Who is the most confident person you know?
The most confident person I know of tends to not have any emotional scars to think of.
They tend not to have ever experienced childhood neglect or abuse.
They were never left wanting for anything as a child.
They tend to have the familial backing to afford to be able to make mistakes.
They also tend to come from the type of privilege that allows their misdeeds overlooked by the justice system.
Negative feelings are all that I’ve known all of my life.
I honestly don’t think that I’ve ever been free from these negative feelings.
My father was an extremely negative experience in my life.
My grandmother was an extremely negative experience in my life.
My stepmother was a negative experience in my life.
My mother’s absence was a negative experience in my life.
My childhood growing up in a dysfunctional military family living on military bases was a negative experience.
My life while I was under the care of military social worker Captain Terry Totzke was a very negative experience.
Negativity is all that I have ever experienced in my life.
It’s not the feelings of negativity that I have to deal with.
It’s the feelings of normalcy or even the feelings of happiness.
I dread the feelings of normalcy and happiness due to the fact that I know that there will be a spectacular crash into the world of negativity.
Fucked.
Fucked is the one word that would best describe me.
Maybe forsaken ?
Damaged?
No, I think fucked describes me fairly well.
Especially, fucked in the head.
Fucked beyond all belief.
Fucking damaged.
Fucking depressed.
Fucking tired.
Fucking sick of it all.
Played for a fucking fool.
Taken fucking advantage of.
Yeah, I think “fucked” describes me fairly well.
I don’t really have any activities that I lose myself in.
I’ve tried over the years to pick up hobbies and interests, but outside of work I really don’t care about anything in particular.
It’s hard to explain to people, and it’s hard for people to understand.
But there isn’t anything in this world that calls to me.
The household that I grew up in was not one that encouraged curiosity or rewarded ingenuity.
Any interest in any subject was seen as stupid, childish, immature.
This is hard for people to understand.
I honestly will never understand why people refuse to believe how toxic some people can be as parents.
My father was a piss tank alcoholic with anger issues.
Worst off, we lived on military bases across Canada. An environment that didn’t concern itself with what went on behind closed doors.
So there aren’t any activities that I lose myself in.
I keep trying different things, but nothing lights that flame.
Dabbled in cars when I was younger. But never really was bitten by the car bug.
Even the time I spent at the base auto club of CFB Downsview gave me the skills for working on cars, but I never had a spark to work on cars.
Got into motorcycle in my 20s. Just never got bitten by the motorcycling bug.
I loved ice skating as a kid. And I frequently skated until the events of CFB Namao. I didn’t skate from 1980 until 2006. In 2006 I was off on a journey, but I happened to pass by the West End community centre. Can’t explain why, but I rented a pair of skates and went for a skate. It was like I had never stopped skating. Skating lasted for about 6 years before depression and dealing with the Canadian Armed Forces made skating impossible.
Over the years I’ve tried to pick up a musical instrument. I can play music mechanically, but it doesn’t evoke anything within. When I play keyboard I have about as much passion as a MIDI sequencer or a roll playing piano.
Computers and electronics. Again, I can work with ’em. I just don’t find anything to like with them.
I can safely say that I am not superstitious.
There’s more than enough evil and malevolence in everyday reality. I don’t need imaginary people and hidden forces to add to the evil that already exists.
I understand the appeal and the allure of superstitions.
Superstitions are the crutch of the human mind. Superstitions explain away random events and make the universe appear more ordered and less chaotic than it really is.
My middle name came courtesy of an office of vital statistics official.
Back in 2008, after the disastrous realization that I was never going to escape the events of Canadian Forces Base Namao and that I was always going to be the “asshole” that fucked with my father’s military career I decided that I wanted to legally change my name.
At the time I had thought that by changing my name that I could sever the past from my future.
Bobbie was always going to be a given. All the nice people from my childhood always called me Robbie or Bobby. The only person who was adamant that my name was Robert was my father. Sue never called me by my nickname either.
And Bobbie was ideal for a few reasons. With my desire to undergo feminization I could switch to the more feminine spelling of Bobby by simply dropping the “e” from the end of Bobbie which would leave me with Bobbi.
I had already found my last name when I was volunteering for the 2008 Vancouver Municipal elections.
When I went in to submit my paperwork with the office of vital statistics I only had my first name and last name. The employee accepting my paperwork asked why I didn’t go with three names to allow me some flexibility in different circumstances.
