anxiety – Page 2

Living well is the best revenge.

Bullshit.

Nothing upsets me more than that phrase and its various derivatives.

Do you think for a moment that my babysitter, that my father, that Captain Terry Totzke, that Brigadier General Daniel Edward Munro, or any of the plethora of military personnel up the chain of command give a single flying fuck that I did my best to keep my nose clean all of these years?

Do you think that they’re pissed off that I didn’t stick a knife in my femoral or that I didn’t jump off a bridge? They don’t care. They lived in their own little fantasy world.

The babysitter was Jack’s little hero when I talked to Jack in 2015.

The babysitter was the poor misunderstood victim in all of this.

Me, I was the “societal malcontent” frequently jumping from job to job and looking to scam the military for money.

Nobody in the Canadian Forces did anything wrong. They just did their best. They operated under the rules that were in place at the time. It wasn’t their fault they made poor decisions.

Do I get a fucking heavenly reward when my heart finally stops beating?

Nope.

Is there a magic do-over after I die?

Nope.

Meanwhile I’m the one living through major depression that was allowed to fester untreated for 33 years and counting.

I’m the one living with severe anxiety that was allowed to fester untreated for 33 years.

I’m the one living with the psychological trauma and genophobia gifted to me by Captain Terry Totzke and the sexual abuse.

I’m the one living in a life of solitude due to my anxiety, my haphephobia and my general mistrust of people.

Powerful people in the DOJ, the DND, and the CAF are running different scenarios at the moment trying to figure out if they should throw me and the other kids from CFB Namao a pittance in the hopes that we shut-up and go away, or if they should tie us up in court for 10 to 15 years while they wait for everyone involved to die off from old age.

The media as it currently exists is not the same media that existed in the ’90s and the ’00s when child sexual abuse was a cause célèbre being championed by just about every news desk around the country. Now the media is mostly foreign owned and consolidated with investigative journalism being reduced to investigating major controversies such as “Are Cadbury creme eggs getting smaller”, and “what new shows is Netflix airing the fall”. With the exception of David Pugliese and Jill Croteau not a single person in the media showed any interest at all, even when the Canadian Forces were tripping over themselves to minimize the fallout from the sexual abuse scandal that got kicked off around 2014, not one single fucking person with the media showed even the slightest interest in who exactly was investigating child sexual abuse on the military bases in Canada.

You would think that when it was revealed in 2020 that the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service had in their possession the 1980 CFSIU investigation paperwork and the 1980 court martial transcripts which both implicate the babysitter in molesting numerous children on the base even though the CFNIS had said in 2011 they couldn’t find ANY evidence at all that the babysitter was capable of committing the crimes that I accused him of that the media would be beating down the fucking door at NDHQ trying to get DND and the CAF to admit that children were sexually abused on military bases and had their matters handled by the same defective military police that couldn’t protect adult service members.

Nope.

Outside of David Pugliese, not a single fucking interest.

Jenn Blair had tried back around 2012 through 2015, but she got shut down by CBC Go Public brass. The CBC will argue differently, but the reporter they assigned to my story after they removed Jenn was put on my story to close it down and put it to bed. The video interview that was conducted between Jenn and I was destroyed. My story was to become an “interactive timeline” that people could click on if they visited the Go Public website. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that the CBC doesn’t believe that males can be the victims of child sexual abuse. It’s either that or they were worried about jeopardizing their funding or losing access to press releases from NDHQ.

Jennifer Tryon of Global’s 16X9 was interested, but short of the military admitting that there was a problem of child sexual abuse in the military Global didn’t feel free to make baseless accusations that could cause them legal issues.

So, here I am.

Treading water on my own.

People will tell me that they know how I feel and they know what I am going through. But they don’t. And the fact that they would dare try to claim they know what I am going through upsets me greatly. They don’t know what I am going through. They just want to make themselves feel better. Kinda like the “thoughts and prayers” that get passed around after another gunman goes on a rampage.

So no, living well isn’t the best revenge.

Brigadier General Daniel Edward Munro has led a very comfortable life since his retirement from the Canadian Forces regardless of the hand he played in the Captain McRae fiasco.

Captain Terry Totzke, same thing. I don’t know if he’s still alive or not. But he probably retired and lived well off of his officer’s pension.

Warrant Officer Richard Gill. Yeah, he no doubt enjoyed his NCO’s pension.

Living well?

That would have required me receiving treatment for all of my issues and being able to have enjoyed a normal life from 1980 onwards.

