Tag: anxiety

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

People often wonder why I don’t simply go see a counsellor for my issues. Or in the alternative they often suggest that my issues can’t be that serious as I’ve never sought help.
Welcome to the twisted life of a military dependent.

That is one of the questions that an investigator from the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service asked my brother in 2011 after I had made my complaint to the CFNIS in 2011 about the actions of the babysitter from 1978 until 1980.

The other thing the investigator asked my brother was if I had trouble holding down secure employment suggesting that maybe I had made my complaint against the babysitter as a way of making money.

I know of the existence of these two questions as I have certified copies of the 2011 investigation.

The point of this post is not to go over the 2011 investigation.

The point of this post is to illustrate how the Canadian Armed Forces have always blamed the victim.

Blaming the victim is nothing new for the Canadian Forces. You need to only look at the various reports commissioned by the Canadian Armed Forces over the years to understand that the Canadian Armed Forces have a significant issue with blaming the victim and that the Canadian Forces are very cognizant of the existence of this predisposition within the military community to blame the victim.

When a family member of P.S. found P.S. buggering me in the bedroom of his family’s military housing unit on base in late April early May I became a victim of sexual assault.

I would then also become a victim of the military’s attitude towards not only victims in general, but also the military’s attitude towards victims of male on male sexual abuse.

After being found in P.S.’s bedroom, I was told to go home. I lived right across the street from the P.S. family house. I lived in PMQ #11 – 12th street, he lived at PMQ #26 – 12th street.

I didn’t make it across the street before getting the shit beat out of me by a bunch of kids who were between 12 to 18. Remember, I would have been 8. P.S. was just weeks shy of his 15th birthday.

According to military records, the base military were coincidentally conducting an investigation into P.S. around the same time due to the numerous complaints that the military police had received about P.S. behaving improperly around young children. I don’t have the start date of this investigation, but I have no doubt that it was P.S. being found with me that started the ball rolling.

P.S. and I would have two very different tangents in life.

P.S. would go on to be convicted in civilian courts between 1982 and 1985 for molesting children.

When I spoke with the father of P.S. in July of 2015, P.S. was living in his father’s home. J.S. is the father of P.S.. J.S. had just had a leg amputated due to diabetes and he needed P.S. to be at home to help him with his care. P.S. at the time was facing trial for two counts of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement.

J.S. had apparently supported his son from 1980 onwards as he view his son as the true victim of Captain McRae.

In 1980 the Canadian Armed Forces needed ONE victim and one victim only. And that was P.S.

The rest of us kids, which according to J.S. was known to be over 25 children molested by both McRae and P.S., were not allowed to be victims.

My father wasn’t around at the time I was found in P.S.’s bedroom in late April or early May of 1980. My father did move back in with us in August of 1980. He brought his girlfriend Sue to live with us.

The start of the school year was an absolute disaster. Not a day would go by that I wasn’t taunted or teased or beat up for being a fag, a queer, a fucking homo, for doing what I had done with P.S..

“Robert and P____ up in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Robert with a baby carriage”

In October of 1980 my family was moved from Canadian Forces Base Namao 10km down the road to Canadian Forces Base Griesbach. Looking back now I have no doubt that it was the Canadian Forces that relocated my family, probably in an attempt to get me away from the kids on Namao. I’m also pretty certain that the reason we didn’t get moved off to bases in other provinces like the families of other victims is due to the amount of money the Canadian Forces had just spent training my father on CH-147 Maintenance Management.

There really was no reason for us to move from CFB Namao to CFB Griesbach. My grandmother moved out not too long after our arrival at CFB Griesbach. So the 3 bedroom house that we lived in on CFB Namao would have been more than large enough for us.

This move also coincides with my father getting angry with me for what I had allowed P.S. to do to my younger brother. Richard had been living off base with Sue up to that point in time. He probably didn’t know about P.S. having been found buggering me in his bedroom, or the arrest and subsequent court martial of Captain McRae. But then again, my father had problems remember things as well. For example he “forgot” that in June of 1982 that he signed the paperwork placing me in the foster care system in Alberta.

