Tag: M.A.i.D.

My Father’s Statement to the CFNIS

” In the end Senua,
it isn’t the gods that cause us so much suffering,
but those closest to us.”

In 2013 when I showed my brother our father’s statement that he gave to the CFNIS 2011 my brother wasn’t sure what to say.

My brother said that I needed to give Richard the benefit of doubt. He said that the Canadian Forces or the CFNIS might have “leaned” on Richard to get him to state what he did.

Might be some truth to this. I know that Fred Cunningham was terrified of speaking to the CFNIS in 2016 and would only speak to the CFNIS “off the record” and without notes. Kinda an odd request for a former military police officer. But hey, what do I know?

And it’s true that the CFNIS did have the court martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork from the 1980 Captain Father McRae fiasco. And yes, in 2011 the CFNIS, the Provost Marshal, and the JAG obviously realized the liability problem this posed for the Canadian Forces if Richard had identified P.S. as my babysitter. So yes, as my brother said, there was the motive for the CFNIS to “lean” on Richard to get him to say what the CFNIS wanted him to say.

But having my social service records from Nova Scotia, PEI, Alberta, and Toronto I know that Richard had issues. And Richard wasn’t averse to throwing people under the train to make himself look good.

Let’s look at his “Will Say” statement.

Statement taken from my father, Richard Gill, by Master Corporal Christian Cyr and Master Corporal Jodrey on June 9th, 2011 at 13:50.

a) We lived on CFB Namao from August 1978 until October 1980. We lived on CFB Griesbach from October 1980 until April of 1983.

b) Richard had my address. He also had my phone number.

c) This telephone conversation occurred in August of 2006. Richard named the babysitter by himself, pleaded with me to understand that it was his mother that hired the babysitter, that he had nothing to do with it.

d) At various times that we lived on CFB Griesbach and on CFB Downsview, Richard would remind me that my brother was “out of control” because of what I let the babysitter / P.S. do to my younger brother.

e) Yes, I attended the Guthrie school on CFB Namao, and the Major General Griesbach School on CFB Griesbach, but Richard seems to forget to mention that I was transferred to the Westfield program for emotionally disturbed children in June of 1982 when he signed the paperwork admitting me into the Alberta Foster Care system.

g) Due to creative wording, it is made to sound as if Grandma only stayed with us for a very short time on CFB Namao. Grandma lived with us pretty well for the entire time that we lived on CFB Summerside. She was with us from 1977 until 1978. She moved back to Edmonton in the spring of 1978. In July of 1978 Richard received a compassionate posting from Captain Lynda Tyrell at CFB Summerside to move to CFB Namao. Grandma lived with us for the entire time we lived on CFB Namao. Grandma lived with us until the summer of 1981 on CFB Griesbach. Richard would drop us off with Grandma over the weekends from the summer of 1981 until we moved from Edmonton in April of 1983. Richard’s step father, Roy William Anderson didn’t die until 1983.

h) As Richard said to me in August of 2006, “HE” didn’t hire the babysitter. Grandma hired the babysitter. The babysitter molesting my brother and I was grandma’s fault, not his. He warned grandma not to hire the babysitter, but she wouldn’t listen to him. There were times that grandma didn’t have the money to pay the babysitter, so he had too. Also very convenient that he can’t remember the address or the names of the people he’d trust to look after his kids.

g) I actually met one of my childhood friends from CFB Shearwater. She was the daughter of the kindergarten teacher at Hampton Grey Memorial. Jennifer was my main playmate on CFB Shearwater. As it turns out, Jennifer’s mother was the kindergarten teacher. If I had been any trouble at all I would never have been allowed to play with Jennifer. On Summerside Richard was rarely home after I started grade 1.

h) is very interesting. When I examined Richard for Federal Court in 2013, I asked him if he remembered who Captain Terry Totzke was. Richard replied that he had never heard of this name. Captain Totzke is the military social worker that I became involved with on CFB Griesbach just after our arrival. Captain Totzke sent Richard, my brother, and I to a psychiatrist for evaluation. I was found to be terrified of men, I was certain that my father was going to kill me, I didn’t like being touched, and I was found to be well beyond depressed and suffering from anxiety. My father was found to accept no responsibility for his family, blamed others for problems with his family, expected others to solve problems with his family.
Captain Totzke was more concerned with the homosexuality that I had exhibited on CFB Namao when I was discovered being buggered by the 15 year old babysitter. Captain Totzke said that I had a mental illness, and that was homosexuality.
In November of 1981 our teachers and principal at Major General Griesbach School were so concerned with the inaction of Captain Totzke in regard to my brother and I that they called in Alberta Social Service.

i) I have never called Richard asking for money. It was far easier to squeeze blood from a stone than it was to ask Richard for money. It was also far less humiliating to starve and sleep in homeless shelters than to ask Richard for money. Around 1996ish Richard called me at work and said that my brother was in the Vancouver area and that he wanted me to help my brother with his car. Richard promised me that he’d send me something for my time. Nothing ever came.

