Category: depression

Photography.

I took this past Friday off from work to be photographed by a professional photographer.

I met Albert back in 2017 when he came to the hospital to document an energy savings program that phsycial plant had implemented.

He was brought in by the planner that had looked after the project.

He didn’t say anything to me at the time, but he asked the manager to contact me and to tell me that he was interested in taking some photos of me in his studio.

I went over and we did a photoshoot for a few hours.

It was interesting.

So, I decided that I’d like to have some more photographs taken seeing as how my wardrobe has become far more than second hand dresses. Also, my tattoos cover far more than what they did back in 2017.

I contacted Albert about a month ago and we set up an appointment on Friday.

I took four dresses over in addition to the dress that I was wearing.

I also took my favourtie heels.

Rode the scooter from Braid skytrain station over to Albert’s place.

Albert should start a therapy / photography service.

We talked for about 30 to 40 minutes before going into the studio. He seemed to want to flesh out why I wanted to pay to get my photographs taken.

I explained to Albert that I have a decent camera setup, and I like taking photographs of mechanical things, and odd things. I don’t like to photograph people and I don’t like people in my photographs.

I also explained that I am far too self concious and far too critical to take pictures of myself.

Albert asked me what happens when people want to take picture of me.

I told him that for some reason my brain reacts different.

For example, when I was in Iceland over the summer no matter where I went, both tourists and Icelanders were asking to take my picture.

I think the reason that I love dresses and colours and designs is they offset how absolutely dead I am on the inside.

Let’s face it, with what I’ve been through in life, I have the ultimate “resting bitch face”. People think that I’m angry. I’m not. I’m just completely dead on the inside.

As social services indicated back in 1982, I couldn’t express emotions, I couldn’t express happiness or sadness. Whenever they tried to get me to express my emotions it would usually end up in a temper tantrum. I had no idea of how to make friends. I was completely isolated. Captain Totzke and my father had no interest in getting me the help I needed at the time, so things were just left to fester.

I should have the photographs in a week’s time. Albert has to process the images. I’ll get them in RAW format, but he’ll also render JPG versions of the photos. Most of the portrait full frame shots were taken with a Medium Format digital camera.

A simple message

Do you think you know what depression looks like?
Do you think you know what depression feels like?

Here’s a message from the Norwich Football Club in Norwich, Norfolk, England.

The message deals with depression and how people can very easily miss the signs if they don’t know what they’re looking for.

The time of your death…

Do people really feel more comfortable not knowing the time of their death versus knowing the time of their death?

I’ve had people say to me that the would rather not know when they are going to die.

For me, it’s different.

Everyone dies.

For me, knowing the approximate time of my death is nice as I can start making plans to wind down my life. There’s a lot of issues to be taken care of before one’s death.

For me I get to plan out my final months, my final weeks, my final days, and my final hours.

I get to be put to sleep where and when I want to.

I get to have my corpse disposed of as I wish.

I can even invite whomever I wish to my death.

Prior to deciding to apply for Medical Assistance in Dying I was always terrified of actually living to my 70s or 80s.

Not knowing when I would be able to die is what panicked me the most. How long would my fucked up brain keep replaying this shit. How long would my fucked up brain keep sabotaging shit. Everything that I try to do my depression fucks with.

Now, knowing that I have the possibility of dying when I’d like to die, which is sooner than later, I have found myself in somewhat of a calm and serene mood.

As I have said before it’s no fun suffering from major depression and severe anxiety. Especially not when your own father would tell anyone who would listen that it was all just an act for attention.

It’s no fun having the events of CFB Namao playing over and over in my head. It’s no fun having the memories of Terry and my father playing over and over.

Always being stuck in a state of wondering how different things would have been if matters had been looked after properly on Canadian Forces Base Namao. Or how different things would have been if Andy hadn’t been drinking that evening. Or how different things would have been if Angus McRae had been thrown out of the military the first time he molested kids on base.

The memories of of the abuse are burnt into my brain.

They’re not going anywhere.

It’s not my job to “try harder” to forget about them.

And pretending the events on CFB Namao didn’t occur is just as bad as remembering them as forgetting the events will leave empty holes that will just bring the memories right back.

Society in general doesn’t seem to have a problem with death.

Society, espeically the religious, seems to be very intolerant of a person chosing to die.

Simply look at the number of deaths from vehicle collisions each and every year.

Society is willing to accept the deaths from Car Culture as just a small price to pay for driver convenience.

Limiting horsepower, mandating GPS based speed limiters, banning vehicles from municipal streets that don’t have pedestrian friendly crumple zones are all proven methods to reducing the CARnage on our public streets.

But society won’t take those simple steps as that would hurt car sales.

Deaths on the public streets have gotten so out of control that local governments and police forces go out of their way to victim blame in these circumstances as a means of ensuring the municipality / state / province won’t be held liable for unsafe street designs, insufficient speed enforcement, etc.

https://www.iihs.org/topics/fatality-statistics/detail/pedestrians

That’s 785,000 deaths in 20 years due to the belief that Bubba-Joe needs a 400hp car to drive 5 blocks to the 7-11 to pick up Ding-Dongs and smokes.

But for some weird and bizarre reason, society is very, very reluctant to approve of death in order to be relieved of mental health issues.

It’s almost as if society is okay with death as long as the person dying isn’t seen as having a say in their own death.

This no doubt is a result of the belief of imaginary friends in the sky and the concept of “life after death”.