When it was decided by military brass to get me off Namao, that’s more than likely when Richard was told what had happened and that I had been discovered with an older boy’s penis inside of me. After all, the Canadian Forces would have had to explain why they wanted us to move. Moving wouldn’t have been in Richard’s best interest as he could easily get pissed drunk at the mess on base and walk back home or be escorted back home by his drinking buddies and thus not risk losing his licence again. Living down on CFB Griesbach meant that he had to drive, and that meant that he couldn’t go to the mess on Namao to go drinking with his buddies.

This was also around the immediate time that I started engaging with a man name Terry. Terry would come to see me at the school on base for military children. Sometimes I would have to go see Terry over at a building near base head quarters.

I would have just turned 9 when I started seeing Terry in October of 1980.

I would learn in the summer of 2011 that Terry was Captain Terry Totzke, a social worker with the Canadian Armed Forces.

Terry seemed to know a great deal of my involvement with P.S.

I remember being told by Terry that I had a mental illness that was exhibited by me frequently having sex with P.S.. Terry would state that this mental illness was called homosexuality.

Terry would claim that because the encounters had happened so often, and that I never told anyone about them that I was just as ill as P.S. was.

Terry would tell me that boys do not have sex with other boys, that boys do not kiss other boys, and that boys do not touch other boys penises.

Terry would tell me that he had the base military police watching me and that if I ever tried to kiss or touch another boy again that I would be sent off to the Alberta Hospital for psychiatric treatments.

My father would sometimes come to these meetings and he was obviously taking what Terry had to say very much to heart. I don’t think this was only due to Terry being a captain and my father being a master corporal. Homosexuality was viewed in a very contemptible fashion within the Canadian Forces back in the ’50s through to the ’90s.

So here I am, the eldest son of Richard, a man dealing with his own demons of depression, PTSD, and alcoholism , being told by a captain of the Canadian Forces that his son is very quite possible a homosexual.

I wasn’t a victim of Captain McRae and McRae’s 14 year old altar boy P.S..

Nope, I was a homosexual who through his own homosexual depravity had allowed his younger brother to be victimized by P.S..

There was one time when Richard and Terry had taken me off base to see a psychologist. On the drive back on base we drove past the military prison on CFB Griesbach. I can’t for the life of me remember if it was Terry or if it was Richard, but one of the two pointed at the brig and said to me that “if I didn’t smarten up and stop trying to kiss and touch other boys that I was going to end up in there just like the priest from Namao”

The major depression and severe anxiety that I was beginning to exhibit around the just made Richard and Sue much more angry. Even Terry didn’t seem to have much sympathy for my battles with depression and anxiety.

I remember getting the strap from Mr. Little, the principal of the school on base for military children. The Canadian Armed Forces ran these schools until 1994 when the Canadian Forces handed the schools over to the local school boards and got out of the business of educating military dependents. Because the military ran these schools, corporal punishment was allowed right up until 1994. I still remember getting the strap from Mrs. Potter on CFB Namao. But yeah, I got the strap quite frequently. And my father wanted to know when I got the strap so that I could get a spanking when I got home.

I don’t talk about Sue very often in my blogs. I don’t think she really knew what was going on back then. I don’t think Richard was honest with her as to all of the issues the Gill family had. And she did apologize to me in 2003 for the way things had been back then.

When you have major untreated depression and severe anxiety everything can induce tears. And when you’re only around 9 years old and you start developing these mental health issues, you have meltdowns and temper tantrums, which to a man with his own depression, PTSD, and alcoholism may come across as nothing more than an insubordinate child in need of a good belting or back hand.

Richards spankings were always the pants down kind and he had a thick leather belt.

And he’d often lose control, so much so that either Grandma or Sue would have to step in to stop him. I think that the reason he’d lose control is that the sound of crying would drive him bonkers. It would trigger something inside him.

The funny thing about grandma stopping Richard is that she could dish out corporal punishment pretty good herself. Which makes me wonder if Richard was just reacting to inter-generational violence. After all, grandma had been through Indian Residential School as a child. Grandma was an alcoholic by the time Richard was born when grandma was 23. Richard was already a good drinker by the time my mother met him in 1965. Which makes me wonder. Did Richard get his drinking from his mother? Was Richard born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome?

