Tag: Death

Do I have a quote?

Do you have a quote you live your life by or think of often?

Quotes, idioms, maxims and the like have never been my forte.

I’m not what you’d call “well read”. I’ve read books from John Irving, Clive Barker, Stephen King, John Grisham. I’ve even read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.

I didn’t have much of an exposure to music as a kid.

To be honest my interest in novels and music didn’t pick up until after I left home when I was sixteen. But even at that I never really gleaned anything that I would consider to be a quote that I “live my life by or think of often”.

The closest that I would ever consider to be a quote that I think of often is a lyric from a song that was released in 2011

“As much as I’d like the past not to exist…….
……it still does” – Lost in Paradise – Evanescence.

I like this lyric because it sums up an issue that I have.

I’m stuck in the past.

And there is no moving forward.

What I went through as a kid on Canadian Forces Base Namao is not something that can simply be moved on from.

It’s not that no one knew about the abuse.

Everyone knew what was going on.

Various parents on Canadian Forces Base Namao knew what the babysitter was doing as they made complaints to the base military police.

The base military police knew as when they questioned the babysitter and asked him who had shown him how to do what he was doing, he named captain father Angus McRae.

The other parents knew who I was and that I had been found being buggered in the babysitter’s bedroom as I was no longer allowed to play with the other kids on base. I was “dirty”

Just months after the abuse ended I was diagnosed with major depression, severe anxiety, haphephobia, and a host of other issues that would become so severe that I was supposed to have been placed into a psychiatric hospital for children.

But for some reason my military social worker, captain Totzke, along with my father, master corporal Richard Gill, were functioning as road blocks to my receiving treatment.

Even when my father was posted to CFB Downsview in Ontario from CFB Greisbach in Alberta, he made a promise that he would have me placed into psychiatric care in Ontario.

Nothing ever came of this.

Age 7 and 8 I was sexually abused by a very angry at the world 14 year old. This also included various visits to the chapel when the babysitter would escort me over. From age 8 until age 11 I was caught in a battle with my father and captain Totzke on one side and Alberta Social Services and various psychiatrists on the other side. One side wanted to help, one side wanted to hinder.

From age 11 until age 16 I lived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview with my father who was still having issues with his alcoholism and his hair trigger temper.

And from age 16 until the present day I’ve been surviving.

It’s not that I like living in the past.

It’s that I was never allowed to move on from the past.

The past is all that I have ever known.

All I knew was my father’s anger for having “fucked” with his military career.

All I knew was that it was my fault the babysitter abused my brother.

According to captain Totzke, it was my “homosexuality” that made me go along with the babysitter.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to escape the past.

It was that I was never allowed to forget the past.

When I was about 14 my father beat the shit out of me when Scott stole our stepmother’s car and went for a joy ride. Richard was kicking me in the back as I was trying to crawl under my bed to get away from him. It was my fault that Scott was acting the way he was acting because I let the fucking babysitter touch him.

Again, it’s not that I want to be stuck in the past.

It’s that I was never allowed to even consider leaving the past.

And with the modern day Canadian Armed Forces being hellbent on ensuring that the truth never comes out about CFB Namao I never will be allowed to move on.

But, even if by some miracle the Canadian Armed Forces and the Department of National Defence were to admit that bad things happened to about 25 children on CFB Namao that should never have happened, this won’t change things for me as I’ve lived each and every day since May of 1980 wondering what the fuck I did that was wrong.

That’s 16,441 days or 45 years and 5 days since I was forced to live with this.

What gives me direction in life?

What gives you direction in life?

What gives me direction in life is cleaning my name before I die.

That’s it

That’s all

The only thing keeping me alive at the moment is knowing that if I do die then the Canadian Armed Forces win be default.

Other than that I have no direction in life.

It’s not an obsession.

It’s all that I have

Ever since colonel Daniel Edward Munro signed his name to captain McRae’s charge sheet in June of 1980 dominoes were being set up, one by one, day by day, year by year, until March of 2011.

In March of 2011, after reviewing the 1980 CFSIU investigation paperwork and the transcripts from captain McRae’s court martial, it was the Canadian Armed Forces itself that knocked the first domino over.

