anxiety – Page 34

Where oh where shall I die?

16 months to go, but why leave things until the last minute.

Wasn’t really going to discuss this until closer to March 2023 when I’d know for certain if M.A.i.D. for psychiatric issues was actually going to be passed into law.

Where do I want to die? Where do I wish to undergo M.A.i.D. if I meet the criteria? Where do I wish for my body to go?

I think undergoing the procedure in my own bed would be nice. I’ve lived in the same apartment for 11 years now, which is a record for me. It’s a nice little bachelor apartment. In the months, weeks, and days leading up to my demise I would let everything go so that basically on the day of my death it would only be my bed and a couple of other personal belongings in my apartment. Stuff that could easily be disposed of after I die.

Getting my body out of the apartment wouldn’t be a problem as there is elevator service and the elevator can handle the newer stretchers that allow for patients or bodies to be angled to fit. So that’s covered.

I can’t see the property management company having any concerns as it’s not like my body is going to be rotting away in the apartment. Once I die, the attending physician notes the time of death, the Coroner may or may not have to attend, then my body is taken for disposal. The rent will be paid up for an extra month. And it’s not like my death will be known to the next tenant renting the suite.

Now, what happens if it’s decided that my apartment is not an appropriate place for me to die?

I could receive my M.A.i.D. procedure in a clinical setting such as a hospital. I’m not certain at this time how I would book a room. I’m more than certain that if I were to elect to receive M.A.i.D. in a hospital that the hospital admin staff would insist that I take a private room. As comfortable as I am with my death, I think that it would freak out other patients if I were to undergo M.A.i.D. in a four patient room. I know right now that there will be certain hospitals that I will not be allowed to receive my M.A.i.D. procedure at. Catholic hospitals generally frown upon procedures like this.

All is not lost though, there apparently is another option that might be more widely available in a few years. Today I learnt that MAIDhouseTO is trying to obtain a space that has a room or rooms set up for those wishing to receive M.A.i.D. but who for various reasons can’t undergo the procedure at home and who do not wish to undergo the procedure in a clinical setting such as a hospital.

Of course, prejudices against dying and death seem to be hindering MAIDhouseTO in finding a permanent space that they can fix up to offer quiet peaceful places for persons to undergo M.A.i.D.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/medically-assisted-death-nonprofit-says-fear-is-hampering-its-search-for-permanent-space-1.6230573

I’ve known since last year that select funeral homes in Canada have been revamping some of their private rooms into rooms where a patient can undergo M.A.i.D.. This is an interesting concept. It really is. You can literally walk in under your own power and then be carried out in an ash urn. Or even embalmed and buried on the same day if that’s your choice. And if resomation (alkaline hydrolysis) is available you could walk in and be flushed down the drain all on the same day.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/funeral-homes-pivot-to-offer-rooms-for-medically-assisted-deaths-1.6224353

Then there’s also the option of somewhere scenic. But that comes with a cost. And really, is it worth it? When you’re dead you’re not going to remember the petty scenery. And I’ve never been a fancy romantic.

What do I envision that my last day would look like?

I’d probably go sometime in the morning. No need to delay the procedure.

I think I’d wake up, get showered and get dressed. Wait for the physician to arrive. I haven’t decided at this point if I’d want anyone in attendance. But if someone wanted to be there, I wouldn’t say no. If someone had a legitimate reason to want to film my procedure, and my death, and the disposal of my body, I wouldn’t say no either.

I’d definitely have the windows open, but the curtains closed. They’re translucent curtains. Just don’t want to force my death on the neighbours who might just happen to be looking out their window.

After the physician shows up I might have a cup of coffee or a cup of tea. And then get back into bed.

The physician would then cannulate me and connect me up to the dosing pumps.

Then when I’m ready, I press the button and in under 2 minutes I’m gone and another 4 minutes for my body to be dead.

What happens after that really isn’t of any concern to me.

I do hope that my brain goes for research purposes.

I do hope that my body is either used for medical research, forensic research, or it disposed of via the resomation process.

There’s one person in mind that I would love to be able to give my skull to, but sadly in this country I can’t decide who gets my bones even after they’re cleaned and sterilized.

What I’d really like for my body is for it to be buried in Burns Bog so that in a 1,000 or so years someone can dig it up and see my tattoos.

But really, after the propofol hits my brain I really won’t have any control over what happens with my corpse. And in all honesty it won’t be a concern of my anymore.

The burning and mind numbing silence.

One of the issues that really causes me a lot of grief and consternation is the complete and absolute lack of interest from the media and from groups that should be interested in how the Canadian Armed Forces dealt with child sexual abuse on the bases in Canada.

There have only been two reporters that have shown any level of interest in my matter and those two reporters are David Pugliese and Nora Loreto.

Even veterans groups that support members of the Canadian Armed Forces want nothing to do with my matter.

Now, you might be saying to yourself “but Bobbie, how common could child sexual abuse have been on the bases?”.

Well, what are the odds that I would have been involved with the following:

A captain of the regular forces who admitted to molesting numerous children during his years of service and who would go on to have more convictions for molesting children after he had been booted out of the military.
An altar boy who would go on to have numerous charges and convictions for sexual crimes committed against children.
A random stranger in the sauna of a military recreation centre who was keen to receive oral sex from an 8 year old.
A major of the regular forces who himself would be investigated years later for sexually abusing a young boy on Canadian Forces Base Borden in 1974 and who would go on to pay a cash settlement with the family of a young 16 year old boy that he had improper sexual relations with.
A member of the Canadian Corps of Commissionaires who was a hebephile and no doubt had access to children on various military bases during his career in the Canadian Armed Forces.

The Military Police Complaints Commission confirmed that my babysitter, P.S., was charged and convicted in 1982 for molesting a young boy in a town just north of CFB Petawawa in Ontario. In 1984 P.S. was charged and convicted for molesting a boy in Manitoba. And then in 1985 he was charged and convicted for molesting a 9 year old boy on Canadian Forces Base Edmonton after his family had been posted back there. He was also convicted of molesting a 13 year old news paper boy in the city of Edmonton after the Canadian Forces booted him out of his family’s military housing unit on the base. How many other children did P.S. molest on Canadian Forces Base Petawawa, in Ontario as well as the unnamed base in Manitoba, as well as Canadian Forces Base Edmonton. How many children did P.S. molest in the surrounding communities and was able to escape justice because his father got transferred to different bases?

