Tag: dailyprompt

Nothing.

Daily writing prompt
Describe something you learned in high school.
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What did I learn in high school?

Absolutely nothing……

I dropped out of school at the start of grade 9. That’s junior high school. I never made it as far as high school.

Had to get out of the PMQ.

1987 was the start of the grade 9 school year for me.

September of 1987 was also two years removed from the summer of 1985.

The summer of 1985 was the last summer that my brother and I spent with our grandmother.

The summer of 1985 was also the summer that my father went on a rampage in the PMQ on CFB Downsview. He did some very significant damage to the PMQ. It took three military police officers to subdue him.

When my brother and I arrived back in Toronto from Edmonton my father was required to notify the base military police of our arrival so that they could come speak with us. When they did come to speak with us they told us that during their investigation they grew very concerned when they couldn’t find us so they started talking to the neighbours and that’s when they started hearing about Richard’s yelling and screaming and his physical abuse. The military police said that if my father ever lost his temper again that we were to flee the house before calling the base switchboard to ask for the military police.

In September of 1985, my father bought me a birthday cake. This blew my fucking socks off as he had never acknowledged a single birthday of mine since 1976, the year before my mother left. Even though he promised to never forget my birthday again, he never acknowledged my birthday again thereafter.

And his temper started to get out of control again by the spring of 1986. He just knew how to hide his outbursts better as he was under supervision of the military.

By the summer of 1987 my brother had graduated to credit card theft, B&Es, and car theft. He had also grown significantly larger than me and he was even physically larger than Richard. Richard could no longer control Scott. And Scott was now running with a group of thugs. Kids who had been in and out of the juvie system.

As Richard had given up on trying to control Scott, he instead turned to lashing out at me for allowing Scott t have been molested by the babysitter on CFB Namao and this is why Scott was acting as violent as he was.

So yeah, by the time September of 1987 rolled around, I had to get the fuck out of the house.

What would really piss me the fuck off is that in the summer of 2011, when I obtained my social service records from across Canada, I would learn that my family was actually under the supervision of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto from the time we arrived in CFB Downsview in the spring of 1983.

This pissed me off because when I moved out I had to take my employment from part time to full time so that I could afford to rent a place to live.

Had I known about my family having been under the supervision of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, I could have applied to CAST for emergency accommodation. I could have even arranged for the courts to make it mandatory for my father to pick up my bills until age 18. Either of these would have allowed me to finish off school while living in a safe environment.

This ought to be easy

Daily writing prompt
Describe a positive thing a family member has done for you.
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I honestly can’t think of any family member having done anything positive for me.

And that’s not hyperbole.

My father was a piss tank alcoholic with anger issues.

My grandmother was just as much of a piss tank as my father was. And not only did she have a ton of anger issues, but she was also severely emotionally disturbed.

Can’t say much about my mother other than she didn’t really put up too much of a fight to save my brother and I from being raised by Richard and his alcoholic mother.

Sue? When she moved in with us she promised that she would get grandma to move out and that she would get my father to stop hitting us. Not sure if it was her, but grandma finally moved out in the spring of 1981 after having lived with us since 1977. She not only didn’t stop Richard from hitting my brother and I, but she started hitting us too. And when Richard would go away on training exercises, she’d get really mean.

Uncle Doug? He’s probably the only member of the Gill clan that did anything for my brother and I, but sadly he wasn’t around very often.

My Daily Prompt

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.

How do I cope?

Daily writing prompt
What strategies do you use to cope with negative feelings?
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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.

The Art of Being Fucked.

Daily writing prompt
What is one word that describes you?
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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.

Another writing prompt.

Daily writing prompt
What activities do you lose yourself in?
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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.

Am I superstitious?

Daily writing prompt
Are you superstitious?
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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

Daily writing prompt
What is your middle name? Does it carry any special meaning/significance?
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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.

Do I believe in fate or destiny?

Daily writing prompt
Do you believe in fate/destiny?
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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.

???

Daily writing prompt
Share one of the best gifts you’ve ever received.
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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.