anxiety – Page 33

Damn, who knew that my father posed for a statue.

I never would have figured out that my father was the “artsy type” who would have posed for a statue. But here he is .

Yeah, my father definitely wasn’t “dad” material.

As I’ve learnt in life, there actually aren’t too many men that fit the “ideal” model of a modern age “dad”.

Just as not every woman is fit to be a mother, not every man is fit to be a father.

Having sex and reproducing are simple enough that anyone can do it really.

No qualifications or experience required.

My paternal grandmother should never have reproduced.

My maternal grandmother should never have reproduced.

My mother and my father should have had a hysterectomy and vasectomy.

Sure, I wouldn’t have existed. But at the same token I would never have gone through any of the stuff that I went through.

Win-win I guess.

As I’ve said elsewhere, life isn’t a video game.

There’s no final stage boss to fight with the experience points you’ve gained in life.

You don’t win the game of life.

You don’t get bonus points for completing all of the missions and side quests in the game of life.

You don’t win a bonus life.

Two people have sex.

You gestate for 9 months.

You pop out into the world.

You then make a bee-line straight to your inevitable death.

What you life is like in between birth and death is pretty well determined by how well the two people who fucked to bring you into the world give a fuck after you’ve enter into the world.

Anyways, enough for now.

Blimey, it just keeps looking worse and worse.

I think someone forgot to flush the toilets at 101 Colonel By Drive…. the shit is overflowing at NDHQ.

Well David Pugliese had this article in the Ottawa Citizen today. The story involves the Minister of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces Chain of Command using the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service to harass and intimidate the Office of the Ombudsman of the Canadian Armed Forces.

The Federal court has rebuked the military and compensation has been paid to members of the Office of the Ombudsman of the Canadian Forces.

It just doesn’t get any fucking better than this.

The story is available here at: https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/dnd-investigations-into-ombudsmans-staff-exposed-as-shoddy-lacking-in-evidence

The Office of the Ombudsman for the Canadian Forces enjoys a rather unique position of independence from the Canadian Armed Forces.

Unlike the Military Police Complaints Commission which may only ‘ask’ for documents from the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal during investigations of complaints against the CFNIS. And unlike the Military Police Complaints Commission which may only ‘ask’ for persons to participate in their investigation. The National Defence Act makes mandatory the participation of military members in any Ombudsman investigation.

This is because criminal charges cannot result from any Ombudsman investigation or inquiry. The Ombudsman may only recommend changes and possibly compensation or other remedies.

The Office of the Ombudsman of the Canadian Armed Forces was the agency that recommended that while the Canadian Armed Forces were “technically correct” to deny benefits or compensation to any of the 12 to 18 year old cadets that were killed or injured in the 1974 grenade explosion at Canadian Forces Base Valcartier, it was absolutely the immoral thing to do considering that the regular force member whose negligence led to this disaster was allowed to receive benefits and compensation from the Canadian Armed Forces. The Ombudsman recommended that the Canadian Forces make amendments posthaste and offer the survivors compensation, counselling, and therapy.

There is one problem with the Office of the Ombudsman of the Canadian Forces. That problem is that the Ombudsman may only undertake investigations that the Minister of National Defence agrees to.

See, the Office of the Ombudsman of the Canadian Forces would have been the perfect agency to investigate the matter from Canadian Forces Base Namao. No criminal charges could ever flow from an Ombudsman investigation or findings.

P.S. could give all the information that he wished and he would never face criminal charges for what he said. Nor would P.S. be in violation of his Non-Disclosure agreement that he had to sign with the Government of Canada in November of 2008 in order to receive his settlement from the Government of Canada.

The Ombudsman could have called witnesses, including anyone who had been subject to the Code of Service Discipline during the events of the Captain Father Angus McRae affair.

Even though my father is dead now, had the Ombudsman conducted an inquiry while my father was still alive it would have been fun asking my father to explain just exactly who the hell was looking after his children from 1977 until 1981 if he was always away on training exercises and his wife had “abandoned the family” years prior. Was he letting his children run feral on a military base? Did he just drop his kids off at a random neighbour’s house for 6 weeks while he went and played soldier out in the woods?

The Ombudsman could have made recommendations to DND and the Canadian Forces so far as how to deal with the survivors of the Captain McRae fiasco.

But I can see why the Minister of National Defence would have declined the Ombudsman the permission to review the matter.

This would have been far too risky for DND.

If this matter had been reviewed by the Ombudsman, and news of this review made it to the media, how many other former military dependents would come forward with their allegations against DND and the CF?

Would the Ombudsman have made the formal recommendation that any and all child sexual abuse matters be formally handed over to the civilian police?

Would the Ombudsman make the recommendation that the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence hire an independent investigation firm to conduct a completely independent and arm’s length investigation looking at how many children were sexually abused on the bases from 1950 until the present day?

Would the Ombudsman make recommendations that Parliament pass the required legislation to nullify the effects of the pre-1998 3-year-time-bar flaw and the Summary-Investigation flaw for matters that could be considered to be child sexual abuse?

There’s just far too much risk for the Minister to allow the Ombudsman to go digging into the MIlitary’s copious dirty laundry.

And I know from speaking with various investigators with the Office of the Ombudsman that the Ombudsman has been fighting for even more independence from the Canadian Armed Forces and not having to rely on the permission of the Minister of National Defence to conduct investigations that look at historical matters which occurred prior to when the Office of the Ombudsman was created in the late ’90s.

The Art of being Insignificant.

or how I realized that to be at peace with one’s self you have to realize that none of this matters.

It’s interesting how little people actually matter.

I could disappear tomorrow and to be honest not a single person would miss me. And that’s not being glib, it’s just being realistic.

Sure, there’s the pleasantries that would be exchanged. “Where’s Bobbie? Anybody seen Bobbie? No? Okay, who wants to go watch a hockey game next week?”

But me, like you, and like everyone else, are completely expendable.