The Canadian Armed Forces had the ability to do the right thing in 1980.

They chose not to.

The Canadian Armed Forces had the ability to do the right thing in 2011.

They chose not to.

The RCMP urged the Canadian Armed Forces to do the right thing in 2015.

The Canadian Armed Forces still chose not to.

After the release of the courts martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork in 2020 the Canadian Armed Forces could have done the right thing.

The Canadian Armed Forces still chose not to.

Is it my job to bring to light all of the pre-1998 subterfuge that the Canadian Armed Forces have been allowed hide due to the flaws that existed in the pre-1998 National Defence Act?

Not my circus, not my monkeys.

If a member of the Canadian public wants to stick their nose into criminal code offence events that occurred prior to November of 1997, knock yourself out. Have at it.

Is it my job to make sure that people understand that I didn’t want the abuse on CFB Namao, that I didn’t want the babysitter to abuse my brother, that I had nothing to do with the babysitter molesting the little six-year-old blond haired girl?

That’s my job.

Is it my job to make sure that people understand that the CFSIU knew in 1980 that Captain McRae had been running a kiddie diddling ring on the base right under the nose of the base military police and that the CFSIU and the chain of command knew that McRae had been molested a great number of children on the base but that parents were reluctant to let their children be interviewed due to the view of the military police that captain McRae had been committing “acts of homosexuality” with the children that he was molesting thus implying that their children had been participating in “acts of homosexuality”?

Yes, that’s my job.

Is it my job to point out to people in the civilian world that “lawful” commands by superiors also include superiors instructing subordinates to not talk to the military police?

That’s already public knowledge, so not really my job.

Is it my job to make sure that the public understands that an untold number of children living on the bases were “involved with” the military social workers and that these social workers had a very negative and detrimental effect on the mental health and wellbeing of these abused children?

Yes, that’s my job.

I can’t fix all of the fuck-ups that the Canadian Armed Forces were allowed to keep hidden from the public eye via the National Defence Act, the Official Secrets Act, and the Security of Information Act.

But, I can at least do what I can to clean my name before I die.

And that is my direction in life.

The mysteries of M.A.i.D. and the general fear of death.

I was recently in the midst of conducting an inventory of the outdoor air cooled condenser units at my facility that needed to be added to the building maintenance management software at work.

These need to be in the system so that when I request quotes from some of our local HVAC contractors to send someone in to clean the condenser coils for the upcoming cooling season I can just print out a list and give each contractor the same list so that I can compare apples to apples.

Also, they need to be added to the maps that indicate where all of this equipment is located. It’s pretty easy to lose track of 87 air cooled condenser units that are located on 15 different roofs and various compounds around the entire facility.

I had just popped around to the new addition to the facility where I work. This addition is where those wishing to undergo M.A.i.D. can do so. The maintenance for this addition is supposed to be looked after by another health authority, but seeing as how my crew would be the “first responders” to deal with any type of HVAC failure I agreed to include the condenser unit for this facility to the building maintenance management system so that it would be cleaned at the same time that all of the other units are.

As I was leaving via the hearse driveway two of my shift engineers came up to me and asked me what this facility was for. I guess that they weren’t on shift when we had our tour of the facility prior to its opening.

So, I took them on a tour of the facility.

I could see that these two were generally uncomfortable with being in the facility.

And they had a lot of questions.

“Why are there so many chairs?”

Well, that’s for family members, loved ones, or anyone else that the person undergoing M.A.i.D. wishes to have present.

“People can watch this????”

Yes, they get a chance to say goodbye. And the person undergoing M.A.i.D. doesn’t die alone.

“Do they have to give the patient the shot?”

Who?

“The people watching?”

No. It’s either a doctor or a nurse practitioner.

“But what about when they execute prisoners and they say that the prisoner suffers why would anyone want to see this?”

Nope. This isn’t an execution. Four drugs. Midazolam, Propofol, Rocuronium, and Bupivacaine.

“What if they don’t want to undergo the procedure and they don’t want to die?”

Huh? You mean that they change their mind?