When I obtained the court martial records for captain McRae it contained a copy of his ecclesiastical trial conducted by the Catholic church. Captain McRae admitted to having molested numerous boys over the years. Captain McRae joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1973. He was investigated for having committed “acts of homosexuality” shortly there after while he was stationed at the Royal Military College. The RMC is in Kingston, Ontario and is on Canadian Forces Base Kingston. Captain McRae was then transferred to Canadian Forces Base Portage La Prairie in Manitoba. After CFB Portage La Prairie he was transferred to Canadian Forces Station Holberg on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. After CFS Holberg he was transferred to Canadian Forces Base Namao. In May and June of 1980 the military police and the CFSIU would discover that he had molested over 25 children on the base.

This begs the question. How many children on the bases and in the communities around the bases did P.S. and Captain McRae molest?

Around the time of Lynne Harper’s murder in 1959, sergeant Alexander Kalichuk had been found driving around the back roads around Royal Canadian Air Force base Clinton. He was offering new panties to young girls. When the police caught up with him and asked him what he was doing he said he bought the box of girls panties as a birthday present for a friend’s daughter, but that the party had been cancelled and he didn’t want the panties to go to waste. How many kids did Kalichuk molest, rape, or murder before he more than likely raped and killed Lynne Harper? We’ll never know and the Canadian Armed Forces are fine with that. Don’t forget, the military offers the perfect hiding place for people like P.S., or Captain McRae, or Sgt. Alexander Kalichuk. New children delivered to the base every posting season. The kids you’ve molested get posted off the base eventually and go to another base. You get transferred to another base before you get caught. The kids you’re molesting, especially the boys, are dead terrified of being seen as weak, gay, or queer. And back in the “good ol’ days” there were no police databases that could be used by local police departments to track similar crimes that may have occurred in different geographical areas throughout Canada.

So yeah, it becomes so very tiring and so very maddening to see the Canadian media and veterans groups and military sexual assault survivor groups show absolutely no interest or no concern for the children that lived on Canadian Forces Bases.

It’s almost like the media and the veterans groups and the military sexual assault survivor groups are saying to me and the other like me that our lives are meaningless and that we are disposable.

If you want to know what it feels like to be human garbage, just ask, I can let you know.

For 42 years I’ve dealt with severe sexual trauma, the fallout of being dealt with by military social worker Captain Terry Totzke, being caught between Captain Totzke and my civilian social workers, despised by my own father for having “fucked with his military career” and for “allowing” the babysitter, P.S., to abuse my younger brother.

So yeah.

That’s why I’m tired.

And that’s why I’m numb.

And that’s one of the reasons that I really want to go to sleep.

Lawyers and Coppers

I received a telephone call from one of my lawyers today.

This one is for my case involving Earl Ray Stevens.

My lawyer informed me that the Ontario Crown is taking a little longer than promised to release their records to my lawyer. The Crown is telling my lawyer that the police are taking longer than they should in handing their investigation file over to the Ontario Crown.

My lawyer has said that the counsel for the defendants have agreed to proceed to discovery without the Crown documents.

I really don’t know at this point how this case will work out.

Sure, Earl wasn’t found guilty in a court of law. But both the Toronto Police Service and the Ontario Crown thought that the case was strong enough to proceed to trial. Even the justice presiding over the preliminary hearing thought that this case was strong enough to go to trial.

Earl died of bladder cancer before the trial could commence.

Earl was a retired member of the Canadian Armed Forces. Earl was very smooth and Earl knew what he was doing. One can only wonder how many children Earl molested on the various Canadian Forces Bases while he was enlisted.

Earl’s career in the Canadian Forces more than likely explains why he knew that I would be terrified if either my father or the military police found out what I was doing with Earl and why Earl was able to use this as leverage to get me to keep my mouth shut about what he was doing. He knew from his time in the Canadian Forces that no military dependent would want anyone to know that they were “gay” or “homosexual”.

I wonder how many other military dependent children Earl was able to abuse in silence by threatening them with the revelation of their “secret”.

On another note I also received an email from the victim services coordinator with the CFNIS Western Region. They inform me that the investigation into the “man in the sauna” is still ongoing.

It’ll be interesting to see how this one works out.

The military police are taking such a trashing in the public eye these days. The military police and the CFNIS just don’t seem to be able to get convictions on anything.

The primary witness in this investigation is P.S., the babysitter from CFNIS investigation 2011-5754. The investigation which the CFNIS actually determined was “Founded – Not Cleared”.

The Military Police Complaints Commission in their final report that was released in 2020 stated that the CFNIS knew in 2011 that the charges against P.S. were founded.

Why the CFNIS told me in 2011 that they couldn’t find any evidence to indicate that P.S. was capable of the crimes I had accused him of will forever be a mystery. I have some plausible ideas.

How willing P.S. will be to talk to the CFNIS in this matter is anyone’s guess. And how willing the CFNIS will be to push P.S. to talk is again anyone’s guess. P.S. provided me to the man in the sauna. P.S. was the only witness to what had happened. And P.S. obviously knew what the man in the sauna was going to want from me.

At this time I only have a guess as to who the man in the sauna was. I know it wasn’t Captain McRae. There was an officer of the Canadian Forces who had been sent out from Ottawa to assist Captain McRae with McRae’s affairs during the lead up to his court martial. This officer, who was a major at the time, had been charged in the 2010s with molesting a young boy on Canadian Forces Base Borden in 1974. This is the same man, who after he retired from the Canadian Forces, had made a cash settlement with a family in Ontario for having improper sexual relations with a 16 year old boy.

Again, the major flaw with this whole investigation is that if it turns out that the man in the sauna was an officer of the Canadian Armed Forces and if this officer was responsible for directing P.S. to bring me to the sauna, a sauna that was owned by the Canadian Forces and was located on a secure Defence Establishment, to perform oral sex on this man, this would expose the Minister of National Defence to civil actions for the actions and behaviours of their officer.

Two problems exist with this scenario though.

First is that the 3-year-time-bar which existed in the National Defence Act prior to 1998 would prevent the Canadian Forces from being able to charge this man with Gross Indecency or Indecent Assault.