My motorcycle, a 2001 Triumph Sprint RS, was written off in an accident that ICBC found the other party to be 100% responsible for. ICBC paid to rebuild the motorcycle and paid for all new riding gear. But, somehow me calling Richard after the accident to let him know that I was okay had somehow become me wanting money.

My car at the time, a 1981 Plymouth Horizon, blew the lower rad hose while I was driving to work one day. I bought a used engine from West Edmonton Pick-a-part. I bought all brand new hosing from Chrysler. I used Art’s garage out on the acreage to swap the engine. All in all this cost me about $500 to do. This was at the point in time when I still had the majority of my $30k from the Canshare Cabling contract job in Ontario.

My brother likes to say that I’m imagining Richard’s hatred of me. But this was far from imagined. Richard is one of those guys that could carry a grudge like Atlas carried the world. I know that it wasn’t my name change that pissed him off. I know it was my involvement P.S. that pissed him off. Apparently I fucked with his military career. I also willing to bet that I just reminded him too much of Marie. Whatever it was, the fucker absolutely despised me.

j) again, no.

k) in 2008 after I had received my paperwork stating that my name change was official and after I had received my new birth certificates, I sent Richard a brief letter stating why I had changed my name and that I was hoping with the name change that I’d be able to get a fresh start in life and leave the whole CFB Namao fiasco behind. He called me and told me to never contact him again.

l) from 1980 onwards Richard would blame me for any behavioural issues with my brother. I let the babysitter molest my brother so therefore my brother’s misbehaviours were my fault. During our time with Captain Terry Totzke, Richard and Totzke would often tell me that if I didn’t like what had occurred on CFB Namao that I wouldn’t have allowed for it to go on for so long. Richard was furious that I had been caught kissing another boy on CFB Griesbach stating that “that shit from Namao has to fucking stop” and that if I ever kissed another boy that he’d break my fucking neck.

I was in kindergarten on CFB Shearwater. Jennifer’s mother, the kindergarten teacher laughed at this.
He never sent me to a psychologist in Edmonton. That was Captain Totzke. Richard is noted in the Alberta Social Services paperwork as being very non-compliant with their recommendations.
I was not “hyperactive”.
I was beyond depressed, beyond despair, and severely anxious. I was terrified of men, and I hated being touched.
Richard was the one found by the psychologist hired by the Canadian Forces to be unwilling to take responsibility for his family. Richard was also found to be prone to blaming the problems with his family on others.
Alberta Social Services found that Richard would often change his stories from one meeting to the next (he lied) and that he often told people that he perceived to be in positions of authority what he thought they wanted to hear (I wonder if this is what happened here)
I dealt with the “Canada’s Wonderland” issue before. This statement is completely laughable. As my brother said, Canada’s Wonderland was Richard’s discount babysitting service. We had no choice if we wanted to go or not.

1978 he received a compassionate posting to CFB Namao. In October of 1980 he was moved from CFB Namao to CFB Griesbach. In April of 1983 he fled the jurisdiction of Alberta so as to avoid my apprehension by Alberta Social Services.

2011 two years previous would have been Richard calling me to tell me to never call him again because of the name change.

Anyways, after I read my father’s statement I was floored. So I took advantage of the Federal Court rules and I sent him a written examination. Even though the Justice wouldn’t allow this to be entered into the proceedings, they’re still a part of my applicants filings and they’ll be on record with the court.

My written examination of Richard

And here are Richard’s answers. Note that the Attorney General of Canada, Department of National Defence, the Minister of National Defence, and the Federal Court of Canada all have copies of these questions and answers, but not a single agency cared.

Richard’s Answers.

1 & 2 – He agrees with everything that is noted in the “Will Say” that I supplied to him.
3 – We were at #11 – 12st from August 1978 until October 1980
4 – We were at 10215 – 138 Ave from October 1980 until April 1983.
5 – Roy Willian Anderson did not pass away until October of 1983 so I have absolutely no idea who passed away in 1980.