As long as a person proves to be useful to someone else and we fill their requirements, then we matter.

But the instance you stop being useful, and the instant you stop fulfilling the needs of other, you’re dispensable.

In March of 2011 when I went to the Edmonton Police Service with my complaint against P.S., I honestly had no idea of just how putrid this was going to turn out to be.

The more that I uncovered, the more blown away I was that I was actually part and parcel of something much larger than I could ever have imagined. I was no longer the little homosexual faggot that made the babysitter molest my younger brother.

I was now one of at least 25 children, if not many more that Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae molested on the three Canadian Forces Bases and one Canadian Forces Station that he had been stationed at from 1973 until July of 1980.

I thought that with the uncovering of the Captain McRae court martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork that this would get the ball rolling. That people would start asking “If this could happen to a schmuck like Bobbie, how many other kids were sexually abused by members of the Canadian Forces?” and “How many other kiddie diddling priests were in the Canadian Forces bouncing from base to base?”

I thought that with the Military Police Complaints Commission noting that the CFNIS in 2011 and 2015 to 2018 had in their possession the paperwork from the 1980 investigation of Captain Father Angus McRae and the 1980 court martial of Captain Father Angus McRae which indicated that the military police in 1980 were well aware of the antics of P.S. that this too would get the ball rolling.

Nope.

Outside of one story by David Pugliese, not a single bit of interest from the media or anyone else for that matter.

And with that I think that I’ve reached the final conclusion of my engagement with the Canadian Armed Forces.

Child sexual abuse obviously did not occur on the bases.

Children were obviously not sexually abused on base.

The Canadian Forces military police were obviously competent enough to protect the children living on base even though they couldn’t protect the adults.

My brother was not abused by P.S.

I was not abused by P.S. or Captain McRae.

P.S. didn’t have me provide oral sex to a much older man when I was 8 years old.

None of that happened.

And that’s okay.

I am not the person to expose this.

Not within my skillset.

So now I just have to concentrate on what’s going to happen in 2023.

We’ll have to see how my application for M.A.i.D. goes.

As I’ve said before, suicide isn’t for me.

Too much pain and too messy.

M.A.i.D. is ideal from the look of it.

Very painless, very quick, no mess, no fuss.

I don’t want to be the poster boy for M.A.i.D. for psychiatric issues.

But it is what it is.

I get to leave on my own terms.

I get to tie up all loose ends.

I get to fulfil my “bucket list” if you will.

And then I never have to worry about anything ever again.

And I promise you, no one will be the wiser when I’m gone.

Sure, you may say “but Bobbie, aren’t you letting the Canadian Forces off the hook too easy?”.

Nope.

Not my fight anymore.

Not my concern anymore.

I’m probably going to take some time off from work before I go through with M.A.i.D..

I found out that my pension will actually pay out early if I’m about to die, and yes M.A.i.D. is an acceptable cause of death for early payout.

Won’t be much, but it’ll be enough that I can do somethings.

Maybe travel.

Maybe just disappear right up until the day before the procedure.

But yeah, I’m not working to the end. And I have no intention of letting my pension go to waste.

My corpse can go to UBC medical school.

I’m hoping that my brain can go to the Montreal Brain Bank.

And in the end, when I’m gone I’ll be just as missed as I was prior to being conceived.

Once you realize just how truly insignificant you are you begin to realize that everything in the universe will carry on just fine without you.

You don’t need to be here.

You’re free to go anytime you wish.

You do not owe it to anyone to continue to exist.

The never coming apology.

Over the last ten years I’ve come to fully understand just how horrifically the kids from Canadian Forces Base Namao got fucked over by the leadership of the Canadian Armed Forces from May of 1980 until July of 1980.

And the one thing that the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service have made very fucking crystal clear to me is that under no circumstance is the Canadian Armed Forces or the Department of National Defence going to ever acknowledge that children were ever sexually abused on defence establishments by persons subject to the Code of Service Discipline.

In the 2020 final report of the Military Police Complaints Commission the MPCC remarked that the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service had in its possession the Court Martial transcripts of the 1980 court martial, as well as the 1980 Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit paperwork for the 1980 investigation of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae.

This is important for a few reasons.

On May 3rd, 2011 I told Mcpl Christian Cyr about the visits to the rectory at the chapel and the “sickly sweet grape juice” that P.S. would give to me. The next day Mcpl Cyr called me and told me he checked historical records and there never was a rectory at the chapel, the priest lived in other places.

Well, both the CFSIU paperwork and the court martial transcripts make it known that Captain McRae was known to have been taking children over to the RECTORY at the chapel and giving the children ALCOHOL.

The MPCC also indicate that it is very clear that the military police and the CFSIU knew that P.S. was molesting children as this is what initiated the investigation into Captain McRae in the first place and that Captain McRae’s defence counsel tried attacking the credibility of P.S. by raising the issue of P.S.’s habit of molesting children during the court martial hearings. McRae’s defence counsel also raised during the court martial hearings that P.S. had been sent for treatment with a psychologist due to his predilection of molesting children. The Court Martial transcripts describe one of the incidents where P.S., then 14, had forced anal intercourse with a ten year old boy behind the recreation centre in the “horseshoe forest”.

The MPCC also indicated that P.S. had a very lengthy criminal history for molesting children. One conviction in 1982, one conviction in 1984, two convictions in 1985. Three of these convictions were for molesting children while P.S. resided on Canadian Forces military bases in military family housing.

This is important as on November 4th, 2011 I was contacted by the CFNIS and told that they couldn’t find any thing to indicate that P.S. was capable of molesting children.

I don’t know who coaxed the statement out of my father, but his statement to the CFNIS in 2011 was easily disproved by readily available social service records. Was he coaxed into saying what he said, or did he say what he said to cover up for something in the past. Did he take a promotion in trade for keeping quiet about what happened to my brother and I. Or was it something else.

Anyways, back to the topic of this post, which is:

To “survivors” so long as they were not military dependents.
Military dependents can go piss up a rope.