“No, let’s say that somebody wants them to die but they don’t want to die.”

No, that’s not how M.A.i.D. works. The patient has to request it. The patient has to undergo review and consultation. And the patient can stop the procedure at any point right up to when they lose consciousness.

Even with all of that explanation and all of the assurances I could see that these two were still ill at ease with the whole subject of M.A.i.D..

Death in and of itself is an unnerving topic as well.

I have engineers working under me that outright refuse to go into the morgue cooler to deal with refrigeration issues.

Even going into the autopsy suite elicits fears of being forced to watch an autopsy….

Autopsies are so rarely performed at this facility these days that the observation platform in the autopsy theatre has been used for file storage for ages.

“What if they start performing an autopsy while I’m in there”

Leave.

Come back later.

I’ve even had engineers get out of the elevators or refuse to get on an elevator if the morgue stretcher is in or boarding the elevator.

My Military Social Worker.

If that’s one thing that people have trouble wrapping their heads around is how did I have a military social worker.

But Bobbie, you weren’t a soldier. You weren’t in the military. How could you have a military social worker?

Back in my day, we couldn’t get medical care at the base infirmary. We couldn’t get dental care at the military dentist unless the base we lived on was far away from the nearest civilian dentist.

But when it came to social workers, especially in “sticky situations”, the Canadian Armed Forces had no problem with unleashing their employees onto the children of military service members.

I didn’t pay much attention to Totzke’s career after I was no longer involved with him in 1983.

I should have though.

He joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1966. Seems to have been involved with the naval band when he first joined.

Sometime after 1983 the good captain became a lieutenant colonel.

By 1984 he was the Area Social Worker for Pacific Command.

He was involved with the Sea Cadet program on the west coast.

He didn’t seem to stay in the Canadian Forces for much longer as by 1989 he was working at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital’s Dufferin Place extended care unit as a social worker.

Nothing much more out of the ordinary with Terry Totzke. He seemed to have retired from social work in the ’90s and went on to play drums in a band.

The band had some religious connections.

The one thing that does stick out though as interesting is that one person that Totzke had direct involvement with committed suicide with a crossbow.

Not too much was publicized about the suicide other than it appears that the man who committed suicide was suffering from a mental illness and Totzke had been involved with denying this man the ability to see his mother in a nursing home as Totzke was concerned that the man’s mental illness would be upsetting to the mother.

Really, none of this is surprising.

The counselling that I received from Totzke from October of 1980 until April of 1983 had driven me to attempt suicide two times in that period of time.

Social work and military didn’t really work back then.

Social work in the military was more about control and contain.

Blame the victim.

Make sure the victim understood that they were just as guilty as the abuser.

I wasn’t a 7 or 8 year-old victim of the babysitter and captain McRae for a year-and-a-half.

No, I was a budding homosexual pervert that enjoyed being abused and enjoyed watching my brother be abused.

During our meetings or the school visits, Terry would often remind me that he had the base military police watching me to see if I ever tried to kiss or touch another boy.

Terry was the reason that I wasn’t allowed to play team sports anymore. Might be naked boys in the change room. I might lose control of myself and start having sex with these boys.

And don’t forget, as Captain Totzke’s affair, it was his responsibility to get me the treatment required for my major depression, my severe anxiety, and my haphephobia.

In fact, he just seemed to stand by and watch me deteriorate to the point that I was supposed to have been institutionalized.

Even when Alberta Social Services finally began to put the pieces together and realized that I was in danger the longer I stayed in my father’s house, Totzke appears to have been very instrumental in helping my father obtain a posting out of the jurisdiction of Alberta to avoid my apprehension.

And even at our new posting, the new military social worker, Captain Linda Tyrell, offered absolutely no assistance to the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto when CAST tried to contact my father.

Is there any chance?

Is there any chance that I will pass up on Medical Assistance in Dying?

No.

But Bobbie, aren’t you on hormones?

Yes, yes I am.

And aren’t you on anti-depressants?

Yes, yes I am.

Well then, you should be feeling much better, you should be happy.

No. No I’m not, and it’s nothing to do with being happy.

My brain is burnt out.