6 – Seems to be okay, but Grandma had actually been out to Shearwater numerous times to look after my brother and I when Richard and Marie were having problems.
7 – This is the first and probably only time that Richard has ever publicly admitted that his mother was First Nations.
8-9 – Can’t say whether he knew or not either way.
10 – This is weird. My brother would have been far too young to have been involved in most activities I was involved in.
11- Again this is weird.

Me, with no interest in sports apparently.

12 – Aurther Herman Gill is correct. Even though we lived in Toronto from April 1983 until July of 1990 he never once went to see his father in Oshawa even though we frequently visited Sue’s parents in Oshawa.
13 – This is correct, Uncle Doug would stay with us when he was home from the oil fields.
14 – Doug definitely would not have slept on the couch. Especially when he’d bring women home to spend the night with him. Doug had a cot and a sleeping area set up in the basement of our PMQ.
15 – Makes sense. That’s why Grandma was living with us. Richard was often away on training exercises or staying with girlfriends off base.
16 – 3 & 4 are wrong. Grandma would take the military shuttle bus from Namao to Griesbach and then transfer to the City of Edmonton busses. This is why we needed the services of P.S. in the first place. Grandma would have been recommended P.S. by Captain McRae himself as McRae had driven Grandma to the hospital a couple of times in a military motor pool car.
17 – This is correct. Grandma lived with us 24/7/365. Richard was rarely home.
18 – They knew what my problems were. That’s not why I had to attend the Westfield program.
19 – There were times that we wouldn’t see Richard for months on end. The average length of his training exercises was about 6 to 8 weeks.
20 – ?
21 – ?
22- This is where Richard throws his mother under the bus again like he did in 2006. Now there is a babysitter in the house unlike what he said in 2011, and lo-and-behold his mother hired the babysitter.
23 – August of 1980 according to the Social Service records, but only one month off, so not too bad.
24 – Not even going to try to make sense of this gibberish.
25 – Wow. We went to session after session with Captain Totzke at his office in the base HQ building. At the time I had no idea that he was in the Canadian Forces, but you can bet your bottom dollar that me father knew.
26 – 1 & 2 were notes in my social service records that indicated that Richard wanted very little involvement with his family and blamed the problems with his family on my mother, his mother, the teachers at school.
27 – So apparently I could flip between hyperactive and suicidally depressed. I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to realize that Richard was a special kinda of “fucked up”.
28 – Kinda correct. Our teachers and our principal were getting frustrated with Captain Totzke’s lack of progress, hence why the call was made to bring Alberta Social Services into the picture.
29 – This was my apprehension. According to the Social Service paperwork Richard blew up because of the decision to remove me from the house and to place me into residential care or foster care.
30 – He’s just being stupid here. According to Captain Totzke when he spoke with my child care worker on January 28th, 1983, my father had just been transferred immediately to Ontario. That’s two days after Alberta Social Services wanted to pull me from the house. After this Richard pulled me from school. At the time he told me that I had been expelled for kissing another boy. In reality he would have pulled me from the school as this school was off base and Social Services could grab me at anytime. As log as I stayed on base, Social Services would need Captain Totzke’s permission to enter on to a Defence Establishment to remove me.
31 – A check with PEI reveals that Richard only made an application to the courts for custody, but that it never went any further, and the courts never awarded him custody.
32- According to my social service paperwork both my father and Captain Totzke promised Alberta Social Services that I was supposed to be placed into the Sick Kids hospital in Toronto for psychiatric care. Sick Kids has no records of me ever having been brought in for an evaluation.
33- Of course he can’t. It’s more of his made up bullshit.
34 – No teacher is going to consider a child not being allowed to go to an amusement park as “child abuse”. Richard sure loved to play the victim, didn’t he?
35 – Alberta Social Services had given the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto a “heads up” that my family was moving to Toronto.
36 – sounds okay except for #3. October 23rd, 1969 was the largest naval peacetime disaster in the history of the Canadian Navy. 11 members of the Canadian Navy died as a result of the explosion of one of the Kootenay’s gearboxes. Richard had previously served on that ship. He personally knew three of the men killed in the engine room. He was with the Sea King squadron that was accompanying the ships that day. He would have been involved with the removal of the dead and injured from the Kootenay.
37 – Richard did’t talk. Richard yelled. Richard bellowed.
38 – Projection much? This is exactly how he was described in the Alberta Social Services paperwork.
39 – No? Fuck me. On our way to the counselling sessions that we did attend, both Richard and Totzke would tell me to be quiet and not to answer Pat and Wayne’s questions as they would twist my words and make it sounds as if I said things that I didn’t say.
40 – This was Richard’s infamous temper tantrum meltdown in which he caused significant damage to the PMQ and required 3 military police officers to restrain him. This domestic appears to have been triggered by Marie’s request for him to sign the divorce papers to allow her to marry Art Wudrich.
41 – No. See the social service paperwork for an explanation of what home life was like.
42 – the result of the IQ test was 136 +/-6
43 – is correct, I’m a grade 8 drop out.
44 – this is incorrect. I moved out of the house in January or February of 1988 just after I had turned 16.
45 – Not bad.
46 – Since September 5th, 2005.
47 – 4th Class Power Engineering.
48 – He named P.S. himself various times between 1980 and 1988. He also named P.S. by himself and without any prodding in August of 2006 when I called him.
49 – Massive house fire, but okay, maybe he didn’t notice the burn marks up the front of the PMQ and the fresh plywood over the windows.
50 – He knew who McRae was.
51 – 52 Seem to be correct. This was a one-room school house apparently.
53 isn’t exactly correct. He only had grade 8. He had to take an upgrading course to join the Navy in 1963. It was through this course that he met Albert Dagenais and this is how he met my mother.