Second, the Minister of National Defence is in fact the “Chief of Police” as the minister via the Vice Chief of Defence Staff can direct any CFNIS investigation. The Supreme Court of Canada and the Military Police Complaints Commission have both said that this is improper. The Supreme Court of Canada has specifically ruled that it is improper for a police agency to conduct police investigations that could subject its parent agency to civil actions based on the outcome of the police investigation. This is why almost every police agency in Canada will always call in an outside police agency to conduct investigations when it suspects its own officers of serious wrongdoing.

Anyways, enough for now.

The gender bias of sexual assault

I’ve often wondered if the fact that I am male has a had an impact on how my abuse at the hands of P.S. and Captain McRae has been viewed by the authorities.

Society expects girls and women to be the victims of sexual assault.

Society also expects that boys and men will be the perpetrators of sexual assault.

Things get really turned upside down when boys or men are the victims of sexual assault.

And things really get turned upside down when males are the victims of other males.

When I was receiving my counselling from Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Terry Totzke the area of concern wasn’t so much that I had been sexually abused but was that I had been caught having sex with another boy.

In the aftermath of being caught in P.S.’s bedroom I had often wondered if I would have gotten in trouble if I had been a girl instead of a boy. Even at age 8 I understood the gender bias that existed.

When I used to swap clothes with Megan on CFB Griesbach, it wasn’t so much that I wanted to be a girl. It’s just that I couldn’t understand why boys couldn’t wear dresses. I’d like to think that I was ahead of the curve with understanding that artificial society enforced gender roles were harmful and toxic. But more than likely it was just that I couldn’t understand why it was wrong for boys to wear dresses. And still no one has been able to explain this to me.

I remember girls on base who got touched by same age boys during episodes of “doctor”. The father of the girl would often unleash a can of whoop-ass on the boy who touched his daughter. The father of the boy would often give his son an “understanding wink” as if to say “good job son!”. The daughter never received any type of admonishment for the game of doctor as there was no way possible that the girl could have instigated it. But again, that’s just one of society’s biases, “girls are weak and can only be victims, boys are strong and can only be perpetrators”.

While living on CFB Griesbach I had developed feelings for a boy my age. He lived two doors down from me in PMQ #68. Nothing sexual at all. But we did kiss one day. His father was furious. Mine was even more so telling me that if he ever heard reports from another parent on base that I had kissed their son that he would “break my fucking neck” and that I would never have to worry about kissing another boy again.

Now, I realize that male-on-male child sexual abuse also existed out in the civilian world and that in the civilian world the victims of male-on-male child sexual abuse weren’t treated all that fairly. I still have a copy of an actual educational film from the ’60s called “Boys Beware” in which a teenage boy is groomed by a hebephile and coerced into sex. The hebephile is arrested and the boy is sentenced to juvenile detention. But there was possibly something else at play in the Canadian Armed Forces.

In 2014 when the French magazine L’actualité published its bombshell stories about sexual assault in the Canadian Armed Forces, one of the stories it ran was about male-on-male sexual assault. The writer of the article was told that male-on-male sexual assault in the military was all about control, humiliation, and punishment, and not about sexual gratification.

Is this why male-on-male sexual abuse was not taken all that serious in the Canadian Armed Forces? Obviously the victim must have done something wrong and deserved to be sexually abused, right? Don’t forget, the men sexually abusing other members of the Canadian Forces often had children at home. If these men participated in the sexual humiliation of other male members, how likely were they to take the sexual abuse of their sons as a serious offence. If these men participated in the sexual humiliation of other members, how likely were they to abuse their own children as a form of punishment or to exert control over an out of control child?

Let’s say that a soldier of the Canadian Forces had an out of control teenage boy at home, and if this member of the Canadian Forces had been involved with episodes of male-on-male sexual abuse in the military as a form of humiliation or punishment, would it be feasible that this member might also make use of male-on-male sexual abuse in an attempt to reign his son in and bring his son under control?

Oddly, when Maclean’s ran the English versions of the L’Actulaite stories they dropped the entire article about male-on-male sexual assault. Is French society that much more advanced that it can handle topics like male-on-male sexual abuse? Are the Anglophones of such delicate sensibilities that Maclean’s was worried about causing their English readers to faint, and swoon, and need PTSD counselling?

My dentist

So, today I was in to see my dentist for some filling / bonding work on my canine teeth.

My teeth are in bad shape from years of grinding. And recently my canine teeth started to get sensitive which meant that they were not far away from getting cavities or worse.

My dentist bugged me again about getting root canals and caps, both of which my insurance would cover 100%.

I told her again that I wasn’t interested, that I only wanted to do the work that was required to keep my teeth from getting worse, but that I wasn’t interested in spending $20k to $30k to fix all of my teeth.

“But why not?”

So I said to her that if everything goes as planned, I won’t be around in two to three years.

“You’re moving somewhere?”

No, I’m applying for medical assistance in dying for psychiatric reasons.

“But I thought that your escitalopram was working, I thought you were feeling better”.

Escitalopram is like a pain killer, it numbs the pain, but it doesn’t fix it.

“What about therapy?”

Won’t fix the issues, and I don’t want to continue living with the damage in my head. If I was younger, maybe, but not at this stage in my life.

She just looked at me for a bit. Then she said “Do you want to get started?”.

I said sure, and she reclined the chair, and we started on my fillings / bondings.

Money isn’t the issue. I’m not poor. And I have good medical / dental coverage at work. I just don’t see the point.

I had my first dentist when I worked for the Elashi family in East Richmond.

Prior to that I had never had a real dentist. My dentists were usually from public health programs for disadvantaged children. I remember going to the dentist in a trailer that would pull up outside the school I was attending in Summerside, PEI. I think those were my first fillings.

The next time I went to a dentist was when we lived on Canadian Forces Base Griesbach in Edmonton. This was a program for low income families run out of the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology “N.A.I.T.”. Kids that went to this program had their teeth worked on by dental students.

I don’t remember going to a dentist once while we lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario.