I survived.

And that’s about it.

I survived.

But I’m tired.

The only things that I am really good at are converting oxygen into carbon dioxide and converting food into shit and piss.

A Societal Malcontent with an axe to grind against the Canadian Armed Forces.

Yep, that’s me. Mr. Societal Malcontent.

Well, at least that’s what the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service labelled me as during their investigation of my complaint of sexual abuse on Canadian Forces Base Namao.

I’m odd.

Definitely a little fucked in the head.

I more or less march to my own drummer.

I don’t fit in too well.

But I think “societal malcontent” is taking things a little too far.

After all the shit I’ve been through in my life I’ve more than earned my tattoos, my piercings, and my manner of dress.

However, you can imagine how hard my jaw hit the floor when I read the Certified Tribunal Records that I received from the Military Police Complaints Commission in February 2013.

“A societal malcontent with an axe to grind against the military”.

Fuck them.

Up until I received my social service paperwork in 2011, I had always believed that everything that went wrong in my life was due to me being a fucked up nutcase. “Insane as your fucking mother” as my father always used to say.

When I received my social service paperwork and discovered that Captain Totzke seemed to have been running interference between me and my civilian child care workers, I thought that this was maybe a result of my father wrapping Totzke around his finger and manipulating Totzke to hide my father’s shitty parenting skills.

But then when I read the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service investigation paperwork in 2013, it became very apparent to me that the Canadian Armed Forces is an organization in need of a very serious fucking tune-up.

For a police agency such as the CFNIS to roll over and yield to the chain of command dictates as easily as it did during GO 2011-5754 is absolutely sickening.

It’s no wonder that two retired Supreme Court justices in back to back reviews said that the military police and the CFNIS were incapable of investigating sexual assaults. Victim shaming was one of the concerns that the justices had in their reviews.

It was only in November of 2021 that the most recent Minister of National Defence ordered the military police to hand over all of their sexual assault investigations to the civilian police.

My complaint against the man in the sauna was one of 31 sexual assault investigations that the military police requested be exempt from being handed over to the civilian authorities.

Why mine wasn’t given over I’ll never know.

The investigator running the investigation said that the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service was the only agency with the skills required to investigate child sexual abuse on military bases. But this is one of the concerns that Madame Marie Deschamps had in her Final Report issued in 2015. The military police have neither the expertise nor the number of cases to develop the skills and techniques required to successfully investigate sexual assaults like the RCMP and most large civilian police departments have.

Another case of crimes being committed against a military dependent that for some reason seem to have remained in the jurisdiction of the military police is the disappearance and death of a transgendered military dependent who went missing from Canadian Forces Base Petawawa in March of 2019. Her body was found in May of 2019. She went missing from the PMQs on base.

Sure, the Canadian Armed Forces were instructed by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1994 to stop discriminating against homosexuals, but the Canadian Armed Forces up to that point in time had always been a hotbed of racism, xenophobia, white supremacy, homophobia, misogyny, alcoholism, etc.

Old habits die hard.

The problem with sexual assault and misogyny is that these issues still plague the Canadian Forces to this day.

In early 2023 the Canadian Forces engaged a professor from the University of Alberta to assess the problem of white supremacy and racism in the Canadian Armed Forces and how to combat this.

Sure, the Canadian Forces have attended various pride parades over the years, but if the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service ridicules the victims of sexual assault, including ridiculing and dismissing the complaints of a victim of child sexual abuse, how likely are the military police to put real serious effort into investigating the death of a transgendered military dependent?

As has already established by various reviews, the investigators within the CFNIS and the base military police are not independent of the chain of command. So even if they wanted to conduct an investigation that could potentially implicate either a member of the Canadian Forces or another military dependent from Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, would the chain of command allow them the independence to bring such implications?

Why are the military police even remotely involved in the off-base death of a military dependent? This investigation should belong to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Ontario Provincial Police Service.

After what I went through with the CFNIS from 2011 to 2018 makes me wonder what exactly the military police think that they’re going to accomplish in this matter? Don’t forget the CFNIS had in their hands the investigation paperwork and the court martial transcripts from 1980 CFSIU investigation that made it very clear that the babysitter was known to have been sexually assaulting children and was actually receiving counselling for his attraction to young children but yet the CFNIS were unable to secure charges. Actually, to go one further, the CFNIS weren’t allowed to secure charges against the babysitter.