Below are some of the observations about my father made by the psychologist hired by Captain Terry Totzke to evaluate my family. Also are some of the observations made by Alberta Social Services.

These are some of the observations of my father.
Richard Gill has issues
This is the Richard Gill that I grew up with.


Why is the media so terrified of Suicide?

I was recently told by a distant relation of the family that one of the reasons that the media may be reluctant to touch my story is because of what I desire no matter the outcome.

There has to be a good reason why the media won’t touch it.

  • The Canadian Armed Forces have come out and admitted that there was a problem with sexual assaults in the military for ages.
  • The Canadian Armed Forces have admitted that victims of sexual assault in the military were often disbelieved, humiliated, ostracized, and blamed for their own misfortune.
  • The Canadian Armed Forces have agreed that the Military Police, the CFSIU, and the CFNIS were often ill equipped and ill prepared to deal with sexual assault.

As I’ve said before, I view suicide as the outcome of an irrational heat-of-the-moment decision.

Medical assistance in dying is something completely different. You have to pass psychological tests and you have to be approved by a panel before you are allowed to receive a prescription for the procedure. There is no body for a caretaker or random stranger to discover. There generally are no unanswered questions. The death is supervised. The body is removed and disposed of after death is confirmed.

You’d think that the Canadian press would be very interested to hear about a matter in which recently released documents verify that the Canadian Armed Forces knew in 1980 the true extent of Captain McRae’s crimes and that the Canadian Armed Forces knew that Captain McRae had been molesting children on the other bases that he had been stationed at but refused to at the time to investigate those matters or to even offer the victims of Captain McRae any type of counselling or help.

However it looks as if my planned death is scaring the media away.

Nora Loreto recently tweeted that she had information of a police officer that walked into a detachment and then shot themselves dead. There was no news coverage of this.

Someone on the thread mentioned that a CBSA officer at Pearson International Airport committed suicide, but the media would only say that the officer was found “dead” at the airport.

And as I’ve mentioned in another post, there are a significant number of suicides in British Columbia each and every year.

BC Coroner Report Total Deaths 2008 to 2018
This is a snapshot of the BC Coroner’s report on Suicide Deaths covering the period of 2008 until 2018.

That’s 6,002 people whom died between 2008 and 2018 that the media have decided don’t exist and never did exist.

What’s scary is that this number only reflects “successful” suicides. Suicide attempts are not included.

Even more interesting is the age group that most frequently commits suicide.

The media always tells us that they’re “saving the children” by not reporting on suicides. Except it’s the 40 to 59 year olds that are committing suicide at the highest rates, not the children.

Why does the media do this?

Is it because the media doesn’t want to encourage copy-cat suicides?

I don’t think that’s entirely true.

I think it’s because the news media would have to open its eyes and realize that the there are a lot of people out there that require help. And the way our society is currently set up, there is no help available for these people and that means that society has failed its most vulnerable.