Richard had promised me that he’d enroll me into the Young Driver’s program on my 16th birthday. Of course he lied. He had no intention. He gave me some excuse about his insurance going up if anyone under 18 had their driver’s licence in his house. When he saw that I wasn’t buying this he started justifying his lying by saying that his Mustang was too powerful for me to learn in. Young drivers had their own cars. I told him that he was a liar, that he had absolutely no plan of letting me take driver’s training, that this was more of his bullshit. I didn’t duck fast enough and I caught his wedding ring in the front of my mouth. He chipped my front tooth.

I didn’t start working for the Elashis until 1994. I don’t think my insurance kicked in until late ’94, so it was around 1995 when I finally got the chipped tooth fixed. So yeah, about 8 years.

I had all of my wisdom teeth yanked around 1995 as well.

So, it’s not that I’m afraid of the dentist, or dental work.

I just don’t see the point of it.

Not now.

Maybe 30 years ago.

Maybe even 20 years ago.

Even if I had been on anti-depressants / anti-anxiety medications 20 or 30 years ago my teeth would be in far better condition than they are today.

But 30 years ago was just 12 years removed from the CFB Namao fiasco and my father’s anger at how I had fucked with his military career and how I had allowed the babysitter to molest my younger brother was still very fresh in my mind. Captain Totzke’s lectures at how I exhibited homosexual tendencies because the abuse went on for so long was still rattling around in my skull.

20 years ago was 22 years removed from CFB Namao. And again all of the horseshit from CFB Namao and the subsequent fallout was still fresh in my mind.

It really wasn’t until I started learning the truth about CFB Namao 10 years ago in 2011 that I begun to realize that the issues I was living with were not of my own creation. These issues had been gifted to me. The Canadian Forces anointed my abuser as the “sole” victim of Captain McRae and chucked about 25 children under the bus.

Maybe if I had known the truth 20 or 30 years ago I would have wasted my time fixing my teeth.

Not now.

Just not worth it at this point in my life.

Why do I want to die?

I don’t actually want to die. I need to die. There is a difference.

My brain is hopelessly damaged beyond salvage. You may agree with this or you may not agree with this. But it’s only my opinion that matters on this. I’m the one who has lived with this. And I’m the one more than willing to die to end it.

I’ve had no one advocating for my mental health over the years. So it is quite perplexing the number of people that want to suggest ways that I can take care of my mental health.

It wasn’t like my mental health hadn’t been flagged in the aftermath of the CFB Namao fiasco.

It was.

My mental health had deteriorated to the point that I was supposed to have been institutionalized. When you’re nine-years-old and psychiatrists are recommending that you be institutionalized you know that there is something seriously wrong. The fact that I wasn’t institutionalized doesn’t mean that I got better on my own. It just means that my deteriorating mental health was ignored.

Who kept me from receiving the help I required to treat my mental health issues? Was it my father? Was it Captain Terry Totzke? Was it someone else up the chain of command in the Canadian Armed Forces? I don’t know. And due to the loosey-goosey record retention policy of the Canadian Forces I don’t think that we’ll ever know.

And you know damn well that someone in the Canadian Armed Forces hierarchy interfered. On January 26th, 1983 Captain Totzke was told that Alberta Social Services was getting ready to place me into foster care or residential care. On January 28th, 1983 Captain Totzke told Alberta Social Services that my father was withdrawing me from the program and that my father had just receive a posting to Ontario.

And at this point in my life does it really matter?

For just over 42 years I’ve been left to cope with the following:

CPTSD;
Major depression;
Severe anxiety;
Gender identity issues;
Sexual Orientation issues;
Inability to form relationships;
Inability to trust;
Feelings of hopelessness;
Feelings of helplessness;
Feelings of worthlessness;
Vividly reliving the sexual abuse of me, my brother, and all of the other kids I witnessed P.S. molesting;
Grappling with being blamed by my father for allowing the babysitter to molest my younger brother;
Grappling with being called a homosexual apparently because I participated in the abuse for as long as I did;
The endless replaying of the man in the sauna;
The abuse at the hands of Earl Ray Stevens;
Existing in a dysfunctional household.

I’ve managed to fall through the cracks for a majority of my life. That’s the double edged sword of being intelligent. The people that I worked for were more than willing to overlook my issues because I brought so much benefit to their organizations. So what if I broke down and cried at random times, or so what if I blew up when I’d get frustrated because my depressed brain wasn’t capable of handling stress, or what if I didn’t come in for days at a time. When I could do electronic repairs, electrical repairs, mechanical repairs, HVAC repairs, the meltdowns and breakdowns were tolerable.

Being highly functional with mental illness is not fair. People just write off your mental illness as being “melodrama”, or “just being an asshole”.

And the sad thing about mental illness is that it doesn’t show up on a blood test, it really doesn’t show up on an MRI.

Mental illness can only be diagnosed by a psychiatrist. But psychiatrists have their own options and biases. So the fact that I’ve never been unemployed or locked-up in psychiatric care, or in trouble with the law means that I can’t really be that ill.

Throw into that the “Just Society” bias that many people have which results in doctors and psychiatrists being of the opinion that if something did happen to me then surely someone would have done something about it, right?

The other side of the “Just Society” bias means that many other people are of the opinion that if the military police didn’t lay charges in 1980 or 2018 that obviously nothing occurred. Because if something did occur, surely somebody would have done something, right?

The only problem is that as the years went by and I learnt to “cope” and “hide” my issues. And as the years went by I could feel the desire to die building inside.

It is so very tiring keeping my “happy” face on while my brain turns into a cancerous tumour full of rot.

There’s no fixing my brain. The damage is done. The damage has had time to set and solidify.

I’m not suddenly going to find a magical counsellor or magical pharmaceuticals that will erase the past, and erase the memories from CFB Namao, and erase all of the other shit that I went through before I turned 16.

My brain is not your “fix-it” project. My emotional well-being is not your hobby.

When I was first interviewed by master corporal Robert Jon Hancock back in 2011, I told him during the interview that I understood that there was not going to be a magical time machine that would send me back and undo all of the things that happened to me.

Life honestly has no joy and offers me no pleasure. It never has.

And this is where things get interesting.

I have had people tell me that my desires to die make them feel uncomfortable. That maybe if I stopped thinking negative thoughts and just thought happy thoughts that everything would be okay.

But that’s not how this works.

Bobbie, you’re such a “warrior”.