Why else would the CFNIS have gone to the sickening extent of trying to colour the opinion of one of the witnesses by suggesting to this other victim of the babysitter that I was a “societal malcontent with an axe to grind against the military”, that I was “frequently changing employment”, and that I had only made my complaint “as an attempt to make money”.

What have we learnt?

If you had asked me back in March of 2011 if I had any idea of what I was about to uncover and discover, I would have said no.

I’ve learnt that the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence are very well insulated from any external review that they don’t agree with.

As per “An overview of Canada’s Military Justice System”, “Canada’s military justice system is a unique, self-contained system that is an integral part of the Canadian legal mosaic.”, and “As the SCC implicitly recognized in this passage, and as former Chief Justice of Canada, Brian Dickson, recognized in the separate context of an independent report on the military justice system that he completed for the Canadian Forces in 1997, the chain of command is at the heart of this system.”

In the Canadian Forces military justice system, up can be whatever the chain of command decides, and down can be whatever the chain of command decides.

What the rules are shift on a daily basis.

Does the military have jurisdiction to investigate child sexual abuse on the bases? Well, the military often points out that domestic assaults are handed off to the civilian police to avoid potential conflicts of interest and to allow the abused spouse to obtain victim services that the military can’t offer to civilians.

But when it comes to child sexual abuse on base that may implicate officers of the Canadian Forces, then it’s best that these investigations are kept in house as the military police are the only police agency capable of conducting these types of investigations.

Yeah, sure, the CFNIS gave me victims services. Basically a list of phone numbers that I could call to set up counselling services that I’d have to pay out of pocket for. Again, DND and the CAF are not responsible for civilians of any age.

In the civilian world, when one wants to complain about a police investigation, or lack thereof, they can get a civilian lawyer. And this opens up all sorts of opportunities to obtain the entire and complete investigation paperwork prior to a complaint being made.

In the military justice system this avenue does not exist, especially not for civilians. Even if I had hired a lawyer to initiate my complaint against the CFNIS, it’s still the purview of the Provost Marshal to determine what will and what won’t be released to my lawyer.

The Military Police Complaints Commission? No where near as powerful as it should be. But then again, the MPCC was created with the input of the very agency that it was supposed to oversee and nothing from the civilian world to temper the iron fist that the DND and the CAF wanted to rule over the MPCC with.

But Bobbie, civilian police oversight agencies are the same.

Nope.

Not by a long shot.

The Canadian Forces Military Police and the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service do not report to the provincial Attorneys General. The CFMP and the CFNIS report to the Attorney General of Canada.

With the exception of the RCMP, the various civilian oversight agencies across Canada are created by the various provincial Attorneys General. Even though the RCMP are a federal police force and report to the Attorney General of Canada, the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP does not report to the RCMP nor is it a part of the RCMP.

What is unique about the Military Police Complaints Commission is that it operates under and reports to the Minister of National Defence. As has been illustrated previously by the Military Police Complaints Commission itself, the Minister of National Defence by way of the CAF Chain of Command, is the defacto head of the Canadian Forces Military Police Group and has command authority over the Chief of Defence Staff and the Vice Chief of Defence Staff. The Vice Chief of Defence Staff is authorized under the National Defence Act to give directions or instructions to any CFNIS investigation.

When a complaint is made against a civilian police department, there are very few legal avenues available for the civilian police department to outright not comply with the investigation of a civilian complaint.

In the military world, it is the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal who will determine how much cooperation will be extended to the MPCC. It is also the Provost Marshal that will decide which documents will be released and which documents will be withheld from the MPCC.

During a “review” the MPCC cannot subpoena documents or witnesses, nor can the MPCC administer oaths. These are important issues as any statement that the members of the CFNIS give to the MPCC don’t have to be truthful as their are no consequences whatsoever for lying to the MPCC or refusing to participate with the MPCC review.

And for a person like me on the outside? Well, I’ll never have access to all of the documents from the CFNIS GO 2011-5754. I could have a team of high priced lawyers throwing lawsuit after lawsuit against the DND and the CAF and neither my lawyers or I will ever be given access to those documents. DND and the CAF are just too well insulated from the civilian world.

That’s the problem with “separate but parallel” systems. The Canadian public believe that the CFNIS work just the same as officer friendly at the Vancouver Police Department.

Officer Friendly at the VPD doesn’t face a sentence of “life in prison” for disobeying the “lawful” commands of their superior.