Even though I’ve only tracked down a few people from CFB Namao that were involved with the CFB Child Sex Abuse Scandal I know of 2 successful suicides, one possible suicide, and 2 attempted suicides related to the Captain Father Angus McRae matter on Canadian Forces Base Namao. That’s five people out of an estimated 25 people that Captain McRae molested on Canadian Forces Base Namao. How many others from CFB Namao did manage to commit suicide that no one knows about? How many kids did Captain McRae molest on Canadian Forces Station Holberg, Canadian Forces Base Portage La Prairie, or Canadian Forces Base Kingston? How many of those kids would go on to commit suicide later in life.

It would be safe to say that I’m not the only one who had a bad reaction to the affairs from CFB Namao. It would also seem to be correct to say that the Canadian Armed Forces didn’t know how to properly deal with the child victims of military sexual assault and that the way in which the Canadian Armed Forces did deal with the child victims of military sexual assault may have actually made the problems far worse due to the military’s penchant for victim blaming.

Maybe the media considers it a waste of time to report on my matter if I’m only going to die in the end anyways.

No.

I think there is such a stigmatism against suicide in our society that there can be no meaningful discussion of any topic when suicide is involved.

See, if I were to have kept my desire to die to myself, then more than likely the media would have reported on my story as they could cleve my eventual death from the CFB Namao sexual abuse scandal.

I could see the eventual reporting of my death:

“Mr. Bees passed away suddenly. There has been no official cause of death released. Mr. Bees if you will remember was the person who brought down the veil of secrecy that had shielded the eyes of the Canadian public from the child sexual abuse scandal that occurred on Canadian Forces Base Namao from 1978 to 1980.”

But as I’ve said, my death isn’t going to be so that I can make people feel guilty or ashamed. My death isn’t going to be so that I can get back at people. My death isn’t to cause the Canadian Armed Forces to suffer humiliation. My death will not be romantic nor will it be a cause célèbre.

My death will be because I am tired. I am burnt out. My death will be because of my desire to escape from the memories of P.S., Captain McRae, Captain Totzke, my father, a psychologically tormented childhood and adolescence, and a lifetime of confusion, self doubt, self hatred, and regret.

Ideally my death will be a private event with only the physician in attendance. Maybe a friend or two. Hopefully my death will be humane and it will be very quick.

It’s far too late to save me. That die was cast a long time ago. My life has been the consequence of chain of command decisions that were made in May to July of 1980 by officers in the Canadian Armed Forces. And I wasn’t even a member of the Canadian Armed Forces.

But it’s not too late to save those who have yet to be abused by trying to ensure that they don’t get abused. It’s also not too late to save those who will no doubt be abused by ensuring that they are believed and not blamed, and that they receive help and treatment in a timely manner instead of humiliation.

And not all of those who are or who will be abused will go on to seek death, but just because they don’t doesn’t mean that their abuse wasn’t painful nor does it mean that they don’t need help.

The Scapegoat

In June of 2011, sensing that my complaint against the babysitter P.S. from CFB Namao was going off the rails I started to try to locate proof that what P.S. had done to me on CFB Namao had some effect on me. And I remember that one of my counsellors named Terry had called me a “homosexual” because of what I had been found doing with P.S. on CFB Namao. And with both Terry and my father blaming me for allowing P.S. to molest my younger brother I knew that if I could get my hands on Terry’s paperwork that I could give this to the CFNIS and it would show them that something had occurred on CFB Namao.

I ended up getting the paperwork. Took some hunting, but eventually I obtained my foster care records from the Alberta Government. These records detailed quite a bit of information that I had obviously been oblivious to as a child.

  • Terry was Captain Terry Totzke a social worker with the Canadian Armed Forces.
  • I was found to be terrified of men, and especially terrified of my father.
  • I was afraid that my father was going to drown me in a toilet.
  • I was beyond depression and had severe anxiety issues.
  • My father had signed paperwork admitting me to the foster care system.
  • I was supposed to be placed into foster care or residential care.
  • I had become so emotionally disturbed that I was supposed to be placed into psychiatric care.
  • Richard refused to allow me to be placed on medication to help me with my major depression and my severe anxiety.
  • More interesting though was that my father was found
    • to accept no responsibility for his family,
    • blamed his mother for problems with my brother and I,
    • blamed my mother for problems with my brother and I,
    • expected others to solve his problems for him,
    • Frequently told different stories from one meeting to the next,
    • Was found to tell those in positions of authority what he thought they wanted to hear.

Needless to say I was beyond devastated when I read the social service paperwork.

I was able to get trauma counselling through work.

I needed help. The social service paperwork literally turned my world upside down.

Everything that Richard had told me as a kid was a lie.