No.

You’re a “champion”.

No.

You’re so “brave”.

No.

“You can’t be serious”.

Yes I am.

“You’re just doing this for attention”.

No I am not.

I’m somebody who got caught up in some very bad situations that were far beyond their control.

I came from a dysfunctional home.

I was exposed to adults that were suffering from their own intergenerational traumas.

I was sexually abused for a prolonged period.

The blame for this abuse was placed upon my shoulders like some sort of mantle of shame to wear.

I was then brain fucked by an organization that should have known better than to fuck with a child’s brain.

I didn’t receive the psychological help that I should have received.

In fact, my father’s methods of dealing with my issues were the exact opposite of what I required.

Do I really want to live for another 20 to 30 years?

No.

Sure the escitalopram is doing a great job with my anxiety and my depression. But it hasn’t fixed them. They’re still there. They always will be there. Just like the memories of CFB Namao, of P.S., the visits to the chapel, of the abuse, of Captain Totzke, of Alberta social services, of my father’s anger and temper. Those will be with me until the day I die.

I’m single. I’ve never really been attached to anyone. I have no family to speak of. I have no one dependent on me.

Death, I am not afraid of. It’s the dying that I’m afraid of.

When you’re dead, that’s it. You’re dead. There is no happiness. There is no sadness. There are no memories. There is no regret. There is nothing. You don’t exist anymore. You don’t feel anymore. You don’t think. You don’t contemplate. You sure won’t be aware that you’re dead. And no, you won’t feel your corpse decompose.

Everything that you felt, saw, heard, touched, tasted, learnt, dreamt about, longed for, or cherished dies along with you.

Existing longer than you need to in the hopes that you’ll eventually find some supposed meaning in life is pointless, especially if existing brings pain and not joy.

You don’t get extra bonus points for enduring life longer than you needed to.

I am an atheist. I do not believe in a supreme being, an afterlife, a heaven, a hell, or a purgatory. I do not believe in reincarnation.

Dying is the hard part of death. Transposing from living to dead is often quite painful and traumatic. I’ve seen the end result of vehicle collisions. I’ve been aware of failed suicide attempts. I’ve seen people slowly die from brain injuries and strokes. I’ve known people who have died from incurable disease.

Life itself is not special. There are over 7.5 billion humans on the planet right now.

The value of human life varies depending on the situation. If a car driver makes a right hand turn on a red light and strikes a pedestrian, ooopsie.

If I’m out riding my bicycle and a car driver runs a stop sign and kills me but didn’t have the intention of killing me, ooopsie.

Society seems more than willing to tolerate deaths from motor vehicle collisions as a small price to pay for the convenience of fast travel.

How many lives have been lost in civilian aviation due to bad designs (737MAX) or a cutback in maintenance (Alaska Airlines)?

How many innocent civilian lives were lost in wars since the year 2000 due to bad intelligence and questionable motives?

How many people have died due to simple preventable diseases?

How many people have died from starvation?

Even when it comes to drug users, society seems to have little concern.

There seem to be only two times when a human life is lost that society loses its collective marbles. Murder or Suicide.

When it comes to murder, murder is almost universally reviled. The amount of revulsion shown is a sliding scale that seems to vary depending on who is being murdered and who is doing the murdering.

Suicide on the other hand is often seen as a selfish act perpetrated by someone just acting out for attention. Suicide is often seen as an overreaction to a silly issue. Suicide is rarely seen as the end result of events for which the person committing suicide felt that they had little control over.

My death will not be a suicide. Unlike a suicide, which is often random and unpredicted, my death will be scheduled. My death will be sanctioned by medical professionals, and my death will be overseen by medical professionals even though technically it will be me starting the dosing pumps.

Unlike a suicide, even a suicide with a note, there will be no unanswered questions about my death and why I’ve chosen death as opposed to living.

Everything will be explained along the way. There will be no chance for misinterpretations.

When I go, there will be no loose strings. Everything that needs to be closed off and addressed will be closed off and addressed.

You’re all more than welcome to come along with me on this journey.

Not all of the posts on my blog will be about my death. But I will warn you that a majority of my posts will be. I was hushed up about the child sexual abuse on Canadian Forces Base Namao. I will not hush up about my death.

Remember this, all of our journeys end with our own death. Mine will only be different in the sense that I am going to hopefully be able to schedule mine and choose the location.

The ignorance is strong.

How ignorance amongst the general population allows crimes to go unpunished.

I don’t often go to f-book. I don’t know what it is about that site, but there sure are a lot of ignorant people on there.

The Criminal Code of Canada has no statute of limitations on indictable offences. The only statute of limitations is on Summary Offences.

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/page-210.html?txthl=786#s-786

If someone committed rape, or murder, or indecent assault in 1970, they could still be charged in the modern day as those are indictable offences, not summary offences.

So here’s this guy claiming that there is a two year statute of limitations on indictable offences in Canada.

I don’t get it.

Why do people like this open their mouths?

What do they get out of flapping their traps?

“Military’s” not “militaries”.

Obviously not dealing with a full deck here.

“If the military say we knew nothing of his conduct then there is not culpability”.

Yeah, so much to unpack here. The military did know of his actions. The military knew what Captain McRae and P.S. were up to. The abuse occurred on a secure defence establishment. The military provided Captain McRae with his living quarters on base.

But yeah, this is why it gets so frustrating dealing with the base brat groups and why I generally stay off of Facebook.

The Jewish Cowboy

Bob Becker

I worked for a Jewish Cowboy when I lived in Toronto.

All of Bob’s customers called him the Jewish Cowboy because he always wore cowboy boots, khakis, long sleeved button up shirts, and a Stetson. Oh, and he was Jewish.

I don’t know too much about Bob’s origins other than he was Jewish and he was born in Poland sometime in the late 1920s early 1930s.

When I lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview I was a loner. Actually for most of my life after CFB Namao I was a loner. One of the things I loved to do was to jump onto the railway tracks that ran through the base. I’d walk up the railway tracks as far north as the rail yards north of Steeles Avenue.

I was always fascinated by the dead animals that I’d find on the tracks. How could they not hear a train coming. Even without sounding their horns trains were loud. Was it a quick death. Did the animal even know what had hit it. Was it painful. A million questions.