The Canadian Forces and my father never allowed to be the victim of P.S. nor Captain McRae.

I was just a selfish crybaby who was fucking with his father’s military career.

The Canadian Forces had determined that I was never the victim of P.S., the abuse had gone on far too long for me to be a victim.

I was never allowed to be a child with mental illness, I was just a fucking selfish little asshole doing anything to get my way.

One of the ways that I learnt to avoid the wrath of Richard was to hide my emotions and to hide my wants and needs.

When I started seeing Pat and Wayne I wasn’t allowed to talk to them.

I was told periodically by my father and Terry that I had to be very careful what I told Pat and Wayne because if they found out that I liked boys that I’d be sent to a hospital.

When we’d start going to go see Pat and Wayne at the facility that had a one way mirror with a room behind the mirror, I was told by both my father and Terry that I had to watch what I said to Pat and Wayne and anyone else in the room as they would “twist my words” and make me say things that I didn’t want to say and that quite possibly that they would take me away from my father. To be on the safe side I should run my answer by my father first.

I honestly don’t think Pat and Wayne had any idea of what was going on, or what I had suffered through on CFB Namao from 1978 to 1980.

But to me they were the enemy. Both Terry and my father assured me that these people were not my friends nor were they there to help me.

I think this is one of the reasons I have never been able to interact with counsellors. My whole childhood was a lie. A lie to keep the public from discovering what had occurred on CFB Namao.

In 2011 I would discover that Pat and Wayne were social service workers with Alberta Social Services. Alberta Social Services had been called in by my teacher and my brother’s teacher in November of 1981 as the school though that Captain Totzke wasn’t having any success in helping my brother and I with the behaviour issues we were exhibiting.

I talked to Pat recently. She remembered me. She said that she knew there was something going on but that I was too afraid to say anything. She also said that once Alberta Social Services handed the case back to Captain Terry Totzke they had doubts that anything was going to improve for me.

Which brings me back to the heading at the top of this post.

The Canadian Armed Forces have always viewed victims as the cause of their own misfortunes. This is nothing new. It’s the way the military hierarchy functions. If you were sexually assaulted, or if you were physically assaulted, or if you were psychologically abused, you must have done something to deserve it. Or in the alternate, if you didn’t do anything to fend off the assaults, you must have either enjoyed the assaults or you were a willing participant in the assaults.

This attitude still prevails.

In 2016 during a meeting with the Minister of Parliament for Vancouver South, Harjit Sajjan, Mr. Sajjan asked me “what my game was” and “what angle was I playing”. To this day Mr. Sajjan refuses to meet with me as the Minister of National Defence. Something about having to legally act upon my concerns if I make my concerns known to him.

But, if you talk to anyone that I’ve worked for over the years or have worked with I’m definitely not a “Societal Malcontent with an axe to grind against the Canadian Armed Forces” nor do I “frequently jump from job to job frequently changing jobs”. I honestly don’t think that anyone at St. Paul’s knows of my troubled past or my unfortunate adventures as a military dependent.

As I’ve said elsewhere, I started working when I was young. Not because a 10 year old can make a fortune cleaning aquariums and rodent cages at pet shops, or because an 11 year old can make a killing washing pizza pans and fetching supplies at a pizza shop in a shopping mall. I started working because I could get validation. I could get everything from these strangers that I couldn’t get from home. Looking back I’m more than certain that everyone I worked for knew that I came from a troubled home and that I needed help.