It looks as if the adult members of the Canadian Armed Forces are getting an apology.

I know that I’m going to probably sound crass and out of line, but these are people that CHOSE to join the Canadian Armed Forces. Yes, they shouldn’t have been sexually assaulted. But they had the choice to join the military.

Children living on Canadian Forces Base didn’t have that choice. The choice of where we lived was that of our serving parent. We we put on these bases into housing provided by and administered by the Canadian Armed Forces which was often located on secured Defence Establishments that the Canadian Forces supplied security for.

We were often sexually abused by members of the Canadian Forces. We were sexually abused by other military dependents. Our matters were investigated by the same defective military police that couldn’t protect the adult members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

I received two-and-a-half years of conversion therapy at the hands of military social worker Captain Terry Totzke due to the “homosexuality” that I had apparently exhibited when I had been abused by a boy twice my age and the base chaplain.

Military dependents are basically told be successive governments that we don’t matter and that we didn’t matter and that the abuse that we suffered didn’t matter because we weren’t serving members of the Canadian Armed Forces.

And people wonder why I’m depressed and why I’ve given up.

When that midazolam, and then the propofol, and then the rocuronium, and then the bupivacaine flow through my veins I will finally be free of this ‘life’, this shitty fucked up and rather meaningless existence that the Canadian Armed Forces sentenced me to for no other reason that I was a child living on a Canadian Armed Forces Base and I had the audacity to get molested by a 14 year old boy and a 45 year old member of the Canadian Armed Forces.

Too fucking smart for my own good.

“Bobbie, the guys feel too intimidated by you”

I’m not smart. I’m honestly not.

I’m actually pretty plain.

If I was smart I wouldn’t only have grade 8.

I would have put my 136 +/-6 IQ to use.

If I was smart I would have taken a trade.

Or I would have gone to college.

Or even university.

If I was half as smart as people think I am then I would have joined the Canadian Armed Forces when I was 20 and I would have retired this year.

So, I know that I’m not a genius by anyone’s standard.

But what gets me is people at work.

People in my department who have the same power engineering certificate and the exact same qualifications that I have.

I was hired by a man named Dave R. who was the chief engineer in 2005. He said that he saw something in me that would be beneficial to the dept.

Right off the bat this caused problems with my co-workers.

I’m not a trained mechanic.

I have no schooling as a mechanic.

I’m not a millwright, nor am I an electrician.

But as I said, I can analyze problems, and I am not afraid to read the fucking manual.

Maybe that’s my problem is that I realize how fucking stupid I actually am and therefore I know that I don’t know everything and therefore I’m not ashamed to read the fucking manual.

Maybe that’s my super power. Maybe realizing how fucking stupid I really am allows me to not over estimate my knowledge and therefore I’m open to listening to the ideas of others or just plain READING THE FUCKING MANUAL.

So anyways, one of the first incidents occurred while Dave was still the chief engineer. Dave had assigned one of the other power engineers to remove a pillow block bearing from one of the exhaust fans. Dave was getting frustrated with the amount of time it was taking this other engineer. Dave assigned me a work order to go assist this other engineer. This other engineer told me to stay away, he had everything under control.

This other engineer came down to the shop a few days later, still hadn’t gotten the bearing changed, and was now asking Dave to order a new pulley in for the fan as the old one just shattered as he tried to take it off. Turns out that this other engineer had never worked with a tapered bushing hub. He had used a 3-jaw puller on the pulley and when that wouldn’t work he got a 1/2″ impact gun and used that. The tapered bushing and the bore of the pulley were still on the shaft and he still couldn’t get it off. Dave was furious. Bob! Get up there and show him what to do. Now! So I grabbed my 3/8″ ratchet and my 7/16″ socket and headed up. The other engineer said that I was wasting my time and that I’d need the large prybar or a torch as the sleeve was obviously rusted to the shaft.

I removed the three bolts from the tapered sleeve. The other engineer said that he did the same thing but that the pulley still didn’t come off. I put the three bolts into the other holes that had been empty. These holes are threaded and allow the bolts to press the hub off the sleeve. The other engineer was beyond furious. I said “I offered to help you last week”. “Fuck you, you only think you’re smart”.

This is a tapered bushing sleeve. Three holes are threaded, three holes aren’t.
The holes that aren’t threaded are used to draw the tapered sleeve into the hub using threaded holes in the pulley.
The holes with the threads are used to push the sleeve out of the pulley hub.

A few days go by and this other engineer still hadn’t changed the bearing. Dave was talking to this other engineer after coffee, Dave motioned to me to come over. Bob, go up and show him how to take a pillow block bearing off. “But Dave, I just need the oxyacetylene torch to heat the bearing up and it will come right off”. “We’re a hospital, we can’t be lighting fires in the mechanical rooms”. “Bob, show him what to do”. So I grabbed the angle grinder, and ball and peen hammer, and a cold chisel. The other engineer was adamant that this was not going to work. I used the angle grinder to cut through the pillow block, the and the bearing. The housing and the bearing dropped off. The only thing left was to notch the inner race and then use the cold chisel to expand the race to get it off the shaft.

I’m holding the split inner race, the other engineer is holding the housing I cut with the grinder.
The new bearing is just behind my shoulder.

We never really got along after that. The other engineer would do everything possible to stay away from me. And after Dave retired things got worse. An outside contractor was brought in to be the chief engineer. This guy had very little in the way of mechanical skills. He survived by hiding behind me and one other plant employee.

In 2011 this other engineer and I would collide again. He had been tasked with rebuilding the pitch mechanism for Supply Fan SF-54H. These are large 60 horsepower variable pitch fans. He had never done one of these before, and the new chief had no idea of what to do, so I had to go show this other engineer the different steps. When it came time to put the nose cone back over the hub I told him to get a box of q-tips, some degreaser, and use the q-tips and the degreaser to clean the oil and grease out of the threads for the cap screws that would hold the cover on. And that he was to use red loctite to lock the bolts in place so they wouldn’t come undone. I should have stayed, but he was getting agitated with my presence. Well, guess what he didn’t do? It cost around $15k to fix the damage.