Officer Soldier of the CFNIS does however face a sentence of “life in prison” for disobeying the “lawful” commands of their superior. There are no exceptions in the National Defence Act that protect members of the military police and the CFNIS from vexatious prosecution by an angry superior.

Civilian police are often members of police brotherhoods. And these brotherhoods can reign terror over any civilian police department.

Members of the Canadian Forces are not members of any type of union and have very little in the way of protection from an angry chain of command.

How much faith would the citizens of Canada have in the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission for the RCMP if it reportedly directly to the RCMP Commissioner?

In the civilian world, police agencies do not investigate their own members for serious matters. For example when an allegation of wrongdoing is brought against a member of the VPD, an outside police agency is brought in to investigate.

Guess who investigates the military police when a member of the military police is suspected of wrong doing? That’s right, the military.

Basically what we have is a toothless Parliament that refuses to bring the DND and the CAF to heel because after almost 70 years of hyping the “heroes of Canada”, Parliament inadvertently created a spoilt child. A spoilt child that will throw temper tantrums and bawl and cry to get what it wants.

And what does the DND and the CAF want? They want to be left alone and not meddled with by the civilian authorities. The DND and the CAF want to be left alone in their own little world where the laws of common decency and common sense don’t apply.

The Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence are very happy to be left alone in their filthy little sandbox where victims of child sexual abuse are just as guilty, if not more guilty, than their abusers.

Depression and the art of never starting things…….

One of the hardest things about dealing with depression is the inability I have to start things that I want to do.

It’s not that I’m lazy.

It’s just that my brain keeps telling me not to bother starting because it won’t make a difference to anyone or anything.

Yes, but Bobbie, isn’t this therapeutic ?

Possibly.

But I still have to overcome the depression demons.

Sure, I’m on escitalopram, but that doesn’t stop the depression, it just turns it down a bit.

The demons and the monsters are still there.

Waiting and lurking.

Don’t forget, I’ve never had a day in my life of any type of therapy related to the events on Canadian Forces Base Namao, nor have I ever had any therapy to help me recover from my involvement with Captain Terry Totzke, nor have I ever had any therapy to help me recover from my father’s very dysfunctional household.

I’ve had tons of talking sessions with counsellors since 2011. But they can’t fix what they can’t understand.

Children don’t live on military bases.

If children did live on military bases, military bases were very safe and secure environments where nothing bad would ever happen to a child.

If bad things did happen to those children, then the military would have stepped in an put an end to it as the military protects children.

And on, and on, and on, wash-rinse-repeat.

I’m sure that the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence have gone to every extent to convince everyone of any importance in Canada that the military treated child sexual abuse as the horrific crime that it was and that it would never classify male-on-male child sexual abuse as “acts of homosexuality” and that it would never blame the victims for their own abuse.

So, until the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence come clean about historical child sexual abuse, the flaws in the National Defence Act that would allow commanding officers with no scruples to hide child sexual abuse, and their very abysmal manner in which victims of male-on-male child sexual abuse were seen as mentally ill homosexuals partially responsible for their own abuse, things will never change. I can’t keep going to counsellors, psychologists, and psychiatrists when they cast their distrust upon me.

This of course means that my depression has free reign inside of my skull.

When no one believes.

Well, it looks as if one of the aspects of the CFB Namao child sexual abuse scandal that the DOJ and the DND aren’t willing to look after is the psychological harm done to the victims of Captain Father Angus McRae and his teenaged accomplice.

And I’m not referring to the psychological harm done as a direct result of the sexual abuse. I’m talking about the psychological malpractice that came from being dealt with by military social workers.

It’s very clear from my involvement with the military social worker that his goal was to keep the civilian authorities from discovering what had occurred on Canadian Forces Base Namao from 1978 until 1980.

How many other kids were dealt with by military social workers in the aftermath of the Captain Father Angus McRae child sexual abuse scandal?

No one knows.

I’ve tried to retrieve my medical records from Captain Terry Totzke, but the Department of National Defence says that these records cannot be found unless I myself tell DND where these records currently are and who currently has them.

If it wasn’t for my Alberta Social Service records and my Children’s Aid Society of Toronto records, I would never have know that I had been in the care of military social workers in Alberta and in Ontario.

And no doubt there are others like me.

Others who were dealt with by the military social workers.

Others who were blamed by the military social workers for wanting what happened.

Other who were blamed for their younger siblings having been abused by the babysitter and Captain McRae.

How many kids from Canadian Forces Base Namao went on to commit suicide?