Sure, St. Paul’s is finally closing down. But we didn’t know that until 2019.
During my time at St. Paul’s I’ve done the following:
1-Initiated the cooling tower replacement on Phase 1 / Phase 2.
2-Repaired a design flaw with the steam regulator system that would starve the facility for steam heating during the winter months.
3-Replaced old reciprocating compressors with newer more efficient screw compressors.
4-Initiated the replacement of the main Diesel fuel tanks once I had discovered that the original main tanks were leaking and couldn’t hold pressure.
5-Repaired a long standing flaw in the secondary chilled water loop that would starve Phase II for cooling water on warm days.
6-Upgraded all cooling and heating valves in Phase II to electronic ball valves.
7-Implemented electronic rounds and reading software for tracking readings taken by the shift engineer.
8-Started to implement an inventory control system that will be ported to the New St. Paul’s.
9- Pushed to have all the supply fans upgraded to variable speed drive removing the troublesome and maintenance intensive variable pitch mechanisms from the fans.
10-Upgrading the air filtration for the operating rooms.
11 – Upgraded the refrigeration monitoring in the hospital.
12- Upgraded the steam control valves for the main heat exchangers to allow for proper tight shut-off when the heating hot water temperature set point was reached.

And on and on and on.

So no. I’m not a societal malcontent with an axe to grind against the Canadian Armed Forces, nor do I frequently jump from employer to employer.

I’ve had a very long and laborious climb up the corporate ladder all the while carrying a sack full of shit from my past that has been tied around my neck.

I’m not rich, nor am I poor. I didn’t really have much growing up, and I never really expected much either.

But Bobbie, what about your class action against the Canadian Armed Forces —- GOTCHA!!!!!! See, you are just in this for the money.

Actually, no.

First, the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence did that to themselves.

Second, M.A.i.D. for psychological reasons becomes legal in March of 2023.

I may not in fact be around to collect on the compensation that a judge determines that all class members are entitled to.

So no. I’m not just looking to make a quick buck.

And even with the hell that the Canadian Armed Forces have dragged me through since 1980 I don’t have an axe to grind with the military. Even I can understand that it only takes a few bad apples to spoil the bunch and that you don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

M.A.i.D. pt 2

Okay, so I’ll talk a little bit about the procedure itself.

If I am approved, I hope to undergo the injection method as opposed to the oral method. Yes, both methods are supposed to result in a painless death, but I favour the injection method due to the swiftness.

Which ever method I’m allowed to undertake, I have to initiate it. Whether it’s drinking the glass of barbiturates or pressing the trigger button for the dosing pumps, it’s the patient undergoing the procedure that has to initiate the procedure.

With the oral method you consume a large amount of barbiturates in liquid form. This is supposed to induce unconsciousness and eventually cardiac arrest. Time to death varies from person to person. This is not the way I want to go. I can’t even stand most over-the-counter or prescription pain killers. And the idea of dying from a drug overdose doesn’t appeal to me.

The injection method is almost clinical in its efficiency and swiftness. There are three or four drugs used depending on the drugs selected.

The first drug to be introduced would be Midazolam. Midazolam is a sedative. This is not used to render the person unconscious. This is really just to make the person feel comfortable. Face it, no matter how intense the desire to die, when you’re lying down on your literal death bed with the cannula in your vein, anxiety can become your enemy.

The next drug to be introduced would be Propofol. Propofol is typically used prior to the administration of anesthesia in surgical procedures. For surgical procedures Propofol is usually administered at a rate of 2 mg/kg. In my case, if I was going for surgery I would get a dosage of about 180 mg. However, in the case of M.A.i.D. I would be receiving a doseof 1,000 mg. At this dosing level I will be put into a very deep coma and would lose consciousness and all sensation.

The third drug to be introduced would be Rocuronium. Rocuronium is a neuromuscular blocking agent that targets striated muscles. The Rocuronium would act upon my diaphragm and cease my breathing.

The final drug to be introduced would be Bupivacaine. Bupivacaine would cause cardiac arrest and stop my heart.

So basically the Midazolam is to calm me down prior to the Propofol. The Propofol is to shut my brain down so that I am unaware of the resulting asphyxiation and subsequent cardiac arrest. With the advent of cardiac arrest, arterial blood pressure in my brain would drop to nothing which means that even if the Propofol were to somehow wear off, I would never regain consciousness.

I’m not exactly sure how long after my heart stops before I will be pronounced clinically dead, but it wouldn’t be too long.

The interesting thing is, it won’t just be me dying. It will be P.S., Captain McRae, the man in the sauna, Captain Totzke, my father. There will be no more depression. There will be no more anxiety. There will be no more night terrors. There will be no more grinding my teether. There will be nothing.