I had no idea as to what I wanted. I never used my middle birth name. I had no idea of where it came from.
“Why don’t you pick your birthstone?”
Using the primitive “WAP” browser on my cellphone I was able to get a list of birthstones off the internet.
I was born in September.
Sapphire is the birthstone for September.
Bobbie / Bobbi Sapphire is a stripper’s stage name.
I didn’t know what else to do, I didn’t want to leave without filing the paperwork.
It took a lot of courage to go through the criminal record back ground search that would determine if I was eligible to legally change my name or not.
Why did it take courage?
Did I have a criminal record?
Nope.
At that point in my life I was aware of two times that my brother had been arrested and had given the arresting officer my name, my birthdate, and my social insurance number.
I was afraid that if I delayed to pick a middle name that my brother would do something that would have caused the RCMP to revoke my clearance.
I quickly scanned the rest of the birthstones on the list, sounding out the stone with my first name and my last name.
Garnet is what I decided on.
It’s red, and it’s abrasive.
So, Bobbie Garnet Bees is who I became in 2008.
Sadly though, changing my name was not enough to excise the past from my brain.
Every time that I tried to move forward and advance was just met with a chorus of voices from my past.
And at that point in time I wasn’t aware that I had severe and untreated mental illness. Not that the mental illness should have prevented me from changing my name or from seeking feminization. It’s just that the untreated major depression and severe anxiety meant that my daemons are firmly baked into my brain and will be until the day I die.
Nope.
That was pretty simple.
Death is the only thing in a person’s life that is preordained. The time and manner of said death are a matter of random chance.
Everything else is pure chance.
Yeah, I understand that the human brain has trouble understanding random chance and coincidence, but nothing is preordained.
Now, that’s not to say that other people can’t fuck with a person’s life and cause said person to endure negative effects.
But that’s not due to a supernatural being.
That’s just people fucking other people over.
And humans have fucked over other humans ever since the first human evolved.
This is an easy one.
None.
Seriously.
None.
Never received anything that I would consider a “gift” from my father. Any thing that he “gave” to me was always an obligation to keep social services at bay.
My mother was never around. Sure, wasn’t her fault, but that doesn’t change things.
My grandmother gave me the gift of PTSD and alcoholism from the Indian Residential Schools.
Any “gift” that I ever received from anyone else always seemed to come with an extremely high price.
I don’t hate people.
I don’t despise people.
I just don’t make it a habit to hang out with people.
I like to be on my own.
I grew up not having anyone to depend on. I had no one in my family that was dependable to rely on.
I can share laughs with people.
But I really really don’t like small talk or talking about personal “feelings” or things.
I hate the idea of having to form political alliances at work, but that’s the way it actually works.
There’s nothing better at triggering “shields-up” than small talk or asking me about my feelings.
I like to be out and about, just walking around or riding around on my scooter. The crowds and the traffic are distracting that keep my mind off things.
I go to concerts, but I keep to myself. I don’t like “meeting” people.
When people get to know me they start to not like me.
So I just avoid all of that drama and I just keep to myself.
What advice would I give to my teenage self?
Where oh where to start?
I don’t know.
If I knew in my teenage years what I know now I’d probably just suggest to myself the best and most humane ways in which to end my life.
I would tell my teenage self that justice is what rich people get and that dogs like me just get a rolled up newspaper on the snout if we ask for a little bit of justice.
I really wish that things could run along the lines of sappiness that this prompt is trying elicit. You know like “I’d tell myself to tell my granny I loved her before she died”, or ” I’d tell my daddy that I loved him and that I knew how hard military life was on him”.
But what the fuck could I tell my teenage self that wouldn’t be fucking devastating.
“Hey Bob, your father actually knew the truth about CFB Namao but he sold your mental health for some favours from the chain of command”.
“Hey Bob, you actually weren’t to blame for yourself, your brother, and the other kids being abused. This is just something that Captain Totzke concocted to shame you into silence so that you wouldn’t tell any civilians about what happened”
“Hey Bob, you mother didn’t abandon the family, your father had your mother thrown off the base by the military police because the Defence Establishment Trespass Regulations allowed for this to happen”
“Hey Bob, your father knew exactly how damaged your grandmother was and that she was an alcoholic and that she was extremely cruel to you and your brother”
So, what exactly could I tell my teenage self that wouldn’t have led me to having an extreme mental breakdown?
Beeshive 