Not only as a result of the sexual abuse in a military environment that viewed such abuse as nothing more than homosexuality.

How many kids involved with the CFB Namao child sexual abuse scandal went on to commit suicide due to their involvement with the military social workers and their serving parent’s refusal to disobey the directions of the military social workers.

The DOJ and the DND will do anything to keep the public from ever discovering that not only were children sexually abused on military bases, but children were often mindfucked and gaslit by the military.

This means that my application for M.A.i.D. is going to be one hell of a battle.

One of the complication my nurse practitioner says that I might still face in my request for Medical Assistance in Dying is that I haven’t sought or participated in treatment for my mental illnesses.

In May of 2021 I had to take time off from work. I was in crisis. The stress of dealing with my past along with the stress of dealing with a major hospital that was trying to become COVID proof using ventilation systems that were designed long before viruses like SARS or COVID pushed me over the edge.

I went to see a psychiatrists at Vancouver General Hospital at their Access and Assessment Program.

I had a talk with one of the psychiatrists.

As I listed off to him what I was going through and what I had been through, I could see his eyes glaze over. He must have literally been wondering what fucking rock I crawled out from under and why I wasn’t wearing my tinfoil hat.

It’s the same look I’ve had from counsellors and psychiatrists before.

A look of complete disbelief.

A look that says that they think I am unloading 100 percent horseshit on them.

Military child sexual abuse?

Get the fuck outta here!

Military hiding child sexual abuse?

Get the fuck outta here!

Children with Military Social Workers?

Get the fuck outta here!

Children being gaslit by military social workers into believing that they’re to blame for being sexually abused?

Get the fuck outta here!

So yeah, it’s hard to get help when those offering the help don’t believe 1/10th of what you’re telling them.

And it’s absolutely maddening to think that I won’t be able to obtain M.A.i.D. because everyone who should have helped instead wanted to pass me off as some tinfoil hat lunatic.

So, it looks like I might be left with taking care of things by myself.

But that’s the way it has always been all of my life.

The Anti-Eugenics Crusaders

One of the most significant road blocks that I will encounter in my desire to obtain Medical Assistance in Dying is the “MAiD is eugenics” crusader.

These people are hellbent to ensure that the general public understand that the government is secretly plotting to kill off all the disabled people in an attempt to save money, free up resources, and clean up the gene pool in order to introduce a “superior race”.

However, there’s a problem with this whole “eugenics” argument.

If you’re not having sex and reproducing, you yourself are committing eugenics.

Eugenics has sweet bugger fuck all to do with a 52 year old man seeking to end his mental suffering.

I have no intention of reproducing. I haven’t been in a position to reproduce. After having grown up in my father’s dysfunctional household I made a decision early on in life that I never wanted to have kids. Period.

Allowing me to die peacefully at the hands of a trained and licenced medical professional is not eugenics.

Eugenics would have been if the government exterminated me or sterilized me when I was a kid. That would be eugenics.

Eugenics is not allowing me to choose a peaceful death a little ahead of my natural time. I’m fifty-fucking-two years old, not eleven.

I’ve dealt with major depression, severe anxiety, haphephobia, sexual orientation issues, and a whole host of other issues since I was 9 years old.

Yes, I understand now that what happened wasn’t my fault, but it still doesn’t erase the damage in my brain. Knowing the truth doesn’t undo any of the suffering that I’ve endured all these years.

And stop using the word “Eugenics” if you have no idea of what it means.

The effects of military child sexual abuse

One thing that has often come up is “Bobbie, why didn’t you tell someone”

The thing is, I didn’t have to tell anyone.

All of the people in positions of authority knew.

Captain Terry Totzke knew.

My father knew.

Base Commander Colonel Daniel Edward Munro knew.

Base Security officer Captain David Pilling knew.

The office of the Judge Advocate General knew.

Everyone knew.

What was I supposed to do?

Some may argue that I need to forgive my father. Sure, he was only a master corporal. But the silly fucker could have grown a pair of balls even if that meant leaving the Canadian Armed Forces.

But he didn’t.

Instead, I received 2-1/2 years of punishment / conversion therapy at the hands of Captain Terry Totzke. So, in my matter it wasn’t that no one knew. Everyone knew. And people who had the ability to make things better for me instead punished me.

How many other male military dependents from Canadian Forces Base Namao received the same treatment that I did. How many male military dependents from the other bases that Captain Angus McRae was stationed at received the same treatment that I received on Canadian Forces Base Namao?