We didn’t suddenly move in April of 1983 so that he could save me from the drugs the counsellors wanted to give me to make me stop kissing boys. He was fleeing the jurisdiction of Alberta so that he wouldn’t lose custody of me through the foster care / residential care system

I didn’t get expelled from school in February of 1983 for kissing a boy in class. Richard yanked me out of the school so that Alberta Social Services couldn’t apprehend me when I was off the base and in civilian jurisdiction.

In fact there’s not a single damn mention of Alberta Social Services having any concern about any apparent “homosexuality”. They were concerned about how dysfunctional my home life was, how emotionally disturbed I had become, and how indifferent my father seemed to be to helping me.

So, I got set up with professional counselling.

This counselling though wasn’t to help me with the past. It was just to help me cope in the here and now so that I could process the information that I had obtained and the information that I would no doubt keep obtaining from my quest for knowledge.

SCAPEGOAT.

Even though my counsellor wouldn’t be able to help me deal with the issues from my past he needed to understand the dynamics of back then so that he could understand why these documents were having such an impact.

In one of the sessions he asked me if I understood what a “scapegoat” was. I replied that beyond being someone blamed for somebody else’s fuckups I didn’t know too much about what a scapegoat was.

So he explained to me that in biblical times a scapegoat was a goat that was cursed with all of the sins and impurities of the village and then chased off into wilderness to carry away the sins and impurities with it.

I was my father’s scapegoat. Probably chosen because (a) I was the eldest, (b) I most resembled my mother, the woman he despised, (c) I had caused trouble for him on CFB Namao when I got molested by the babysitter.

Why did Richard need a scapegoat?
The reasons are multiple:

  • He needed to shield himself from the blame of my brother and I being molested on CFB Namao by our babysitter.
    • Richard was frequently away on training exercises for 6 to 8 weeks at a time.
    • Even when Richard wasn’t on training exercises he was often staying off base with his various girlfriends.
      • Vicki in Westakawin
      • A woman on Canadian Forces Base Griesbach
      • Sue out by Londonderry Mall.
      • Richard was frequently absent from the house between September 1978 and August 1980.
    • Richard knew that his mother was an alcoholic and had issues.
    • Richard was an alcoholic and had issues.
  • So instead of my brother and I having been molested over 1-1/2 years because of Richard’s very poor parenting skills and very poor decision making, my brother was sexually abused because I allowed the babysitter to molest my younger brother. I was sexually abused because as Captain Terry Totzke said, I had a mental illness, I was a homosexual.
  • And over time Richard dumped his entire parenting responsibilities upon my shoulders. He even said this to Alberta Social Services, that he expected me to look after my younger brother.
  • When we arrived on Canadian Forces Base Downsview things started to get worse for me the more my brother started to get into trouble.
    • My father called me self centred for not spending more time with my brother.
    • My father said that it was my fault that my brother was getting into trouble because I wasn’t looking after him.
    • I forget exactly when, but my brother did something that ended up with Richard dragging me out of bed and laying a good beating on me. During this beating Richard made it very clear that my brother was “doing these things” because I let P.S. touch him. Yes, Richard named the babysitter himself around 1986ish.
    • The more trouble my brother got into, the more I got blamed and chastized for not raising him right and being a good example to him.

The counsellor asked me who my brother’s father was. I said “Richard”.
Whose responsibility was it to raise your brother? “Richard?”
Whose responsibility was it to discipline your brother? “Richard?”
Whose responsibility was it to keep you and your brother safe from that child molester? “Richard?”
Yes, Richard was his father just as Richard was my father.
I didn’t impregnate my mother with my brother, so why the hell was it my responsibility to raise him and to protect him?
It wasn’t.
It was Richard’s responsibility.
And as Richard couldn’t and wouldn’t take responsibility he needed someone to blame.
I became his scapegoat.
All of Richard’s failings, shortcomings, inadequacies, and fuckups became the failings, shortcomings, inadequacies, and fuckups of an 8 year old boy.

My brother has asked why he doesn’t remember Richard being like this, why he never remembers Richard blaming me for things that went wrong.

As my counsellor said, Richard only needed one scapegoat to absolve himself of any problems with his family. Marie wasn’t around, so he couldn’t blame her. He knew better than to try to blame his own mother to her face, so he couldn’t blame her, there’s no way that Sue was going to wear my brother or I. Richard couldn’t blame my younger brother as that would be absolutely batshit insane even for a clown like him.

I was Marie’s son.

I was the oldest.