I can’t escape the ghosts of so many years ago.

40 years of untreated mental illness has taken its toll.

40 years of living with the fallout of Captain Totzke.

A dysfunctional childhood spent hopping from one Canadian Forces base to another being raised by a rage fuelled alcoholic and his cruel alcoholic mother.

I’m going through with the hormones because this is something that I always wanted to do. This was something that I would not have been able to undertake when I was younger. But the hormones won’t fix a damaged brain nor will the hormones erase 40 years of horrific memories.

I get the feeling that society believes that I owe it to society to fix myself and to live so that I continue to be a benefit to society.

I owe nothing to society.

Society in fact owed it to me to allow me to enjoy a normal childhood and a normal adulthood. Society instead said that it valued the image and prestige of the Canadian Armed Forces over my well-being. And as such society really has lost its “right” to tell me that I have live because I owe it to society.

Well, why don’t you commit suicide?

I’ve known for a very long time that if I were to commit suicide that the babysitter and my father would win and their version of reality would become my truth.

Since learning the whole entire truth about the events that occurred on Canadian Forces Base Namao and how the modern day Canadian Armed Forces are so very hellbent on keeping the secrets of child sexual abuse on Canadian Forces hidden from the public consciousness, committing suicide would be giving the Canadian Forces an easy way out. And you can bet your bottom dollar that the Canadian Forces would pull out all of the stops to tar and feather my name.

So, you’re not really going to take your own life, you’re just doing this for theatrics, right?

Nope. Just waiting to see if the Department of Justice or the Canadian Armed Forces are willing to do the right thing or if they’re going to do everything in their power to keep this matter hidden and buried from the public eye.

The hospital where I work is in the process of moving. The new facility is supposed to be opened by 2027. The acute portion of the hospital is expected to transfer from the old site to the new site in a couple of weeks. The old hospital will stay in operation for a little while longer as it will have to support the various research programs on site until the new research building is constructed. I’ve already made it very clear that I have no interest in going to the new site, that I’m more than content to stay at the old site and run it until I either decide to pull the plug or the site shuts down.

Management for the most part doesn’t know why I have no interest in going to the new site, but there are a few managers that do. Some co-workers know of my plans, but most don’t.

My plan for when I decide the time is right to die is to simply announce that I’ve received an excellent job offer in the maritimes and that I want to take it as I want to return to Nova Scotia to retire there.

And that’s it.

Flights are booked

So, the flights are booked. The crematorium has been paid.

I leave Vancouver at 08:30 on Sunday and fly back from Edmonton on Thursday at 06:00.

I don’t know what I’m going to do once I get to Edmonton. Probably go check in at the crematorium first to see what they have. Next I’ll be heading off to Scott’s apartment to see what needs to be taken care of there.

Never really had any plans of stopping back in Edmonton, but I guess life throws a curve ball every now and again.

I’ll be staying at Hostelling International just south of Whyte Ave.

Should be able to get around by the LRT, bus, and by foot.

The last time that I was in Edmonton was in 2013. Prior to that I was in Edmonton in 2003. Prior to that I was in Edmonton from 1990 until 1992. And then prior to that I was in Edmonton from August 1978 until April 1983.

Scott and I also spent the summer of 1984 and 1985 staying with our grandmother. Wasn’t our choice.

I’ll have to go see my brother’s apartment and see what I can make of his paperwork. Hopefully this doesn’t turn into a nightmare with creditors and such. If he was leasing a car or bought a car with a loan, I guess this goes back to the dealer.

I’ve already told the landlord that they can dispose of furniture, clothes, and other miscellaneous materials, but that I want access to any computers, paperwork, statements, etc. that might be in the apartment.

Probably have some paperwork to sign off with the Edmonton Police Service. And might have some paperwork to sign with the Medical Examiner’s office.

I always thought that I was going to die long before he did. But I guess he won the race and beat me to the escape first.

Still sucks that he didn’t even get an apology from the Department of National Defence or the Canadian Armed Forces for what they had subjected him to as a child.

Sick humour time……………

Skeletor always had choice observations.

Ignored, written off, and talked-over.