This is important as even my lawyer indicates that the shame of male sexual abuse may prevent other victims of Captain McRae and his “agents” from coming forward.

How many other victims have come forward over the years only to have their matters dismissed by the military police due to flaws in the National Defence Act that would make it impossible to lay charges in the modern day for any act that occurred prior to 1998?

How many other victims tried to come forward over the years but had no support from their parents who were serving members of the Canadian Forces at the time of the abuse due to their serving parent’s fear of violating the Security of Information Act and the Official Secrets Act that both prohibit anyone who became aware of “information” on a Defence Establishment while they were subject to the Code of Service Discipline from ever disclosing that information.

Member of the Canadian Armed Forces are subject to the Security of Information Act and the Official Secrets Act for life.

And the Official Secrets Act and the Security of Information Act don’t specify what this “information” is. Those act just state “any information”.

Top Secret? Doesn’t say.

Classified? Doesn’t say.

Nor do these acts make exceptions for criminal investigations.

And there’s also the spectre that serving parents in the Canadian Forces were promised favours in trade for their silence and for not making a fuss.

Might explain how Richard came to forget about the existence of his own mother when he gave a statement to the CFNIS in 2011. But then again, the CFNIS never re-interviewed me for clarification about grandma or what home life was like in 1978 through 1980 after Richard gave them his very revised and edited version of home in July of 2011.

Two options about Richard’s statement.

(a) – He lied to the CFNIS in 2011 because in May to June of 1980 he took favours from the Canadian Forces in trade for him not making a fuss out of the events on CFB Namao.

(b) – The CFNIS reminded him that he was still bound by the Official Secrets Act or the Security of Information Act and that he should think very carefully before discussing any information that was directly related to the Canadian Forces and events on Canadian Forces Base Namao.

And if Richard lied about CFB Namao, how many other former members of the Canadian Armed Forces have lied in order to cover up their complicity in their own children having been sexually abused on a Department of National Defence / Canadian Armed Forces military base?

There is no way that I am the only one who suffered through this shit.

Death

What does death feel like?

Nothing actually. Death feels like nothing. You have to be alive to experience and feel.

Can you remember what it was like before you were conceived? The universe has existed for about 13.7 billion years.

Do you remember any of that?

No?

Well, death is the exact same.

Without a functioning brain, you cannot have a consciousness, you cannot feel, you cannot experience.

You are dead.

To be dead is to be at peace.

The dead have no memories.

The dead have no trauma.

The dead have no fears, no phobias, no mental health issues, no self hatred, no self loathing, no low self esteem.

Why do people fear death so much?

Well, death is the only thing that the human brain has never experienced. The human brain is terrified of the unknown. The human brain likes to have the answers. And if it can’t have the answers, then it creates the answer. See “gods” for an example of this phenomenon.

This is why humans have spent so much effort to convince themselves that there is a life after death. There isn’t. This life is all you get. There will be no other.

Humans like to think of themselves as individuals, each unique in their own special way. But we’re not. What is so special about humans is that we can transcend death not by living after our death, but by passing on our knowledge to the next generation. It is our knowledge that transcends death while our corpse rots and festers.

I am comfortable with my death.

I know that my experiences will live on long after I have been put to sleep.

Yes, I am afraid of dying. But this is more due to the fear of potential pain or of the procedure being botched.

But death, death I welcome it. My death will settle my anxiety and my death will release me from the grips of my depression.

My death will forever erase the memories of the babysitter and of Captain McRae. My death will remove from me the memories of my sexual, physical, and mental abuse at the hands of the various persons who were supposed to be looking after me, caring for me, and keeping me safe from harm.

Am I sad that I see death as my only option?

No.

Death is all around us. Try as we might to pretend that death does not exist, it does.

And life is not as valuable and unique as we’d like to pretend that it is.

America has already had 35 mass shootings in less than 23 days of the year so far. But reducing the death toll by implementing gun control would be to much for the 2A supporters to endure.

Car culture in Canada has killed 45,582 people between 2001 and 2020. Changes could easily be made to reduce this death toll, but this would inconvenience car drivers.

In the 10 year period of 2008 until 2018, there were 6,102 deaths by suicide in the province of British Columbia.

These figures don’t include deaths due to illnesses, or any other means.

And as of this writing there are well over 7,888,000,000 people existing on the face of the Earth. We’re not unique.

Is my life unique?

No.

Is my life special?

No.

Is my life enjoyable?

No.