Usually I’d bring a book with me and I’d climb the signal platforms and read my book on top of the signals while the trains passed underneath.

On one of my journeys up the railways I saw a warehouse with video games in it. I was curious. I hopped the fence and went over to take a look.

I can’t remember how things went down, but I told Bob that I was handy with electronics and that I could solder. So as a test he asked me to solder some wires to a joystick. So I stripped the wires, fluxed the wires, tinned the wires, fluxed the switch tabs, applied a small bit of solder to the switch tab and then I applied the tinned wire into the molten solder blob, removed the soldering iron and let the solder cool. It was nice, and shiny, and perfect.

Bob then asked me to look at some video game logic boards that had some problems. I fixed them.

So I had a job. Bob paid good, just a little bit above minimum wage, which for a 13 year old wasn’t bad. And on days that I worked, Bob paid for my meals. Bob refused to buy me smokes or to let me smoke in the workshop, but he wouldn’t say anything if I stepped out for a smoke.

Bob owned two companies. Trans American Construction and Trans American Video Amusements. I don’t think he had operated Trans American Construction much by the time I started working for him. His main business was Trans American Video Amusements.

When I started working for Bob his shop was in a warehouse on Finch. A little while later he moved to a new warehouse on Steeles Ave.

Bob’s customers spanned all the way from Oshawa, Ontario to Niagara Falls, Ontario. He had agreements to put video games in all of the Holiday Inns in Southern Ontario as well as all of the Hasty Markets. Bob also had various other locations such as small convenience stores. I’d usually go in and work with Bob on Saturdays.

Bob had a Dodge Kary Van that was modified with a lift gate on the rear for lifting and lowering the video games in and out of the box.

Bob’s was red, not white and didn’t have the hazard light bar on top.

We drove in this van pretty well all over southern Ontario.

Bob wasn’t the least bit hesitant to drive on base and stop in front of our PMQ and toot the air-horns to let me know that he was waiting.

Bob didn’t like my father very much. Bob would often tell me that what concerned him the most about my father is that my father just didn’t seem to care that I was never home. What type of man lets a stranger take his son on the highway and out of the city?

By the time Bob moved up to Steeles Avenue I would come to work after school and I would stay there until 9 or 10 at night. Bob could always tell I was leaving late because Gerry, the guy who owned that auto shop next-door, would tell Bob what time I was leaving, and Bob could see what time I armed the alarms.

And this blew Bob away. He said that he’d never seen anything like this. He said if his daughter started disappearing for hours that he’d ground her.

And my smoking. Bob had never seen anything like it. The fact that my father didn’t care about my smoking shocked Bob. Bob couldn’t comprehend this.

I never could understand why Bob cared so much about my father or my home life. I guess at the time I didn’t realize just how off the rails and dysfunctional my household actually was and how apparent the dysfunction was to people outside of my family.

Bob was a good natured guy. He never really got angry or upset. I dropped a video game out of the back of the truck in the shop one day. I thought that Bob was going to be pissed off, or worse. Nope. Shit happens, just try harder next time. My father would have killed me or at least humiliated me.

One time we were driving to Niagara Falls. Antonio was with us. Antonio was another helper that Bob often employed. Bob was driving, Antonio was in the passenger seat, I was sitting between Bob and Antonio. Bob asked Antonio to clean the sideview mirror. Antonio reached into the glove box and grabbed a small “rag”, rolled down the window, and started rubbing the dirt off the mirror using the “rag”.

“Antonio! After all I have done for you, this is how you repay me!” Bob bellowed.

Antonio starts looking at Bob and then looks at the mirror thinking maybe he didn’t clean the mirror good enough.

I forget exactly how the exchange went but I clued in really quick once I saw the decorative embroidery around the edge of the “rag”. Antonio still hadn’t figured out why Bob was upset so I pointed at the “rag” and then I pointed at the back of my head. Antonio didn’t get it right away, but then the realization started to dawn on Antonio’s face. Antonio unfolded the “rag” and realized that he had just used Bob’s yarmulke to clean the mirror. When Bob saw the look of horror on Antonio’s face he couldn’t stop laughing. Antonio spent the rest of the day apologizing to Bob.

Bob got a flat tire once in the truck. I got underneath to put the jack in place under the axle. Bob didn’t realize that my legs were under the lift gate and he was in the process of unloading games off the truck to make it lighter. Bob treated me like royalty for the next couple of weeks after that.

Bob bought me a jukebox at one of the video game auctions at Starburst Distributors for my 15th birthday. Wasn’t an expensive machine, but it was more that what Richard had bought me, which was nothing.

I’m pretty sure that the summer of 1987 was the last summer that I worked for Bob. That was the year I dropped out of grade 9. And it was also the year that I started working for Ed Blah and Bruce Beveridge of Rainbow Games. But the summer of 1987 was when I learnt a little bit about Bob’s history.

We were moving games down to the CNE from Bob’s warehouse. As the CNE happened in August this was typically the most humid time of the year in Southern Ontario. Bob was sweating, and I mean really sweating. Sweating so much that I was certain that he was going to pass out from heat stroke. I kept insisting to Bob that he should take his long sleeve shirt off and wear a short sleeve shirt or a tee-shirt.

Bob was becoming visibly annoyed with my pestering. He looked over at me and asked me if he showed me something would I promise never to bother him again about short sleeved shirts. He also asked me to promise to never tell anyone about what he was about to show me.

Remember when I said that Bob had been born in Poland in the late 1920s? Remember the fact that he was Jewish.

Bob rolled up his left sleeve and there was his concentration camp number.

The Nazis had rounded him and his family up and they were sent to a concentration camp.

Bob was the only one who survived the camps. The rest of his family was gone.

After the war Bob first landed in America before settling in Canada.

And I think this is what bugged Bob the most about my father.

Bob’s family had been destroyed by hatred. Richard was destroying his own family out of indifference.

The Nazis had taken everything away from Bob and Bob in turn built a miniature empire and looked after his wife and his daughter.

Richard never had to deal with a force of destruction like the Nazis, but here he was content to exist in his little self absorbed world not caring in the slightest where his kids were getting off to.