People seem to be comforted by the idea that they will still somehow exist after their death. People seem to be comforted by the idea that they will go to a land of happiness and eternal sunshine if they keep their imaginary friend happy.

When we die, we die.

That’s it.

That’s all.

And there is nothing wrong with that.

That’s the way life works.

I think it’s a fucking shame that religious people think that I need to be made to suffer in life so that I can make their imaginary friend happy with the notion that if I keep their friend happy then I can float up to a paradise in the clouds and enjoy eternal happiness.

Maybe it’s also a way for the religious to avoid taking responsibility for hell on Earth.

My life was altered into a sick fucking joke starting in 1978. I didn’t have a say in this.

I only get one life.

Maybe that’s the difference between me and the religious.

I accept the fact that we only get one life.

I don’t simply shrug my shoulders in the belief that the magical sky-daddy will open his arms to me if I suffer, and that the magical sky-daddy will even let me have another turn on Earth.

I am the result of Richard’s and Marie’s DNA mixing, plus a lifetime of lived experiences.

I will never exist again. No one similar to me will ever exist again.

I could choose to suffer like an imbecile.

Or I can choose to die and be freed from all of this nonsense.

I choose with my brain to be freed.

Monday August 21st 2023

Well, the clock is ticking.

It’s 6 months and 24 days before I learn what the future holds for the possibility of my fate.

Am I able to humanely end my suffering?

Or due to a cruel twist of fate will I be sentenced to endure mental suffering for the rest of my days?

I’ve got my fingers crossed, but at the same time I’m not going to get my hopes up too high knowing first hand how quickly the government back-tracked in March of this year and chickened out and backed down in the face of right-wing-christofascist who launched a well orchestrated Astroturf campaign using disabled people as disposable props in their theatre of compassion.

I know that the DOJ, the DND, and the CAF are following my blogs. The lawyers for the DOJ said as much during one of our initial meetings two years ago.

Do I care?

Nope.

Sure, the DOJ, the DND, and the CAF may be using my desire for death and the potential for MAiD for SUMC of Mental Illness being allowed in March of 2024 as a reason to delay this matter. But I don’t care.

The lawyers have more than enough information to keep this matter going after my death.

The DOJ, the DND, and the CAF may outlast me, but they won’t outlast all of the victims of Captain McRae or the other catholic clergy that served on various chapels on the bases across Canada.

Anyways, here’s this week’s podcast.

I really wish I could keep up with these, but the depression kills. It stops me dead in my tracks.

The brave members of the military

This is the type of response that I’ve encountered when trying to obtain help with the topic of child sexual abuse in the Canadian Armed Forces.

When I started off on this journey back in 2011 I was shortly thereafter given the name of a lawyer from Ontario who had experience taking on the Catholic Church and reaching settlements with the church to compensate the victims of child sexual abuse committed by members of the Catholic Clergy.

This lawyer wouldn’t commit to helping me in my matter.

Why not?

As it turns out he was a member of the Canadian Forces reserves.

I guess he didn’t want to make a bad name for himself in the reserves.

This wasn’t the only lawyer to balk at getting involved with thus matter.

There were three ex-jags who now practice military law in private practice.

Nope. Child sexual abuse in the Canadian Forces was something they were not getting themselves involved with.

Anyways…… time for yet another video.

Time for some videos…….

Okay, depression is clearing so I thought that I would make some videos before the depression comes back. Gotta be quick.

So, here are some videos that I made yesterday.

I might even have enough energy and enough nerves to do some more today.

Richard the Misogynist

To say that my father Richard was a misogynist would have been an understatement. Of all of the traits that I may have picked up from my father, thankfully his misogyny and hatred of women wasn’t one of them.

Many other reasons for M.A.i.D.

People keep fixating on the sexual abuse at the hands of the babysitter as my reasons for desiring to end my life via M.A.i.D..

This of course ignores the professional malpractice I endured at the hands of Canadian Forces military social worker Captain Terry Totzke. Professional malpractice that denied me treatment for major depression, severe anxiety, and haphephobia. Professional malpractice that also interfered with my safety and wellbeing. Professional malpractice that caused me to have life long issues with sexual identity.

There are many more reasons for why I would like to be put to sleep. The year and a half of sexual abuse is only a part of the equation.

Why is death the only appropriate answer?

Why do I view my death as the only appropriate answer?

It’s quite simple. I don’t want a chemical lobotomy. I also don’t want to be blamed for not “trying hard enough”.

The damage is done.

My Class Action

Not really too much to say in this one.

The Department of Justice is a massive organization with more money and more lawyers than the law firm representing me could ever dream of having access to.

The goal of the DOJ is to work out a settlement that will allow the DND and the CAF to look like the heroes while not admitting that children were fucked over by the defective and easily manipulated pre-1998 military justice system.

The DOJ has already tried arguing that the DND and the CAF shouldn’t be responsible for the victims of Captain McRae’s teenaged accomplice. That the DND and the CAF should only be responsible for the children abused by Captain McRae himself. The problem with this is that even though the original CFSIU investigation into Captain McRae was well aware of numerous victims of Captain McRae and his teenaged accomplice, at least 25 according to the father of the teenaged accomplice, the chain of command interfered with the CFSIU investigation and limited the charges against Captain McRae to only those involving Captain McRae’s teenaged accomplice.

In a nutshell, under the DOJ’s argument, only the teenaged accomplice would receive any funds or acknowledgement from the DOJ, the CAF, and the DND.