The blades are not supposed to be bent and twisted like that.
The fan ingested the cover that came loose because the bolts weren’t secured.

This other engineer and I had a few more instances like this before he left. He ended up climbing the corporate ladder and now he’s a manager someplace else. It’s funny how people end up in different places.

And no, this problem hasn’t gone away. Just after I became the chief engineer I was pulled into the manager’s office. “Bobbie, the guys are feeling intimidated by you and they’re afraid to ask you questions”.

I don’t get it. I’ll never understand this. We’re all 4th class power engineers. We should all have the same basic level of knowledge. Some of the guys that are my subordinates are 3rd class power engineers. I should be going to them for help. Most of the guys don’t understand basic refrigeration, which is a part of 4th class engineering. Most of the guys have very limited understanding of electrical and controls. Concepts of pneumatic controls and digital automation escape them.

Over the years I had taken on the responsibility of servicing the Honeywell building automation system. I could do power supply changes, CPU board changes, I/O board changes, flash RAM board changes, system backups, system restores. I could do actuator upgrades and replacements. The chief engineer that had replaced Dave kept promising me that he was going to get me into the DDC technician’s position and that this would come with a pay raise. As it turned out this was a lie. The union ended up taking this before human resources. H.R. determined that I was not qualified to service the automation system and that I was to cease doing so. The other guys in the department, who had become accustomed to dumping automation problems on my plate started getting pissed off when I would tell them that I’m not allowed to fix the building automation system. “Bobbie, you’re just being a fucking asshole. If you know how to fix the fucking thing, fix it!”.

I’m the grade 8 drop out with a grade 12 G.E.D.. I’m the loser that lived on the streets. I’m the joker that stayed in homeless shelters. I’m the homosexual that allowed the babysitter to molest his younger brother. As I’ve said, I’ve never gone to trade school. I never took an apprenticeship. I was never trained on electronics in a diploma program.

I’m the asshole who’s supposed to fix everything, but I’m also the asshole who is not qualified to fix anything. I’m Schrödinger‘s power engineer. Too stupid to be anything else, too fucking smart that others are uncomfortable.

Bobbie, be something else!

Do something that you like!

Go back to school and become an <something>!

Get realistic.

I’ve got a metric shit tonne of depressions, anxiety, CPTSD, self doubt, and self hatred.

I’m fifty years old. Contrary to what all of the helpful people have to say, there is no simple fix for my issues.

Mom! Dad! I need a place to stay while I go back to school / college / trade school / etc…… Yeah, that fucking ship sailed years ago. Grandpas, grandmas, aunts, uncles? Nope.

The time for trade school, for college, for university, for any of that was back in my teens or early 20s. This of course would have only been possible had I also received treatment for my major depression, my severe anxiety, my sexual and gender confusion gifted to me by Captain Terry Totzke.

Trying to go to school with 40 years of untreated major depression, severe anxiety, and all of the issues that go along with these issues would be utterly impossible.

And if you’re one of those people that say that I just have to smile and feel happy and that everything will be okay, you are part of the problem.

Wishing my issues away just to make yourself feel better isn’t going to make things better.

It was a fucking musical.
This is not how things work in real life.

A song that I’ve liked for a while.

I forget when I first hear this song, it was before I started working at the hospital, but I’ve loved it since first hearing it.

And yes, while the song is apparently about bipolar disorder, I think it can easily apply to good ol’ fashioned depression.

I’m fairly certain that I am not bipolar as I don’t get the manias.

I only get stomach turning brain spinning depression.

My father used to call me a “lazy ass” for not getting out of bed in the morning. But between waking up at least once a night with nightmares, and the crushing realization that I didn’t die in my sleep, it was so hard to muster the energy to get out of bed. I still have that to this day. Sure, the nightmares of my father, of P.S., and of all of the other shit from my childhood have faded over the years, but it’s still such a bear to get out of bed in the morning. So much so that I have to have two alarm clocks set for three alarms each as well as automated lights to come on.

Being that my depression is caused by trauma and genetics I don’t think that I will ever be free of this demon.

It’s “A Better Son/Daughter” by Rilo Kiley

Sometimes in the morning I am petrified and can’t move
Awake but cannot open my eyes
And the weight is crushing down on my lungs
I know I can’t breathe
And I hope someone will help me this time
And your mother’s still calling you insane and high
Swearing it’s different this time
And you tell her you give in to the demons that possess her
And that God never blessed her insides
Then you hang up the phone
And feel badly for upsetting things
Crawl back into bed to dream of a time
When your heart was open wide
And you loved things just because
Like the sick and the dying
And sometimes when you’re on
You’re really fucking on
And your friends they sing along
And they love you
But the lows are so extreme
That the good seems fucking cheap
And it teases you for weeks in its absence
But you’ll fight and you’ll make it through
You’ll fake it if you have to
And you’ll show up for work with a smile
And you’ll be better
And you’ll be smarter
And more grown up
And a better daughter or son
And a real good friend
And you’ll be awake
You’ll be alert
You’ll be positive though it hurts
And you’ll laugh and embrace all your friends
And you’ll be a real good listener
You’ll be honest
You’ll be brave
You’ll be handsome and you’ll be beautiful
You’ll be happy

Your ship may be coming in
You’re weak but not giving in
To the cries and the wails of the valley below
And your ship may be coming in
You’re weak but not giving in
And you’ll fight it
You’ll go out fighting all of them

Depression sucks.

Major depression is a killer.

Severe anxiety doesn’t help.

The pills kinda help though.

And I mean the legal pills.

I think that one of the things that has really hindered me so far as receiving treatment for my major depression and CPTDS is that I’ve never self medicated. No booze, no needles, no illegal pills, nothing.