One of the things that I’ve had to endure over the years is the constant talking over

I’ve had many instances of being written off and ignored.

In the past I had always hoped that I was just misunderstanding.

But often it’s not.

People have said that I don’t exert myself enough.

One of the most startling episodes of this was when we had an outside management company managing the physical plant at the hospital where I work.

When I started working at the hospital in 2005 I re-opened the welding shop. No one had the ability to weld since the last person with welding experience left. So I started welding. One of the managers would absolutely refuse to ask me to do any type of welding work for him even though there were lots of projects. The other manager blamed this on my “flamboyance” and that I was flaunting it too much?

I was thinking to myself “what the fuck?”

I wasn’t yet out of the closet.

But then again at that point in time it was almost 10 years since a Vancouver Police Department officer wrote my mugging off as a “gay trick gone bad”.

And then I started to realize that a lot of what I had been through in life up to that point in life was due to some sort of “queer vibe” that I had exhibited.

To this date I’ve never figured out what this “vibe” was. But it must have been noticeable.

Was this the same vibe that put me in the sights of Captain McRae and his teenaged accomplice?

Was this the same “vibe” that got the shit beat out of me numerous times at school because I “walked like a girl”, “didn’t have a girlfriend”, “looked like a faggot”?

Was this the same vibe that attracted numerous adult men to me for sexual favours while I was under 16?

Was this the same vibe that caused another manager that I worked for to constantly refer to me as “Freddie Mercury” and to constantly remind me that gay sex leads to AIDs.

Was this the same vibe that caused the son of a company in St. Albert, Alberta to exclaim that there’s no place for fags at his father’s company?

Was this the same vibe that caused Ed from Classic Billiards to poke and prod me to admit that I had a same sex attraction?

Is this the same vibe that allows service contractors and vendors to ignore me even when I’m the one who called them in for service?

It’s so much fun at work dealing with contractors who ignore you and instead start talking to someone else who has no idea of what’s going on or what the service call is about.

But Bobbie, you’re the Chief Engineer!

Surely people have to take you seriously?

No.

Things are great when I’m communicating via email.

Things go off the rails when I deal with people face to face.

It’s those “queer vibes” apparently.

And in the macho “trades” field that I find myself in, these “queer vibes” are an outright turn-off to a lot of guys.

The only reason that I’m at where I’m at is my knowledge, my skills, and my abilities.

There are numerous people over the years who would have gladly destroyed me because of my “vibe”.

And I know it’s that “vibe”.

The was one guy at the hospital that used to turn to me for advice and knowledge and help with getting projects done.

But after management was brought back in house an I was promoted to the non-management position of Chief Engineer which allowed me to dress more appropriately for my gender identity, his opinion of me soured to the point where he was sticking a knife in my back on almost a weekly basis.

And I have absolutely no doubts that if I were to meet some of my previous co-workers and employers that their opinions of me and their attitudes towards me would change drastically from what they were before.

Yeah, okay, fine.

In the last couple of years I’ve switched over to dresses, I do my nails, and I’m more often than not in heels.

Does that make my knowledge worth any less?

Apparently so.

VPD Constable Gil Puder

VPD constable Gil Puder was the investigator assigned to my mugging.

I was working the Tuesday through Saturday 14:00 to 22:00 shift at the bowling centre that I worked at.

If I left work at 22:00 sharp, I could make it downtown to watch the late shows at either the Famous Players Capitol 6 or the Cineplex Granville 7.

This fateful weekend I went to see a movie called “Congo” at the Capitol 6. I’ve covered the mugging elsewhere, so I won’t get into the details.

But, the end result is even though I had located a video tape that showed me, my two assailants, and what triggered the mugging, VPD constable Gil Puder refused to pick up the video tape or to even just go and view the video tape and speak to the theatre manager.

Gil Puder told me right to my face that until I admitted the “truth”, that I had picked this guy up in a bar and that this was a “trick gone bad”, that he wasn’t going to help.

So, there never was an investigation.

Puder defended.

A few years later when I had moved into commercial property management one of the plumbers that worked for us knew Gil Puder.

This plumber and I were having coffee at a local coffee shop discussing some upcoming projects that I had for him.