I became the scapegoat by default.

Richard could carry on as the poor guy just trying his damnedest to raise his children that had been abandoned by their mother. It obviously wasn’t his fault that his sons were being sexually molested, or having psychiatric issues, or getting into trouble with the law.

Fuck no. It was Robert’s fault.

Robert wasn’t suffering psychological trauma from 1-1/2 years of sexual abuse at the hands of P.S. and Captain McRae. Robert wasn’t having psychological issues due to the unwarranted “conversion therapy” at the hands of Captain Terry Totzke. Robert wasn’t suffering psychological trauma because of his dysfunctional family. No, Robert was just “acting up” for attention.

Socks and Underwear day.

Xmas in the Gill household.

When I had gone to visit my brother in Edmonton in the summer of 2013 we sat down for coffee in a coffee shop.

We hadn’t really talked much in the years prior. Even when he was living in the Vancouver area from the mid ’90s to the early ’00s we didn’t talk that much.

While we were talking, one thing that came up was Richard’s stinginess around birthdays and christmas.

My brother blurted out “Socks and Underwear day”.

I laughed. Not because “Socks and Underwear day” sounded funny, but because up until that point in time I had almost convinced myself that I was over exaggerating what I remembered.

It took me a while in my adult years to realize that as kids my brother hadn’t been smashing up my toys just as I hadn’t been smashing up his.

This was Richard’s go to excuse as to why he wasn’t buying us anything. We couldn’t look after our toys and we always broke our toys.

Richard always had an excuse as to why he wouldn’t buy us toys. We didn’t look after out toys. We’d break our toys. We’d take our toys apart. We wouldn’t show him gratitude for buying us toys.

When I had my first apartment in Edmonton in the fall of 1990 and I was away from Richard and I started becoming exposed to co-workers whom had families the more I began to realize that there was something terribly wrong with Richard.

I started to realize that he wasn’t buying us toys because he didn’t want to waste his money on us. And like usual, because he couldn’t take responsibility for his own decisions he had to blame others for his decisions. My brother was breaking my toys. I was breaking my brother’s. And seeing as how we couldn’t look after our stuff, neither of us would get a damn thing. I wonder if this is where our intense sibling rivalry came from.

On CFB Summerside I had a decent model railway. I don’t remember too much about it other than it fit on a sheet of 4’X8′ plywood. It was literally here one day and gone the next. Richard’s excuse always was that I smashed it apart and there wasn’t anything left of it.

In 2013 I managed to track down my mother whom I hadn’t had contact with since March of 1992. I had to track her down after the PEI courts had stated that Richard had never been awarded custody of my brother and I.

I went to see her over the 2013 xmas holidays. And I asked her about this infamous train set. She laughed when I told her that Richard had told me that I smashed the train up. Nope. Wasn’t the case. Richard had been out drinking, first at the base mess, then at the Royal Canadian Legion in town. When he came home he went downstairs into the basement with a bottle of rum. The next morning when Marie went down to get him, everything in the basement was damaged. The washer and dryer were smashed and needed replacement. Richard’s drafting table was in pieces. His work bench was in pieces. And the railway was smashed all apart.

She said that his anger and his drinking had really increased since we left CFB Shearwater and this is one of the reasons she was trying to get us back to Nova Scotia to stay with Albert Dagenais while Richard sorted out his shit.

She said that we had xmas and birthday parties before Marie left, but Richard really wasn’t into these types of events and almost felt embarrassed by them.

I don’t remember my brother having much in the way of birthdays when we were kids. I know I didn’t.

I can’t remember any birthday parties on CFB Shearwater or CFB Summerside, but that’s more to do with my age than anything. I turned 7 on CFB Namao in 1978. I can’t remember a party then.

The one and only birthday party that I do remember was when I turned 14 in 1985. I came home and there was a cake on the table. Just said “Happy Birthday” with no name. There was a card and I think $50 in it. Richard said that he knew he hadn’t been a good father, but that he was going to try harder and that he would never again forget my birthday. This was the last birthday of mine that he ever celebrated. At the time I had no idea what this party was all about. Richard told me on previous missed birthdays that I didn’t deserve a party because I was going to special school or special classes and until I smartened up and learned to behave I wasn’t getting anything.

It wouldn’t be until August of 2011 that I would learn why out of nowhere I had a birthday in 1985.

Unbeknownst to me, my family was under the supervision of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto. We had been ever since we fled Alberta in April of 1983. Richard and Sue had a massive domestic dispute in the PMQ in August of 1985 while my brother and I were in Edmonton with our grandmother for the summer.

