at Canadian Forces Base Downsview, my child care worker in Alberta closes my file as I now reside in a different province and that my paperwork will be returned to Captain Terry Totzke.
And this is why I really want Medical Assistance in Dying.
Unlike what the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service tried to portray in 2011, the abuse on CFB Namao was very real and very horrific. It went on for almost 2 years. It involved a teenager with no empathy and very poor restraint. It involved alcohol and who the fuck knows what at the base chapel.
Captain Terry Totzke knew about the abuse
My father knew about the abuse.
Captain Totzke actively denied me access to timely and beneficial mental health treatment, no doubt by the “lawful commands” of his superiors.
I was caught in a lopsided war between my civilian social workers who had no fucking idea in the slightest as to what was wrong with me, and Captain Terry Totzke who obviously knew what was wrong with me as he knew about the sexual abuse and he had my diagnoses.
It was drilled into my young brain by Captain Terry Totzke, and my father, Master Corporal Richard Wayne Gill, that feelings are not to be talked about, that “head shrinkers” are bad and are not to be trusted.
I’ve lived each and every day since the spring of 1980 being blamed, ridiculed, and mocked for what happened on CFB Namao.
I’ve tried counselling. But all it is is useless talking.
Counselling won’t fix anything. When you think about it, counselling is a scam. There’s nothing that it can really fix, and if it doesn’t work they just claim a 100% success rate and say that you jut didn’t try hard enough.
I’m tired.
I want out.
Beeshive 