I am an atheist.

I don’t believe in magical special friends or an invisible father figure peering down on me from the clouds.

I may be an atheist, but I’ve never had issues with my morals unlike men of the cloth like Captain Father Angus McRae or Brigadier General Roger Bazin.

Being an atheist means that I don’t believe the the great beyond, or the magical city in the sky. Conversely I don’t believe in the fire and brimstone pits of hell.

When I die, I will simply cease to exist.

Will I miss anything after I am dead? No, I’ll be dead.

Will I be sad when I die and will I be full of regret? No, I’ll be dead.

Life is not a competition to see who can live the longest.

You live the life you have.

You do the best with it that you can.

Life is not a miracle. There are over 7 billion people on the planet.

Society is weird in the sense that if I’m out riding my bicycle and I get hit by a car, “oh well, life goes on”. If I go snowboarding down a mountain and crash into a tree “Oh well, he died doing what he liked to do”. If I had developed a drug habit and died of a heroin overdose, everyone would be talking about how rough of a life I had and how it wasn’t fair that I died. Yet if someone undergoes severe psychological trauma society gets all sanctimonious if the topic of suicide or M.A.i.D. comes up. I can go scuba diving with the sharks or skydiving out of a perfectly functional airplane and society is fine with that. Struggle with the fallout from being sexually abused as a child on a military base, gotta keep on struggling. Apparently it builds character.

If this had been 40 years ago, just after the abuse but prior to Captain Totzke getting his hooks into my brain, yeah, maybe counselling or drug therapy could have worked.

I’m fifty years old in a few short days. I’ve had the events from CFB Namao playing back in my head non-stop since 1980. And I think the effect was made even worse by the fact that Captain Totzke and my father both blamed me for what happened and they both blamed me for allowing the babysitter to go after my younger brother.

So it’s not just the untreated trauma from sexual abuse that I’m dealing with, I’m dealing with the fucked up counselling from the military social worker that I receive back then and the scapegoating. Yes, the release of records by DND did vindicate me. But that doesn’t undo the damage done. In fact in some ways knowing that DND and the Canadian Forces knew the truth all along makes the pain even worse.

So, when do I intend to go to sleep?

Well, March 2023 would be the soonest.

But realistically it will probably be closer to 2025 or 2026.

I don’t know what the criteria will be or how many tests I would have to undergo. I would imagine that there would be more than a two question multiple choice questionnaire .

I don’t know if my current physician would be willing to prescribe me the medications or even cannulate me and connect the IV lines and the pumps. Even though I would have to push the button to initiate the process, my doctor would be the one who would have to insert the cannulas and be ready to do manual injections if something went wrong with the pumps. This might cause some physicians to not be willing to participate.

I would like to stick around a while to see what happens with my class action lawsuit. But I do fear that DND and the Department of Justice will try to drag this matter out for as long as possible in the courts. I have no intention of waiting 10 years.

Place of death? More than likely at home in my own bed. Lay down for one final sleep and never wake up again.

What happens after?

Hopefully I get to go to medical school or a body farm.

If I seem cavalier about death, it’s probably just that I refuse to be afraid of death.

The fact is everyone dies. Death is a normal part of life. There is no escaping death no matter how much you want to wish it away.

I don’t want my body pumped full of chemicals and stuck in the ground.

Send me to medical school and let the students learn.

Cut my brain apart and try to figure out why I never ended up on the streets with addiction problems.

Put me on a body farm and let the forensics investigators learn their techniques.

M.A.i.D. pt 1

Okay, so I’m going to delve a little bit into the topic of M.A.i.D. and why I am hoping to be able to avail myself to this procedure.

Let’s face it. I’ve been through quite a lot in this life. And what I’ve been through has left me with some very significant long term psychological issues.

Major depression and severe anxiety would be the most significant issues that I struggle with. Yes, the medications that I am on now have calmed the storm, but the storm is still there. And the storm always will be.

Depression and anxiety have genetic roots. And if I had to say who I inherited what from I’d say that my depression came from my father’s genes and my anxiety came from my mother’s genes.