This revelation only came up because the plumber used to play ice hockey with Puder and Puder had just died due to a brain tumour.

I asked the plumber if this Gil Puder that he played hockey with had been a VPD officer, the plumber said that yes, Gil had been a VPD officer.

I gave the plumber my opinion of Puder and explained to him what caused me to have this opinion of Puder.

The plumber seemed quite taken aback and then the plumber started to justify what Puder had opined.

“Bob, you gotta admit, you don’t have a girlfriend or a wife, and you don’t exactly come across as a ladies man”, and “Look at it from Gil’s point of view, you got mugged on Burrard at Georgia, the gays are down on Burrard and Davie, so what else what Gil supposed to conclude?”

There was also a general contractor that was used frequently that did tenant and building renovations.

I was the first power engineer that had ever worked for this employer, as such there was now a requirement to adhere to provincial and municipal codes. And this caused quite a row between the contractors and I. They were now required to pull permits for electrical, plumbing, construction, demolition, and asbestos abatement.

The general contractor would often wait until it was just him and I with no one else around and then he’d unleash on me with every homophobic slur and stereotype.

When I’d go talk to the general manager about this, the GM would talk to the contractor, and the contractor would profusely deny that he had said anything.

Thick skin.

It took me years to grow a thick enough skin to ignore these opinions of my worth.

And as much as I am able to ignore them in the modern day, the problem is they still have the ability to cause me to endure significant issues.

Employment is something that I can’t just up and change if I wanted to.

Do you have any idea how long it took to work up the confidence to start dressing the way that I wanted to and to even start on hormone therapy?

Do you realize how severely I have limited my future?

In 1980 the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service investigated Captain McRae for having committed “Acts of Homosexuality” with young children on Canadian Forces Base Namao. At the time “homosexuality” was viewed as a “victimless crime”. That tarred and feathered everyone involved with Captain McRae as a “homosexual”.

This is why I spent time in the care of Captain Terry Totzke receiving “help” with my “homosexuality” that I had exhibited.

In 2011 the CFNIS conducted an investigation into the actions of the babysitter.

As I’ve said elsewhere, the CFNIS had in their possession both the CFSIU investigation paperwork and the courts martial transcripts. The existence of which the CFNIS withheld from the MPCC and the Federal Court of Canada.

They knew what Captain McRae had been charged with, and they knew that it was the investigation of the babysitter for molesting numerous young children on base that triggered the investigation of Captain McRae.

But the CFNIS in 2011 would have been exposed to a report that was written back in 1980 when the attitude was that Captain McRae, the babysitter, and all of the other kids involved were “homosexuals” with perverted minds willingly participating in the victimless crime of homosexual sex.

Is this why the 2011 CFNIS investigation was such an abysmal failure?

They had the CFSIU investigation paperwork and the court martial transcripts that implicated the babysitter in the direct molestation of young children, but the CFNIS still had the audacity to call me a liar.

Anyways, enough for now.

Gotta get ready to catch my bus back to Vancouver.

Politics and the Imaginary Friend Brigade.

Religion and religious nutcases will always be one of the major hindrances to the advancement of the human race.

Sure, I could understand the need for religion five to ten thousand years ago when the human brain was able to observe so many “miracles” in the world but couldn’t understand these “miracles”.

Having an imaginary friend to explain away these miracles would have keep our species from going insane.

Sadly, the human race finds itself at a cross roads. A cross roads where modern technology helps charlatans spread the bullshit mythology of the past as if it holds some value in the present.

Religious bullshit is being used to strip away the rights of women in America.

Religious bullshit is being used to sweep in a new era of white supremacy in America.

Religious bullshit is being used to deny the rights of the GLBTQ in America.

Religious bullshit is being used by the religious minority to force the “teachings” of their imaginary friends upon the majority.

And Canada is not immune to this religious nonsense.

The American religious right and the American evangelicals funnel dark money and grey money into Canada in an effort to upend our political systems in an effort to hang on to their bigotry under the guise of religious freedom.