It shocks me now to look back on all of the people I had interacted with as a child. People who I liked. But people who I though were wrong about my father. It wasn’t that my father didn’t care, my father was in the Canadian Armed Forces. He was a busy man defending Canada. Besides, I made the babysitter molest my younger brother, so maybe he was right to not like me very much.

I didn’t know that my father was being physically or mentally abusive. My father’s attitude was common on the bases amongst the other fathers. In fact when I saw civie kids “getting away with murder” I thought it was their parents that were abnormal or just too weak to discipline their kids properly.

Now I fully realize that men like Bob Becker were right. There was something horrifically wrong with my family. My family was a dysfunctional and self destructive military family.

Defending myself

One of the oddest things about growing up in Richard’s house is how defending myself often put me at the risk of being on the receiving end of Richard’s rage.

Being a child with severe depression and severe anxiety meant that I liked to keep to myself a lot. There were two boys on Canadian Forces Base Downsview that used to take extreme pleasure in beating me up. One of the kids lived at the end of the row house that I lived in. And we both attended Pierre Laporte Junior High. This kid I’ll refer to as “G”. The other kid that “G” hung out with was “S”.

Military bases were like the proverbial “company town”. Everybody knew everybody’s business and everybody knew everybody’s issues. If you came from one of the many dysfunctional families that lived on military bases in Canada, you may as well have had a scarlett D tattooed on your forehead.

There were four kids that attended Pierre Laporte Junior High that made my life a living hell to the point that one more than one occasion I contemplated stepping in front of the CN train that ran through the middle of the base just behind the PMQs or even the TTC subway train. “G”, “S”, “R.K.”, and “R.A.”

And the thing was, these four would often gang up on me. So it was never a fair one-on-one fight.

These four and their girlfriends were always taunting me about my lack of a girlfriend and my apparent “funny walk”. Also, my father’s frequent anger outbursts and the domestic dispute which occurred in the summer of 1985 seemed to feed these kids even more.

On one occasion I was coming home from school when both “G” and “S” caught me behind Downsview Secondary School. What I didn’t anticipate was that my only friend at the time, John, saw what was happening and he intervened to keep “S” out of the fight. I don’t know if “G” didn’t put as much effort into the fight because “S” wasn’t able to help him, or if I just realized that I had a once in a life time chance to fight back. But I landed a few good punches and “G” decided he wasn’t interested in fighting me.

When I got home my shiner was starting the develop.

Let’s not kid anyone. At that point in my life I was on the scrawny side. “G” was much more developed than I was. Christ, even my younger brother was taller and more muscular than I was. I didn’t actually break 120 lbs until I quit smoking in 1996 when I was 25. At the time I lived on CFB Downsview I’d be very surprised if I broke 90 to 100 lbs. During my adolescence my chest muscles and body fat were so thin that you could easily see my ribs.

I thought that Richard would have approved of me standing up for myself instead of getting the shit beat out of me as usual. Nope. I got a nice back hand across my face and he told me that I had to stop doing things to get myself beat up. He said that he was getting tired of me picking fights and then playing the victim.

I can only look back and wonder if Richard was projecting.

Projection in the psychological sense is where you take all of your flaws and superimpose them onto someone else.

In 2011 when I received my foster care records from the Alberta Government I would discover that both the psychiatrist hired by the Canadian Forces as well as my civilian child care workers had noted that my father refused to accept responsibility for his family, blamed others for his problems, felt victimized, expected others to solve his problems for him, often told conflicting stories, and often told those he perceived to be in positions of authority what he thought they wanted to hear.

Richard had already made it known to me at various times between the summer of 1980 and the fall of ’87 when I moved out that I was at fault for allowing the babysitter to molest my younger brother. As an adult I full well realize that this is the stupidest thing that Richard could have ever said. But as a child this cut right to the bone.

So was that it? Was Richard projecting all of his shortcomings and failings on me? Richard wasn’t home like he was supposed to have been and he left my brother and I in the care of his alcoholic mother. Did Richard blame me because otherwise he’d have to step up to the plate and take responsibility for his two kids being sexually abused on a secured defence establishment?

Richard would often “rage out” and get so violent, but then turn around mere hours later and forget all about it. Did Richard view me standing up to “G” and fighting back as me “raging out” like he was prone to?

I forget what rank “G’s” father was at the time, all I know is that he outranked my father. Was my father just afraid of catching flack from “G’s” father or from a superior of “G’s” father?

Richard’s refusal to allow me to defend myself has had repercussion well into my adult life.

Not being allowed to defend myself fostered a very low self esteem.

Not being allowed to defend myself taught me to appease others and just go with what others wanted as this would avoid confrontation.

This will always be a mystery to me as Richard is long since dead.

And honestly whether or not I ever got an answer from Richard would be pointless as the damage has long since been done.

Mental Health Treatment

Sometimes nothing can be done.

Over the course of time that I have been running my blogs people have come forward and have suggested that I just need to seek counselling to deal with the cancer in my brain and that everything will be just fine. And I know that these people mean well. But sometimes there is nothing that can be done.

I know that I am going to sound like a broken record, but sometimes the damage is unfixable due to the severity of the damage, the spectrum of the damage, and how long the damage was allowed to fester.

In my case not only did I come from a family with intergenerational dysfunction, I was sexually abused repeatedly from 1978 until 1987 by various people. I was blamed for the abuse which occurred from 1978 until 1980. I was blamed for my brother’s abuse that occurred from 1978 until 1980. I was labelled a homosexual even though I more than likely was not one. I was pitted in a war between my military social worker and my civilian social workers. I grew up being spoon fed lies by my father. My educational endeavours were severely curtailed due to my father’s belief that what was good enough for him was more than good enough for me.

My father also seemed to be the kind of person that would destroy anyone he felt was a challenge to his intellect or authority. Sarcastic putdowns were a hobby of his. He could wield his putdowns like a machete and inflict massive wounds.

I know that my untreated depression and my untreated anxiety were probably what led to me being sexually abused frequently as a kid. How many times was I sexually abused? More than you’d probably care to know.

See child sexual abuse, dysfunction, and mental illness go hand in hand.

A dysfunctional household means that you often have no one to confide in as the adults in your house are wrapped up in their own drama and are dealing with their own demons.