And I think this is what’s kept me from being taken as serious.

As a kid, the doctors and the psychiatrists were telling my father and Captain Terry Totzke that I was having serious problems and that I should be institutionalized. My father didn’t care as he “knew” that it was all an act. Captain Totzke didn’t care as he had his orders.

And now as an adult no one takes me serious because I don’t push a shopping cart up and down the alleys and scream at telephone poles.

Not having anyone “on my team” i.e. friends (I don’t have any), family ( don’t have that either), there’s been no one there to alert my health care professionals or to vouch for what I’ve told my health care professionals.

So here I am at 50. Everyone who knows me and the issues that I am going through and the trauma that I’ve suffered are wandering around telling me to “Don’t worry, be happy”. As if I were to just smile then my life would be all fucking happiness and sunshine and rainbows.

All I can do is reflect upon what was taken from me, what was stolen from me, what was denied to me. This is shit that I’ve never getting back.

Everybody has an easy fix for my life…..

Bobbie, why don’t you find a boyfriend / girlfriend?

Bobbie, why don’t you just go out for drinks with the boys?

Bobbie, why don’t you go to a sportsball game?

Bobbie, why don’t you take trade training?

Bobbie, if you like electronics why don’t you take a course?

None of these things have ever been an interest to me before, and they’re sure not going to be an interest to me now. Especially the drinking. With the way that my father and my paternal grandmother were both raging alcoholics, drinking alcohol is the last thing I need.

How can one person be so fucking stupid?

Self doubt is crippling and deadly.

One of the recurring issues that I’ve always had to deal with throughout my life is the incredible amount of self doubt and self hatred that I have inside.

“But Bobbie, you’re so smart”.

No, actually I’m not. Never have been. Never will be.

I’ve just managed to float along for most of my life.

Sure I can do things and fix things. So can anybody else.

Absolutely nothing special about what I can do.

People can sniff and smell my failings and inadequacies like a horrific stench that permeates everything around me.

I can weld. So can everyone else.

I can repair electronics. So can everyone else.

I’ve programmed in BASIC, Fortran, Cobol, C++, Python, Java. Again so can everyone else.

I can use Word, Excel, Open Office, Pages, etc. And so can everyone else.

I can use computers. So can everyone else.

I can find information. Big deal, did that change anything? Nope.

I discovered that my father actually legally kidnapped my brother and I.

Did anything come of that?

Nope.

I discovered that my father was actually a bigamist.

Did anything come of that?

Nope.

I discovered that the person who had molested my brother and I had criminal convictions in 1982, 1984, 1985, and 1986 for child molestation.

Did anything come of that?

Nope.

I discovered that Donald Joseph Sullivan was molesting children prior to joining the Canadian Armed Forces. He molested more children once he joined the Canadian Armed Forces.

Did anything come of that?

Nope.

I learnt that my family moved in April of 1983, not because my father wanted to “protect me” from the drugs that Pat and Wayne wanted to give me to make me stop trying to kiss boys. As it turned out it wasn’t Pat and Wayne that had concerns about my apparent homosexuality, that was my father and Captain Terry Totzke. We moved because my father was fleeing Alberta so that I wouldn’t be removed from his care and placed into foster care or residential care which would have exposed the fact that my father didn’t have legal custody of my brother and I.

Did anything come of this?

Nope.

I discovered that my father was known to lie and to bullshit and to kiss ass. To actually see in writing that my father “often told people in positions of authority what he thought the wanted to hear”,”or that Mr. Gill often told conflicting stories from on meeting to the next”,”or that Mr. Gill has a tendency to blame others for his problems and often expects others to solve his problems for him” was a beautiful fucking relief.

But did it change anything?

Nope.

I discovered that I had been diagnosed as suffering from major depression, severe anxiety, was terrified of men, was convinced that my father was going to kill me. I even discovered that I had been anorexic as a child. I also discovered that doctors at the IWK children’s hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia had severe concerns about my father and my mother.

Did anything come of this?

Nope.

As my father once told me, “Be very fucking careful of sticking your fucking nose where it doesn’t fucking belong as you might not like what you find”.

Well, I stuck my nose where it didn’t fucking belong and just as Richard warned me, I didn’t really like what I found.

Sure, I’m not a fucking insane basket case, but I’ve realized that my life has been one very tragic fucking joke.

Left to suffer from untreated major depression, severe anxiety, and trauma from sexual abuse all because people people with political ambitions decided that it was politically expedient to sweep the full extent of the Captain McRae fiasco under the rug.

Nobody gave a single fucking shit about me my entire life.
Not Richard Gill;
Not Marie Dagenais;
Not Al Dagenais;
Not Susan Zwolle;
Not Captain Terry Totzke;
Not Colonel Dan Munro;
Not Colonel J.D.Boan;
Not Gilles Lamontagne;
Not Jason Kenny;
Not Jody Wilson-Raybould;
Not Harjit Sajjan;
Not Sgt. Robert Jon Hancock;
Not Sgt. Christian Cyr;
Not Glenn Stannard;
Not Robert Howard;
Not the Canadian Armed Forces;
Not the Department of National Defence;
Not the Royal Canadian Mounted Police;
Not the Summerside Police;
The fucking worthless media in this country that killed the idea of investigative journalism years ago.
Not a single fucking one of these fuckers or worthless fucking entities gave a single flying fuck.

People who cared, but who couldn’t overcome the systematic bullshit.
Pat M.;
Wayne W;
Aviva D;
Richard Ford;
Mrs. Donskov;
Jonathan Bowles;
Mr. Atkins;
Mr. Richard Brown;
The Casson family;
Bob Becker;
The Toronto Police Service;
Constable Dustin Wilkins;
David Pugliese;
Nora Loreto;
And many others.

2023 can’t come soon enough.

“We Can Save You”

I have a feeling that my quest to receive medical assistance in dying is going to turn into a never ending journey of seeking out “treatment”. Not treatments that will do anything for me, but treatments that will make my health care professionals feel better about themselves for trying everything to save my life.