And it’s that interference which led the the Liberal Party of Canada, specifically Ajax MP, Mark Holland, the Minister of Health, backing away from the requirement to provide Medical Assistance in Dying for those suffering from mental health issues.

It’s quite alarming to see t Justin Trudeau, Mark Holland, Hedy Fry, and the rest of the Liberal Party of Canada bend a knee and grovel at the feet of the religiously unhinged in this country.

If you’re religious, and if you believe in the imaginary friend in the sky, and you don’t like the idea of M.A.i.D., don’t get M.A.i.D.. Pretty simple concept.

Does this alter my time of death?

No.

I’m still aiming for late 2024 early 2025.

This just means that now I have to treat this as a D.I.Y. project, or that I have to go to a jurisdiction in the world that allows M.A.i.D. for mental illness.

So, sold off my 2020 Macbook Pro 13 today.

I think he was a college student, but needed a computer, so I gave him the Macbook for a good deal.

He seemed happy.

Now that everything is in a wind down phase I really don’t need to keep much anymore.

Time to start shedding all of my physical possessions.

The only real purpose that any of my computers served was for me to search for information, make FOI requests, and store and sort information.

But now that we are officially in the year 2024, none of this stuff matters anymore.

I have an iPad Pro 10″ that I’ll be getting rid of next.

So far I’ve gotten rid of anything that I had in relation to electronics.

Got rid of my soldering and desoldering stations, my parts bins, cross reference guides, etc. As I said before, electronics wasn’t something that I was really interested in, but I persisted in it thinking that one day a spark would light inside. That spark never came.

Same thing with computers. I just never had the creativity to create write programs.

Same thing with motorcycles. I’d ride them for a while and then get bored.

I donated all of my hand tools and power tools to a local shop that loans tools out for next to nothing to low income families that need to use tools.

Got rid of my Play Station.

There were only a very few games that I liked to play.

Didn’t want to go through the hassle of selling it so pulled the hard drive from it and put the play station in the computer recycling cage at work.

Got rid of my CD collection last fall.

Got rid of my movie collection at the same time.

Now, don’t think I don’t have anything left.

Still have my iPad, and I still have my desktop.

But there will come a time when I will get rid of the desktop and my drives of data.

I won’t have much use for any of the information that I’ve compiled over the last twelve years.

Disposing of the desktop and the drives will probably be done later in the year.

I’ve already disposed of reams and reams of hard copies. We have a shredding service at work that shreds all documents that are put into recycling.

I would have thought that the media would have shown the slightest interest, but it looks like consolidation and foreign ownership have turned Canadian media into nothing more than stenographer services for the institutions with secrets to hide..

I’ve eliminated a lot of my dresses. That still leaves me with a lot of dresses.

I’ll probably start whittling down the number of dresses that I have until the final weeks.

Then I’ll probably hold on to a good pair of heels and a few dresses.

Haven’t decided which dress and which heels I wanna wear at my procedure, maybe I don’t even yet own the dress that I want to wear.

I want a real intense ruffle dress. Maybe something with a robust petticoat.

I make my application in March of this year.

I have absolutely no doubt that time will fly past really fucking quick from this point onwards.

But, I’m already enjoying the peace and serenity that my approaching death offers.

The one thing that I’ll have to wait for until I obtain my approval from the two assessors is at which funeral home will I undergo my procedure and cremation.

Friends and relations

It should come as no surprise that I have absolutely no friends.

And I’m not including co-workers, superiors, or subordinates at work.

Throughout my life I could never understand why I couldn’t make friends.

Was I too stupid?

Was I fucked in the head?

The other kids on CFB Namao, CFB Griesbach, and even CFB Downsview loved beating the shit out of me on a regular basis.

I just couldn’t fit it.

No matter how hard I tried.

When I received my social service paperwork in 2011 I found two entries that really stood out.

“Robert does not have the ability to make friends”

“Robert is always left out and is often made the scapegoat by the other children”

“Robert is terrified of men”

With my depression, my anxiety, and my documented fear of being touched by other people it should probably come as no surprise that I couldn’t make friends.

I got beat up one day coming home from Pierre Laporte when I was in grade 8. Seems one of the jock boys had decided that my hips swung too much when I walked so therefore I was a faggot. This kid and his friend were fellow base brats from Canadian Forces Base Downsview.