I went through 1-1/2 years of very depraved and graphic sexual abuse. I went through about 2-1/2 years of “counselling” with Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Terry Totzke, who was anything but concerned with my mental well-being and was more concerned with keeping the secrets of CFB Namao under wraps, even it that meant depriving me of the psychiatric care that I needed at the time.

My childhood was spent living in the household of a rage fuelled alcoholic with his own inner demons that he could barely deal with.

Because of the meddling of Captain Totzke, I have issues with gender identity and sexual orientation.

I have a lot of people living in my head, and none of them are pleasant. They keep coming back in unwanted flashbacks. If somebody touches me unexpectedly I react. I don’t like being touched. Period. And it’s very hard to be intimate with someone when you don’t like touching.

P.S., Captain McRae, the man from the sauna, Captain Totzke, Earl Ray Stevens, they’re all up there. My father, Richard Gill is up there screaming and yelling about how I fucked with his military career.

I don’t like sex. I guess the lessons that I learnt from 9 to 11 was that sex was disgusting and wrong, just as I was disgusting and wrong for having done what I did on CFB Namao when I was 7 to 8.

Even though I now understand that the mess on CFB Namao was far larger than me apparently enjoying what the 15 year old babysitter was doing to me and in turn allowing the 15 year old babysitter to molest my younger brother, I can’t rewire my brain. Nobody can. There is no erasure procedure that will remove all of this crap.

I don’t want to learn how to deal with it or cope with it. I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t want it, and it’s not up to me to live with it.

Death isn’t something that I’ve just begun to long for recently. It’s been with me since the days of CFB Namao.

The problem though is that no matter how much I really wanted to die, working up the will to follow through is something else.

I have come close in the past. You can’t go through what I did and not want to die. I know of two men who took their own lives due to the events on CFB Namao. How many others took their own lives we’ll never know. There is no way on Earth that the Canadian Armed Forces will go overturning the stones of history.

The closest I came was back in 1994. What stopped me was the image of P.S. and my father holding hands and laughing their heads off like they were buddies.

In the days and years after CFB Namao I must would frequently fantasize my own death and that after my death the police would investigate my father and off to jail he would go.

The more I learnt about suicide over the years, the less inclined I became to commit it. Most suicides are not successful, and if you think you’ve got problems prior to suicide, depending an how bad you botch things up, you’re going to have significantly more problems after.

Suicide is messy. And it’s often not quick. And it’s really not fair to those who discover you and who have to clean up the mess. And it often leaves those who knew you with all sorts of unanswered questions.

In the early aughts I started hearing of medically assisted suicide in places like Scandinavia and I was fascinated. Most if not all of the countries that offered medically assisted suicide didn’t often include depression. It wasn’t until the late aughts early ’10s that I started hearing about medically assisted suicide for depression.

But the reality always was that even if European and Scandinavian countries were allowing people to die who only had mental issues such as depression, there was no way I was going to be able to afford a flight over there.

So my hopes and desires kinda took a back seat.

And besides, I was just about to start discovering the whole rancid truth about CFB Namao and about who knew what back then. The more I learnt about CFB Namao, the more I decided that I needed to stay alive to at least clear my name and see this mess through to a conclusion.

In 2019, something in the Canadian media caught my eye. Due to a court decision in Quebec, the Government of Canada was expected to amend the Criminal Code of Canada to allow medical assistance in dying (M.A.i.D.) in circumstances in which the person requesting M.A.i.D. was experiencing pain, but was not near the expected terminal end of their life. Prior to this, M.A.i.D. could only be given if a person requested it and that person was expected to die naturally in the imminent future.

Parliament passed the amendments to the Criminal Code of Canada in March of 2021 to allow M.A.i.D. in cases where death was not imminent. However, what caught my attention was that the Senate, in reviewing the bill, had determined that to not allow a person suffering solely from psychiatric issues to request M.A.i.D. could be seen as a Charter issue.

Parliament has until March 17th, 2023 to pass the required legislation to allow M.A.i.D. for psychiatric issues such as depression.

Well, it’s now 2021. I’ve somewhat cleared my name. I know that the Canadian Forces knew full well what happened back in 1979 to 1980. I also know why it was buried.