Will my life ever be free from the turmoil and grief that was bestowed upon me by others?

No.

My time has come.

I am tired.

I should be allowed to leave when I want.

I should be allowed to leave via a painless method administered by a professional who is trained to properly induce death in a compassionate manner.

Death cannot hurt me any worse than what I’ve endured.

In fact, death can release me from the pain and the torment.

What does depression feel like?

Okay, so I can only say this from my perspective, but this is what depression feels like for me.

I don’t feel like I am good at anything. If someone as stupid as I am can figure something out, then everyone else should be able to as well, right?

Yes, I have a very low self esteem. And what makes it worse is when people congratulate me for my accomplishments as they’re obviously just saying nice things to make me shut up, right?

There are a lot of projects that I don’t undertake at work as I know that I am too stupid to get them done. And if they do by some miracle get done, my mind tells me that they won’t be liked, or that they will fail.

Sleeping. I sleep a lot. I always have. I’m sure that constantly waking up with night terrors or in a panic doesn’t help. But even in periods when I am able to sleep without these interruptions I still don’t like waking up or getting out of bed. I get home from work, I sleep. I hate getting out of bed in the morning. It’s not that my bed is nice and warm and I find it too seductive to get out of. I just don’t have any reason to get out of bed. There is no drive.

The most I’ve slept was on a vacation a few years ago. I spent almost 14 days in bed getting out just for food and the bathroom. No movies, mo music, no nothing. Just sleeping and going off to dream land.

I am habitually late for work. I always have been. Being late for work is nothing new. But most employers I’ve worked for have been more than willing to overlook my tardiness as the skills I bring are valuable to them.

Even when I was a kid, getting up and out of bed was a fucking chore.

And that didn’t change at all. into adulthood.

In the early years just after I moved out of the house in 1987, I would often sleep for days.

And just this past weekend I slept through Saturday and Sunday.

Making and keeping friends with untreated depression and untreated anxiety if fucking hopeless. You don’t feel the need to call your friends because you just know that you’re going to bother them or disturb them. And when they call you, they’re often calling in the middle of a depression cycle. And then when no one calls the anxiety kicks in and convinces you that no one likes you and they’re all avoiding you because you’re beyond worthless and they’re only being your “friend” because they’re either using you for a skill that you have, or they just feel sorry for you.

Why didn’t I get help instead of letting my depression progress for so long without treatment?

For starters, I didn’t know that I had been diagnosed with Major Depression in November of 1980 until I received my social service paperwork in August of 2011. When I was having issues with my depression between age 9 and age 16, my father’s way of helping me with my “piss poor fucking attitude” was backhands, slaps, spankings, etc.

I received my first medical card and medical insurance when I started working for the Elashi family in East Richmond in 1994. There was a Carepoint medical clinic in the plaza that the Elashi’s owned. I would go to the clinic to get help with my inability to sleep. Remember, I didn’t know that 14 years prior I had been diagnosed with Major Depression. The doctor and I were certain that I only had a sleep disorder. Looking back, the pills that I had been prescribed could also used for treating depression.

And at that point in time I would never have considered myself to be depressed. My father had drilled into my head that I was just a fucking lazy arsehole that often acted up for fucking attention and who often pretended to be smarter than he actually was.

So no, there was no seeking help for depression. My father, and even “Terry” had suggested that I was just suffering from a mental illness called homosexuality.

And at this time I was nowhere near ready to deal with my implied “homosexuality”. I wasn’t really ready to consider myself a homosexual. It’s just that both Terry and my father insisted that I was one and that why I messed around with the babysitter on Canadian Forces Base Namao.

I couldn’t dare be open with the doctor. What if I said something to him that allowed him to figure out that I was a homosexual that had sex with his babysitter? Or worse ye, what if the doctor discovered that because of my homosexuality I had allowed the babysitter to molest my younger brother.

So no, there was no getting help with my depression, or my anxiety, or my haphephobia. Or my sexual identity / gender confusion.

If both Terry and my father said that I was a homosexual, then surely I must be a homosexual. Yes, my brother swears that he never heard my father refer to me as “gay”, but it’s not like Richard and Terry needed my brother’s permission.

This assignment of my sexual orientation by my father and by Terry as a result of my 1-1/2 years of sexual abuse on Canadian Forces Base Namao by Captain Father Angus McRae and his teenaged accomplice probably did nothing to help me deal with my depression.

And being confused about my orientation didn’t help my depression either.