In the aftermath of this I was so self conscious about how I walked. I think I did hip damage trying to walk like a “man”.

There were times at Pierre Laporte that I did get beat up over my lack of interest in girls.

The one time that I stood up to one of these assholes and was able to have a fair fight with my worst antagonist, my father threatened to knock the teeth out of my mouth if I ever fought again.

I guess that he was happy with me getting the shit beat out of myself, but if I dared fight back then I was going to get a beating that I’d never forget.

Maybe he was afraid that if I started fighting back against the other kids that I’s also start standing up to him and fighting back against him.

It wasn’t always like this.

I don’t remember much about Canadian Forces Base Shearwater, but I do remember that I had friends. Sure, they were mainly girls, but girls were nicer to play with.

As a kid I was never in to the “rough ‘n tumble” stuff. Reading, walking, playing on the swings, that’s what I liked. Jumping out of trees or climbing over the fences on base was never something that piqued my interests too much.

Same thing with Canadian Forces Base Summerside.

Even at the start on Canadian Forces Base Namao, things were okay, but the longer the abuse went on the harder it was to make and keep friends.

Once I had been discovered in the babysitter’s bedroom, that was the end of that.

When my family arrived on Canadian Forces Base Griesbach I started working at the mall cleaning pet cages in the pet store. It was here that I began to realize that adults were better than kids my age. Sure, they weren’t interested in playing. But as long as I did my work I’d get rewarded. And they didn’t want to beat me up.

Kids my age were supposed to be watching goofy TV shows on TV and then talking about them at recess during school. I wasn’t allowed to watch the goofy TV shows. It was either “get the fuck out of the house and go play” in -25C weather, or it was “Jesus H. Fucking Christ you’re too fucking old for that shit”.

Other kids would be invited to play with other kids. I wouldn’t. At least not on CFB Griesbach as I’d always smell like piss.

Sleepovers were obviously out of the question as I obviously wouldn’t be able to control myself sleeping with other boys. And of course there was my fear of pissing the bed.

By the time grade 6 and grade 7 rolled around, boys were supposed to be interested in girls. I wasn’t. Due to my experience with the babysitter, and Terry, and my father, sex was a disgusting thing and even just looking at a girl was wrong. Looking at boys was even worse.

The guys at Pierre Laporte started taunting and teasing me with pictures of figure skater Katarina Witt. To this day I still don’t understand what the fuck this was about, I really don’t.

Gym in and of itself wasn’t bad. But team sports were a disaster.

Having untreated depression and anxiety meant that I was an unmitigated disaster of uncontrolled crying and rage.

Public school is the worst place for someone with an untreated fear of being touched to be. Once the other kids know that they can get a reaction from you by simply touching you or even just threatening to touch you school quickly becomes a nightmare.

And you can bet your bottom dollar that when the teachers and principals at Sheppard Public, Elia Jr. High, and Pierre Laporte Jr. High would reach out to my father, he’d be of absolutely no use…….. “No sir, no ma’am, I have no explanation for why my son is behaving like that. He must be acting up for attention”

And these issues really hurt me in my adult life.

People are very leery of the guy who doesn’t have a partner, or a family.

Most companies view people without significant others as being undependable and unreliable.

Coworkers view you as highly suspect if you don’t want to hang around and talk about sportsball, or the see through dress that some female actor in a movie wore.

When you’re alone, you don’t have anyone to keep an eye on your depression. Doctors that I’ve seen in the past have always brushed off my mental health concerns as my family and others have never voiced a concern.

I bought a home cam a couple of years ago. As I live in a bachelor apartment the one camera sees everything. One night I left the camera on to record me when I slept. I was shocked at the number of times I’d grind my teeth over night, or the number of times that I’d wake up and just sit there before going back to bed.

But, by not sharing my bed with anyone meant that no one was there to point out just how fucking bad my bruxism actually was and how bad my insomnia really was.

Some people are envious of my bachelor lifestyle.

The life that I’ve led is nothing to be happy about and nothing to be jealous about.