My mental illnesses meant that I was often alone, scapegoated, and ostracized. Kiddie diddlers and perverts love ostracized children. They’re often alone and by themselves. Children who are depressed often have such low levels of self esteem that these creeps and perverts only have to make basic overtures to these kids in order to get these kids to comply. Also these creeps and perverts know that children with low self esteem can be made to believe anything and can be easily manipulated. All they have to do is offer a compliment on how handsome you look or how smart you are and they’ve got you in their traps.

If I had been allowed to receive treatment for my depression and anxiety would I have not appeared so odd and bizarre to the other kids? And if I had been accepted by the other kids would I have been such an easy target for the creeps and pervs?

I remember as a kid frequently crying because I couldn’t figure out what the fuck was wrong with me and why I was such a fucking freak. The last time that I had actually broken down and cried with these thoughts was back in 2008.

Dying was a frequent wish of mine as a kid. I would often hope that I would get kidnapped and murdered and that during the police investigation my father would go to jail for neglect. I remember the 1984 McDonald’s shooting in San Ysidro , California and how I wished that I could be killed in a similar manner. I really didn’t want to live as a kid. I was just too chicken to do anything about it.

I wish that I could say that “talking” was going to fix my issues. But I know that I can’t be honest with counsellors. After all I spent three years of my childhood being manipulated by military social worker Captain Terry Totzke and my very own father. And by being manipulated I mean that every time that we went to counselling sessions at the Westfield Program my father and Terry would tell me to be very careful with what I said to the counsellors and that I should check with them before saying anything to my counsellors. Sure, I’ve learnt recently that both my father and Terry had their own agendas. The fact that I now know of these agendas doesn’t change the fact that the rot and cancer of mental illness was allowed to permeate the far reaches of my brain from 1980 until 2011. And I understand that my father may have had no option but to follow the instructions of Terry as Terry was a captain in the Canadian Forces and my father was only a master corporal.

Another problem with talking freely with counsellors is that they honestly don’t listen.

Children don’t live on military bases.
Military bases would have been the safest place for children to live.
Military police are real police officers and can’t be interfered with.
All you had to do was tell someone.
You’re successful, you can’t have any mental issues.
You never sought help before, how bad can your issues be.
You’re blowing things out of proportion.
You’ve adapted to your depression, you can tough it out.

Also, I have various people residing in my skull. And they’re not going anywhere. And no, they’re not there for trivial reasons. Who are these people?

P.S. a 14 / 15 year old male from CFB Namao
Captain McRae from CFB Namao.
The mystery man from the sauna on CFB Griesbach.
The man from CFB Griesbach
The man from Kingsway Garden Mall in Edmonton, AB.
Earl Ray Stevens, the retired member of the Canadian Forces who was a commissionaire at the Dennison Armouries in North York.
The guy who lived on Centre Island.
The University of Toronto student who conned me into a “human sexuality” study.
A guy from North York who tried to get me to participate in the filming of a child porn video.
The married guy who threw me out of his apartment when his wife came home.
The man who tried to strangle me in his car in High Park in Toronto.
A guy that I worked with in Toronto who threatened to “out me” to my employers if I didn’t look after him.

So, while I appreciate the urgings for me to “get help”, there honestly is no help.

One of my “gifts” if you will is that I am extremely pragmatic. Not everything can be fixed. Not everyone can be “cured”.

Sometimes the best thing to do is to learn how to cope. But sometime even coping isn’t good enough.

If you want to prevent people from suffering from complex mental health issues, the best thing to do is to prevent those issues from occurring in the first place.

The one thing that I have learnt over the last ten years is not to blame myself for what happened.

The other thing that I learnt over the last ten years is that our lives are so intricately. There’s a collective delusion in North America that everyone is their own person and that everyone is responsible for their own destiny. That I can promise you is the furthest thing from the truth.

Persons involved with the Government of British North America and later Canada, as well as members of the various Catholic organizations decided how to deal with the Indians. This of course had massive repercussions for the paternal side of my family.

Members of the Canadian Armed Forces from NDHQ in Ottawa, ON, to Western Command in Winnipeg, MB, as well as the local chain of command on Canadian Forces Base Namao decide that the best way to protect the image of the Canadian Armed Forces was to sweep the Captain Father Angus McRae child sexual abuse scandal under the rug.

In 2011 members of the Canadian Armed Forces all the way from NDHQ in Ottawa, through the Provost Marshal in Ottawa to the CFNIS Western Command at Edmonton Garrison were fully aware of the connection between the person I accused of molesting my brother and I, and Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae, but the decision was made to gaslight me and try to convince me that there was no way that P.S. could have ever possibly sexually abused me.

As you can see, there are many people, people whom I’ve never seen in my life, people that I’ve never met, that have made decisions that have had drastic effects on my life. I guess the “one man army” appeals to a lot of people because they don’t like the idea that they are not in control of their lives.

The truth is none of us are truly in control of our lives. Our lives are so interdependent on others.

My father was a grade 8 drop out who had a successful career in the Canadian Armed Forces. He went to school in a single room school house in Fort McMurray where science class was probably spent learning the boiling and freezing temperatures of water and music class consisted of signing “God Save the Queen”. So my educational career was determined for better or worse by my father.

Where could my life have gone if my father had encouraged my academic adventures?

The Canadian Armed Forces chain of command in 1980 decided that they needed to limit the fallout from the Captain Father Angus McRae child sex scandal and evoked the “protection of public morals” to hide the court martial and the evidence “in-camera”. How would my life have ended up had I been acknowledged to be a victim of Captain McRae and of P.S. and that I wasn’t responsible for P.S. molesting my younger brother?

Captain Totzke didn’t work on his own. His agenda with me would have been set by the Canadian Forces. What would my gender identity and sexual orientation be like today if Captain Totzke’s mission back then hadn’t been to convince me that I was sexually abused because I had exhibited signs of homosexuality?

If the decision wasn’t made to get my family out of Alberta before I was placed into foster care, what would my life have been like today? Again, another decision made by people who were working against people who were trying to help me.

So many people made decisions about my life, and they made these decisions without any concern for the consequences of their decisions.

And the reality is, there are a lot of people that make decisions on a daily basis that affect the lives of others.

Yes, people can make decisions that affect their own lives, but these usually work in conjunction with the decisions that others had made.