I have a class action lawsuit that is heading before a justice in the spring of 2022. The class action came about due to the release of Captain McRae’s court martial transcripts and the Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit investigation, both of with indicted that the military police in 1980 were full well aware of what P.S. was doing with younger children on the base and that it was Captain McRae that had taught P.S. and encouraged P.S. to behave in the manner that he did.

I don’t know what the rules will be in March of 2023. I can’t imagine it being something as simple as just walking into your doctor’s office and saying “Doc, I’m depressed, I want to die”. There will more than likely be a barrage of psychiatric tests and evaluations. I will probably have to convince the majority of a panel of at least 3 medical professionals that I am sane, competent, and that I am suffering.

If I succeed, then there will be all of the arrangements. I still don’t know what all of the details will be.

The next post will be M.A.i.D. pt 2

15 mg

Well, I’m up to 15 mg of Escitalopram now.

After returning back to work I found that the benefits of 10 mg were wearing off around noon. Yes, work is stressful and demanding, so that was probably what started to nullify the effect of the 10 mg.

Being on Escitalopram is different. I’ve honestly never felt like this before in my life.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’ve been given a 2nd chance at life, or have been allowed to start my life over from some arbitrary starting line.

The Escitalopram hasn’t fixed anything. It hasn’t made me “happy”. What it has done is raised the floor to which my depression would drag me down to. I do get somewhat depressed still, but it’s nowhere near as deep as my depressions used to go. I’ve had this untreated depression for far too long. There are also far too many factors that contributed to this depression. I now believe that I was predisposed to depression from my father’s side of the family. Depression can run in families.

The anxiety, which has been a constant companion of mine since the late ’70s had been toned down substantially. I haven’t woken up grinding my teeth once in the last couple of months.

I find that I can concentrate better now and when something disturbs me while I’m in the middle of a thought, it doesn’t completely derail my train of thought.

The dark thoughts are still there, and they always will be. You can’t go through what I’ve gone through and not carry those demons around.

Captain McRae, Captain Totzke, Mcpl Gill, P.S., Earl Ray Stevens. They’re all still up there too. But at least now I can more or less ignore them for the time being.

Even though the Escitalopram has calmed the waves of my emotions the war still rages on behind my eyes. The time for fixing these issues was back in the early ’80s. Not 40+ years later.

But, we’ll have to see how things work out. I’m 50 now. The average life expectancy for a male in Canada now sits at 80 years, so that’s about 30. Most of the men in my family have dropped dead early though, so I’d say that I might have a life expectancy of 70 years. But there are still other factors at play. So let’s just agree that I’m not getting a second chance. I’m just getting a bit of a respite in the final 1/4 of my life.

Mentally Ill

Yep, I said it.

I’m mentally ill.

Have been for a long time apparently.

The sad thing about my mental illness is that people like my father and Captain Terry Totzke were well aware of the struggles I was having, however it appears that it was more politically expedient to deny me of the treatments and medications that I rightfully deserved in the name of keeping secrets.

How bad were things back then in the early ’80s in Edmonton?

Well, I was supposed to have been placed in a psychiatric facility for children.

I was found to be extremely anxious.

I was found to be well beyond despair.

I was terrified of men, including my own father whom I thought was going to kill me.

I did not like being touched at all by anyone.

I was afraid of my grandmother who had been living with us and raising my brother and I during my father’s absences with the Canadian Forces.

My teacher noted that I did not fit in with the other kids at all. I preferred to be left alone to read books. My teacher did remark that the other kids would often use me as a scape goat.

I remember not having a lot of friends. The kids I hung out with were usually kids from other dysfunctional families living on base.

Alone.

And isolated.

Flailing around in the depths of my despair, my depression, my anxiety.

By myself.

Issues caused by my depression or anxiety would often be straightened out with a backhand or the belt.

I remember as a kid in the aftermath of CFB Namao and up until I was around 15 or 16 I always felt like I wasn’t inside of my brain. I always felt like I was behind myself, watching myself do things, and that I was powerless to do anything. Almost like I was watching a TV show.

Nothing felt real.