What else didn’t help with my depression? Haphephobia. The fear of being touched. Fuck do I ever hate being touched, especially unexpectedly. I really hate being touched in a sexual manner. One of the guys at work one put his hand on my shoulder from behind. I twisted away from him. He thought that this was funny so he tried it again. I did not think that this was funny. And I’ve had this haphephobia since the days of CFB Namao. How can a person have relationships if they don’t know their orientation, and they don’t like being touched. This in and of itself will feed depression.

My brain is often numb. It’s a weird sensation. It feels like my brain is stuffed with cotton. It’s very hard to concentrate. I often lose my train of thought if someone says something to me when I am not expecting interruptions.

Oh, and did I mention to you that I was diagnosed as having a notable “Auditory Memory” problem? Yeah, I’ve got tricks to work around this. First is don’t fucking call me on the telephone. Text me, email me, don’t call me. Want me to order something for you, fill out one of these handy dandy parts request forms. Auditory memory issues also ensure great fun with depression.

The funny thing about the auditory memory issue is that when Alberta Social Services wanted to remove me from the home and place me into foster care or residential care as a means to force my father to comply with the family counselling program, Richard himself pulled out the paperwork detailing this auditory memory issue as a cause of my problems in school. Yet in 2011 he didn’t tell the CFNIS about this auditory memory issue nor our involvement with Alberta Social Services or the fact that I was in the foster care system. And, he used to get pissed off and physical with me on CFB Griesbach and CFB Downsview if I forgot to do something that he told me to do or if I didn’t understand what he had told me.

So, as you can see, I’ve had my fair share of mental health issues that were diagnosed, but that were left untreated, hidden, and ignored.

I suffered with these matters all of my life.

And these issues are part of the reason I want MAiD.

MAiD is the only way for me to finally be freed from these issues.

My desire for MAiD isn’t a rash decision.

It’s the result of a very slow moving train that’s been gathering speed for the last 40+ years.

A little change in my plans

Okay, still waiting to hear whether or not Parliament will ask the Senate to agree to delaying the implementation of Medical Assistance in Dying for reasons of Mental Health.

So in the meantime I’m still proceeding as if March 17th, 2023 is the date that M.A.i.D. for reasons of Mental Health is allowed to proceed.

To that end I’m still planning out the arrangements for the disposal of my body.

I’ve come to the conclusion that cremation would be the easiest method to plan for. And by opting for cremation I can plan for a “one stop shopping” experience.

I’ve been in contact with a few funeral homes in the lower mainland. These homes have allowed the M.A.i.D. procedure to be carried out on their premises. They typically have a room set-up and nicely furnished where a person can undergo the procedure in the company of their close friends and family.

Once the procedure has been completed and the person is legally pronounced deceased the body is usually then prepared for disposal whether it be by burial or by cremation. And usually the funeral that the M.A.i.D. procedure occurs at will deal with the cremation or the burial.

I had wanted a green burial. Just my body in a shroud in a hole in the ground left to decompose the way bodies have done since time immemorial. The problem that I ran into with this desire is that there aren’t many cemeteries between Vancouver and Hope that allow for bodies to be buried without a casket and without a cement grave liner.

So, cremation it is.

And this really simplifies things.

I arrive at the funeral home. Get into bed. Undergo the procedure. Pass away peacefully. Be officially declared as deceased. Then my corpse is loaded into the cremator. I’m incinerated. My bone fragments and other ash residue are pulverized into a fine powder. The my ashes as put into a little plastic bag and the placed inside a container.

And that’s it.

My funeral arranger will look after filing for the required death certificate and other papers.

Except for my legacy at work and my legacy of being one of 25 children fucked up by Captain McRae and the Canadian Armed Forces, it will be as if I never existed.

The universe will continue on as if I was never here.

Within one generation I will have been forgotten like so many others that have led solitary lives.

And that’s fine.

I will finally be free of my daemons, all of my mental illnesses, all of the horrors and memories that torment me, and all of the issues that were gifted to me by my dysfunctional household, by my molester Captain Father Angus McRae and his teenage accomplice, and the mind fucking I endured at the hands of my military social worker, Captain Terry Totzke.

None of these will plague me anymore once my brain is dead.

And honestly, it’s not like I’m going to be angry or upset about being dead. I’ll be dead. Matters of the living will no longer be of ant concern to me as I will no longer exist.

All I have to do is to make sure that I remember M.A.i.D. first, cremator second. I don’t think going into the cremator alive would be too enjoyable.