Death and dying are such taboo subjects in North America that it must perplex most doctors when someone comes to them asking for assistance with dying.

Physically my body is okay.

Mentally my brain is damaged.

The technology to “fix” my brain does not exist today and it will not exist in the near short term.

Yes, the escitalopram is “helping”. I use helping in quotes because the escitalopram isn’t fixing anything nor is it undoing any of the damage. It is numbing my emotions, which I guess is fine for a short while. It puts a limit on how low my depressions can go. It has limited my anxiety. But that’s it.

One of the things that will work against me I guess is that fact that I haven’t received much in the way of treatment over the years.

Being caught in the never ending war between my father and Captain Totzke on one side and my civilian social workers and child care workers on the other side left me with a severe distrust of anything to do with the psychiatric profession.

Growing up in the Canadian Armed Forces taught me that psychiatrists and psychologists were not to be trusted and that any outward sign of mental illness was a sign of weakness.

And yes, sure I was only a military dependant, but back in the ’50s through ’80s mental illness was a very taboo subject. And it was well known by the service members that you didn’t ever want to be seen as mentally ill. And that mentality would find its way back into the PMQs.

When I was younger, whenever I’d fall into a depression my father’s response was that if I didn’t smarten up I’d get a back hand or the belt.

And I have no doubt that what was perceived back then as a “temper tantrum” was nothing more than a depressive episode. I’ve come across literature that says that what was often though of back in the good ol’ days as a temper tantrum was more than likely a depressive episode.

Sure, I understand now that lots of things have changed between the early ’80s and now. For example, when my brother had his first grand mal seizure on Canadian Forces Base Downsview my father was adamant that I gave illegal drugs to my brother. He tore my bedroom apart looking for said illegal drugs. But we now know that epilepsy is genetic and that epilepsy is prevalent in the Dagenais genes.

We now know that young traumatized children can suffer from major depression and can suffer from severe anxiety and when these three issues collide in a young brain a tantrum or a fit often result.

So, here I am at age 50.

I have constant flashbacks to the years of 1978 through 1980.

I was seven years old. P.S, the babysitter was 14 for the duration of most of the abuse. When we were caught together in his bedroom he was just weeks shy of his 15th birthday. He was sexually mature, I along with most of the other kids he was molesting didn’t have a single hair between our legs. The only thing I had ever used my penis for up to that time in my life was to pee from. As I said, what P.S. was doing was anything but “childhood curiosity and experimentation”. P.S. was doing to us what Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae was doing to him.

Watching P.S. abuse my younger brother is forever burnt into my brain.

Watching P.S. abuse the other kids is forever burnt into my brain.

Watching P.S. abuse the little 6 year old girl with his fingers is forever burnt into my brain.

There’s still the flashbacks to giving a blowjob to the man in the sauna at the base recreation centre that P.S. provided me to one day.

Probably explains why I find sex to be revolting.

The beatings I received on CFB Namao from the other kids in the aftermath of having been caught in P.S.’s bedroom are still fresh in my memory.

And there are no pills or therapies that will undo that. You can’t undo that. That shit stays with you until the day you die.

The five visits that P.S. took me over to the rectory at the base chapel to see Captain McRae and which always ended with me drinking a tumbler full of wine will always be with me. Sure, I may have been intoxicated and completely out of it, but at some level I know that something happened to me. A military chaplain and his altar boy don’t just go around handing out wine to young children for no reason at all.

There is no Elctro Convulsive Therapy that will erase those memories without destroying other parts of my brain.

And even if they did succeed, then what? I’d have massive holes in my memory that would just leave me asking more and more questions.

I can’t escape my memories of Captain Terry Totzke, of Terry’s conversion therapy, of being caught between my civilian social workers who were trying to get me to open up about what home life was like and Richard and Terry telling me to keep my mouth shut.

When you’re nine years old and someone tells you that they have the military police watching you and that if you step out of line that you’re going to a psychiatric hospital for treatment, that really fucks with your brain.

When you are told as a child that the people whom seem nice (Pat, Wayne, Mrs. Washylesko) are in fact conspiring to steal you away from your father, it fucks you up.

I have always been very guarded with what I say, and I can’t see that about to change anytime soon.

My mind was poisoned against psychiatric professionals by my own father.

I was taught by my own father and Terry that psychiatric professionals were only there to “twist my words” and to use them against me.

I was blamed by my father and by Terry for the abused I endured on CFB Namao.

As Terry would say, the fact that I had been caught having sex with another boy meant that I was mentally ill. Sure, I was only 8 and the other boy was 14 and was my babysitter, but that didn’t seem to matter too much to Terry or my father.

I was blamed by my own father for issues with my brother because I allowed the almost 15 year old babysitter to molest my younger brother when I was 7 to 8 years of age.

As far as my father was concerned, my emotional issues were just me acting up and doing things to get attention.

So no, I’ve never really sought help in the past.

Yes, there have been attempts in the past. But the problem with those is I was never an attention getter. I never made my attempts in plain view. I was always able to get out of the situation with the realization that if I was successful the both P.S. and my father would get away with their lies and I would forever be the filthy homosexual that made the babysitter molest his younger brother.

And if I have to prove to a panel that I’ve tried to receive help, well that’s not going to be possible.

And then we come right back to the start.

Even though I’ve been through hell and have suffered for it, I have to beg to be allowed to die because someone feels that maybe I haven’t suffered enough in life and that I should suffer some more.

I have to suffer because my continued living will make someone feel like they saved a life.

The Canadian Forces National Investigation Service called me a “societal malcontent with an axe to grind against the military”.

Alberta Crown Prosecutor Jon Werbicki stated that is was very significant that I never told anyone in a position of authority about the abuse after P.S. moved away even though military police reports and court martial transcripts exist that show that the military police in 1980 were well aware that P.S. was molesting children on CFB Namao and that it was this abuse that brought Captain Father Angus McRae to the attention of the Canadian Forces Special Investigation Unit in May of 1980.