I frequently wet the bed right up until I moved out of the house when I was 16. It was only after moving out of the house that I never wet the bed again.

I had no hobbies as a kid, I had no interests.

For 42 years I suffered through severe depression and extreme anxiety.

I knew I was having problems and I knew I was floundering all these years. But you have to work hard and hide it, and pretend it doesn’t exist.

But the depression and anxiety are always there. Ready to flare up when you least expect it. Always trying to sabotage your life because deep down inside you know that your life is worthless and meaningless.

I’ve kinda skimmed along the surface of normalcy from the spring of 1980 until April of 2021.

It took the extreme stress of dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak at my work place to push me over the edge.

I’ve managed to keep employment due to my technical abilities.

Did my depression and anxiety come from the events of CFB Namao?

Not entirely. But I do think genetics played a major part. It would be a very safe bet to say that the paternal side of my family has depression encoded into its genes.

My anxiety is so bad that most of my teeth have been destroyed by grinding. I’ve already had one tooth extracted because I cracked it from grinding and I have a feeling that a few more teeth will need extraction in the short while.

Grinding my teeth was nothing new, I remember my father waking me up when we lived on CFB Downsview due to my grinding.

When COVID struck, the facility that I work at became a hotbed of activity. At first it was easy keeping up with the demands, but as weeks turned into months, the overtime went from being a treat to being a major cause of stress. The facility was designed in the late ’60s / early ’70s and construction was started in the late ’70s. The building HVAC systems meet the ’70s CSA standards. It does not meet 2021 standards. Being caught between parties that wanted todays standards flogged from 1960s technology was also very stress inducing.

So yeah, this was not fun.

Not fun at all.

But it did push me hard enough that I started to suffer constant panic attacks and anxiety attacks. My depression was hitting so hard that I was feeling physically ill and nauseated most of the time. I’d go to work and I couldn’t concentrate and I couldn’t think. My brain felt like it was on fire.

I ended up having to go on sick leave.

And this is how I ended up on Escitalopram.

Escitalopram is a SSRI. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor.

Let’s be very clear, Escitalopram is not going to cure my depression, nor is it going to cure my anxiety. Those two issues have been with me for so long that they’ve more than likely fucked with my brain’s wiring.

The Escitalopram will not stop the war that goes on inside my head.

The Escitalopram will not evict Captain Terry Totzke, Captain Father Angus McRae, P.S., Richard Gill, Earl Stevens, or the many others who reside inside my skull.

The Escitalopram had a very noticeable effect on my depression and my anxiety. It has really turned down my anxiety. The depression is still there. However the Escitalopram has numbed my emotions. I find that for the first time in my life I can actually concentrate on matters and I can hold two thought simultaneously.

The thing about Escitalopram is the more severe the depression and anxiety, the more noticeable the effect it has on the person taking the medication.

And the fact that Escitalopram had such a drastic effect on me shows just how bad the depression and anxiety were.

I’m at 10mg right now. That might have to go up to 20mg due to the stresses of work.

Negative side effects?

Only two that I’ve noticed.

Getting to sleep takes a bit of work.

And I know, TMI, but I can’t orgasm at the time being.

Both of these are well known side effects of SSRIs

Sleep is becoming easier.

Couple of interesting things that I’ve noticed about being on SSRIs.

My dreams are fucking vivid and wild in a good way. My dreams before SSRIs were sporadic and were often nightmares. Now my dreams are different. More colourful. Playful you could say.

And waking up in the morning is far easier now. I’m often up before the alarms go off.

I don’t need naps during the day.

I’ll probably be on these medications for the rest of my life.

As I said, these drugs will not fix my brain. The damage has been done, and the damage is very extensive. I hope that my body doesn’t build up a tolerance to these SSRIs. Apparently the crash back into depression and anxiety can be pretty horrific.

And even though I am emotionally numbed at the moment, I can tolerate this better than drowning in the pits of despair.

But I also don’t want to spend the next 20 to 30 years of my live living with muted emotions while the war rages on in my head.

There is possibility of a solution, but I won’t find out what the rules are until March 2023.

That’s probably enough for now.

It’s time for bed.