This “do-gooder” attitude sucks.

I understand.

Fine.

Sure.

Death is a “bad thing”.

I get it.

But so is sexual abuse.

So is untreated sexual trauma.

So is untreated psychological trauma.

The answer is quite simple if you don’t want people like me making requests to be allowed to die.

Don’t allow us to be sexually abused.

If we are sexually abused, don’t blame us for our abuse.

If we are having psychological issues, don’t hide us away out of fear that your secrets might become public knowledge.

If we are young, don’t blame us for the abuse of our younger siblings, especially if we’re half the age of our abuser.

If we come forward with our tales of abuse, don’t call us “societal malcontents with axes to grind against the Canadian Forces” and don’t conclude that it’s really suspicious that we didn’t tell anyone in a position of authority about our abuse when in fact police reports exist that show that the person we accused was well known by the police to have committed the crimes we accused him of.

Basically don’t shit on us for all our lives and then expect us to change our moods to satisfy you.

I will never get back what was taken from me.

I will never get to experience the opportunities that were removed from my future.

All of that was taken away.

With the right kind of help and care back in the immediate days after CFB Namao things could have been drastically different for me.

Until the day I die I will never understand why P.S. was treated like the victim and the rest of us were shat on by the Canadian Armed Forces. How does the abuser become the victim. Those of us abused by Captain McRae and P.S., shouldn’t we have been looked after better than P.S.? Sure, P.S. had been molested by Captain McRae, but did that give him the right to molest us in turn?

In 2015 P.S. was living at home with his father. His father needed him. His father blamed the Canadian Forces and Captain McRae for his son’s extensive criminal history for abusing children across Canada.

P.S.’s older sister D.S. lied about when the family moved off from CFB Namao as if she was trying to cover for P.S. as this obviously wasn’t the first time that someone from P.S.’s past had come forward.

P.S.’s younger brother covered for his brother as well. Actually the entire family lied about the younger brother saying they didn’t know where to find him, that he had moved to the West Coast years ago and that he never contacted the family. Turns out that he was living 10km away from P.S. and that P.S., J.S., and D.S. were in frequent contact.

My father, what did my father do? He lied to the CFNIS in 2011 and told the CFNIS that we never had a babysitter. He also “forgot” to tell the CFNIS in 2011 that his mother, our grandmother, was living in the house on Canadian Forces Base Namao and had been raising my brother and I as my father was rarely home. He knew it was grandma that hired the babysitter. He knew what the babysitter had done as he had frequently brought it up while berating me for allowing the babysitter to touch my brother. Did he trade his silence for a promotion back in 1980? Did he promise that he would never make a complaint on my behalf in trade for overlooking some of his disciplinary issues? Who knows. But there is no way that he forgot about grandma.

So yeah.

All of the sexual abuse, the physical abuse, the mental abuse, the turmoil, the lies, the neglect, and the subterfuge have left me with a brain that has suffered irreparable damage.

And sometimes the best option is to simply let go.

Trauma Counselling……

falling through the cracks again.

If there’s one thing my current nurse practitioner doesn’t seem to understand is how difficult it is for me to find trauma counselling.

I had “counselling ” from October of 1980 until January of 1983.

This involved a military social worker, Captain Terry Totzke, convincing me that I was responsible for what happened to me on CFB Namao, that it was my fault that P.S. abused my younger brother, and that I was a homosexual for having allowed the abuse to go on for so long.

Now, the thing is at the time I didn’t realize that Captain Totzke was in the Canadian Forces.

When I became involved with Pat, Wayne, Aviva, and Mrs. Washylesko in the spring of 1982 Terry would often tell me that I couldn’t trust these people. My father often took the same tack as Terry. Terry and my father were adamant that I had to watch what I was saying to Pat, Wayne, Aviva, and Mrs. Washylesko as they’d twist what I had said to them and use my words against me.

My father would often refer to Pat as a “stunned cunt”. Wayne was a “fucking cock sucker”. As I grew older I began to realize that Richard referred o a lot of people like this. Anyone he didn’t agree with was usually labelled with these epithets.

And here I was from 9 years of age until 11 years of age caught in a war with my military social worker and my father on one side and my civilian social workers on the other side.

At home any punishment I received was blamed on Pat or Wayne telling my father that he had to punish me. Of course I know now that that was an absolute lie. But still, when you’re that young you don’t understand that your father can be a liar with psychiatric issues.

So here I find myself in the year 2021.

My nurse practitioner wants me to find a counsellor that I can talk to.

The first counsellor that he suggested had a magical waitlist that just kept getting longer and longer the more detailed my issues became.

This counsellor referred me to a second counsellor. This second counsellor said that I would need specialized trauma counselling.

Fair enough.

The problem is though, I come from a military family.

A military family that lived on military bases during the ’70s and the ’80s.

An era when mental health issues were denied. An era where mental health issues were seen as personal failures and weaknesses.

An era where psychiatrists were seen as “head shrinkers” and “fucking quacks” and “feel good friends for pussies”.

Counsellors, psychologists, and psychiatrists were not viewed too nicely by military personnel back then.

So, put yourself in my shoes.

You try to find a “trauma counsellor” and this first problem that you run into is that most people won’t believe a single word you have to say. Sexually abused children on military bases? Get outta here! Next you’ll be trying to tell me that the moon is made out of cheese.

And then there’s the magical, mystical, chakra cleansing counsellors. The ones who know you can improve your life with lavender and candles.

The counsellors that I like the best are the ones who are certain that if you try hard you can come to term with your past, and if your don’t it’s because you’ve failed.

Which trauma do I work on first:

Intergenerational trauma that started with my grandmother and passed on down through my father which resulted in both being rage fuelled alcoholics?
The year and a half of sexual abuse at the hands of my 14 – 15 year old babysitter who had also been delivering me to Captain McRae at the base chapel?
The two and one-half years of “counselling” and conversion therapy at the hands of military social worker Captain Terry Totzke?
The sexual abuse on Canadian Forces Base Griesbach?
The sexual abuse at the Dennison Armouries?
Living with my emotionally unstable father until my 16th birthday?
Being attacked by Jacque Choquette in the basement of our house on Canadian Forces Base Downsview while Richard looked on with complete indifference?
My father’s periodic threats to end my life. There’s a reason why when I was interviewed by the psychologist hired by Captain Totzke in October of 1980 that I said that I was terrified of my father drowning me in a toilet. In the aftermath of CFB Namao he made a couple of threats. His most serious threat was in the spring of 1982 when Sue was threatening to leave. He said that if Sue left him that he stuff my brother and I into a duffle bag and that no one would ever find us.
The beatings and the spankings. I guess it’s true, you never fuck with a man’s military career.
Richard’s constant beratement for “not looking after my brother and not raising my brother properly”.
Richard’s drinking prior to Sue.
The three cars crashes when Richard was DUI.
Richard’s meltdown on CFB Summerside when he destroyed everything in the basement.
Grandma’s drinking while she lived with us.
There’s the guy in Toronto who tried to strangle me in his car when I was about 15.
And many many many more other issues.

There’s so much shit that went wrong. Where to start?

Hot tantric yoga therapy isn’t going to do anything.

Chanting mystical psalms isn’t going to do anything.

Fuck, I can’t even get the military to admit that Captain McRae and P.S. were up to no good on that base because DND and the CF are fearful of civil actions.

It’s always going to be me, the kid who made is 14 year old babysitter molest him and his younger brother. I’m always going to be the guy that didn’t raise his brother properly and who allowed the babysitter to molest his younger brother, who was accused of giving his younger brother drugs which caused his brother to have a seizure. Sure, I know now that Richard was a dysfunctional parent who took absolutely no responsibility for his own family, blamed others for problems with his family, and expected others to solve the problems with his family. But I’m the guy who lived through all of Richard’s bullshit. Richard’s bullshit is burnt into my brain.

Dancing around with magical crystals isn’t going to undo what Richard did.

Writing poems and painting trees and Suns isn’t going to remove P.S. from my memory. Fuck, after watching what he would do to the other kids, that shit’s burnt into my brain. You can’t watch what he did to your own brother and not have issues from that. It’s one thing when he does it to your own body. You can “go to a different place” and not be there. But to watch it, and watch what he victims were doing, you can’t erase that, you can’t block it out.

Even though I was given wine in McRae’s rectory, it doesn’t take an over active imagination to realize what was happening there. You don’t give a 7 or 8 year old child a tumbler full of wine just because you want to be the cool Padre on base. You give that 7 or 8 year old kid wine because you don’t want him to remember you sticking your fingers up his arse. Or that you gave him a blow job. Or that you put your penis in his intoxicated mouth.

And to say that dealing with the Canadian Armed Forces over the last 10 years hasn’t been a trauma all on its own would be a lie. I’ve never seen such a dishonest organization that is hellbent on keeping secrets a secret no matter the cost. The fact that someone decided to erase the fact that my grandmother raised my brother and I from 1977 until 1981 is pretty un-fucking-believable.

So yeah.

There’s just so much fucking wrong upstairs.

And no one is willing to help.

Interesting.

Okay, today (November 12, 2021) I received an email from the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service Victim Services coordinator.

Turns out that the CFNIS is handing my case over to the civilian police after the edict from the new Minister of National Defence on November 4th, 2021.

This is exactly 10 years to the date that the CFNIS on November 4th, 2011 told me in a telephone call that the CFNIS couldn’t find any evidence to indicate that the person that I had accused of sexually assaulting me and my brother was capable of committing the crimes I had accused him of.

In 2020 the MPCC would lay bare the fact that the CFNIS had actually established that the accusations I had made were founded.

There was one caveat in the email. The civilian police may chose to hand the matter back to the CFNIS.

Regardless, this is a perfect raspberry for all of those that said that military crimes could not be investigated or tried in the military justice system.

The military justice system has never had sole jurisdiction over criminal code matters. What we had though was a chain of command that was more than happy to “wash the laundry” in house and present a complete bullshit façade to the general public that life on base was just like Mayberry.

I wonder how many people who were sexually abused on base as military dependents will be willing to come forward now that they’re no longer in the grips of the CFNIS and the military police.

This case is related to the man in the sauna at the base recreation centre.

In the days after I had been caught being buggered by P.S. but before the house fire at P.S.’s house on June 23, 1980 P.S. had found me in the change room at the base swimming pool.

He escorted me over to the sauna. In the sauna was a man in his mid to late 40’s if not early ’50s. P.S. had somehow promised this man that I would perform oral sex on him. P.S., always had a position of authority over me. P.S. wasn’t afraid to use physical violence to get what he wanted. He was an extremely angry teenager. I didn’t dare refuse. I performed oral sex on the man. I would have been 8 at the time. P.S. was just shy of his 15th birthday at the time. The man stopped me right before he ejaculated. I don’t know why he stopped me before he ejaculated. I’ve got some ideas. Anyways……..

I’ve got some ideas as to who this man may have been. If he is who I think he might have been, this man would have been a Major in the Canadian Forces.

This man has charges related to the sexual abuse of other children on different Canadian Forces Bases, and he was on Canadian Forces Base Namao during the Captain McRae matter in June and July of 1980.

The Minister of National Defence, the Chief of Defence Staff, the Vice Chief of Defence Staff, and the Provost Marshal would have their obvious reasons for not being able to find enough evidence against the person I had accused. But will the civilian police have any better luck seeing as how the civilian police would have to go through the military to get pertinent records and documents.

And there’s still the issue presented by the two historical flaws in the pre-1998 National Defence Act, namely the Summary Investigation flaw, and the 3-year-time-bar.

Only time will tell.