Not too sure what the domestic was about, but it appears that it had something to do with divorce papers.

According to the base military police it took three military police officers to bring my father under control. Even my next door neighbour Tanya said the amount of damage to the PMQ was significant. Furniture and paper out the windows. Most ground floors windows smashed out.

And that’s why I had a birthday party in September of 1985. Richard wasn’t trying to make up for having missed out on my previous birthdays. Richard was buttering me up just in case the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto found out about the domestic dispute.

Remember, CAST said in their paperwork that due to budget cuts and staffing issues they couldn’t really become too involved with my family unless they heard about issues in the home from outside agencies. And here is a massive domestic dispute. Probably also explains why the base military police didn’t want us to call 9-1-1 the next time Richard blew up and instead call base switchboard and ask for the military police. It wasn’t because the base military police could respond quicker. It’s because the Metropolitan Toronto Police would have been required to notify social services. The base military police were under no obligation to notify children’s aid. More of the “washing the laundry in house” mentality.

It was my conversations with Marie over the xmas holidays that I learnt that Uncle Doug had been buying gifts for my brother and I on Marie’s behalf and that Uncle Doug was the only reason why her gifts would show up in our house at all.

So if you’ve ever wondered why I schedule time off from work around my birthdays, this is why. My birthday is always a painful event for me. Xmas isn’t much better, but at least those are statutory holidays and I get to be alone for those.

I don’t hate xmas mass. I am atheists. I don’t believe in the invisible magical sky daddy. It just doesn’t mean anything to me. I like looking at the coloured lights and the non-over-the-top decorations. But anything beyond that I don’t get too worked up about.

Birthdays are much the same. I don’t resent people having birthdays. I do sign cards at work and I do slip $20s into the kitty, but I just find the whole idea of celebrating birthdays to be childish and immature.

Sure, maybe Grandma didn’t give Richard much in the way of xmas and birthdays when he was a kid. But that doesn’t explain why uncle Norman and uncle Doug seemed to have no problems with celebrating xmas and birthdays.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and state emphatically that Richard viewed my brother and I as remnants of Marie, and seeing as how he couldn’t punish Marie he was going to exact his revenge on Marie by proxy.

Was Richard a modern day Heathcliff?

Was Richard exacting his revenge on Marie by taking out his anger on my brother and I?

I have no doubt.

To Richard it must have been amusing watching his two kids at each other’s throats. Just proved how insane their mother was and how much he had to sacrifice to raise her hell spawn.

As I work in a hospital with a large psychiatric department, I’ve had the opportunity to ask “off the record” what the most significant cause of intense sibling rivalry is, rivalry so intense that kids have to be sent to separate schools. The most common cause? Dysfunctional parents. And no, no matter how much Richard insisted, it was not my responsibility to raise my younger brother.

Anyways, until next time.

The theme songs of my youth.

There were a couple of songs that still stand out from my youth.

It wasn’t until my father fled from Alberta to Ontario in April of 1983 to avoid my apprehension by Alberta Social Services that I started to become exposed to popular music outside of what my uncle Doug would buy for me.

Up until we arrived at Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Ontario I had never gone to a public school. My education up to the point was at schools for military dependents on base.

My grandmother had the stereo system glued to 790 CFCW. Richard was much the same. He really only listened to country music.

My first taste of music that wasn’t country and western was the kid’s disco that used to be put on every Sunday at the Lamplighter Pub on CFB Namao for the military kids that lived on Lancaster Park on CFB Namao.

When we arrived in Toronto this was the first time that I had been exposed to music that wasn’t country.

There was Pop, Rock and Roll, Heavy Metal, New Age, Progressive Rock, Hip-hop, Rap, Reggae, Top 40, you name it and the kids at Sheppard Public School listened to it.

It was also at this time that I began to realize that songs could tell stories. And more than just about rusty pickup trucks, dead dogs, and cheatin’ wives.

Whenever I hear the opening saxophone on “Overkill” by Men At Work I can visualize myself looking over the ravine out of the bedroom window of our PMQ at 94 Sunfield Road where we lived prior to moving to 223F Stanley Greene Park. I can also kinda smell and feel the humidity of that first summer living in Toronto.

Another song that will take me to back is “Come Dancing” by the Kinks. My brother absolutely hated the line “It’s only natural”. “Our House” by Madness is another one that would drive him bonkers if I sang along with it.

One of the first songs that I noticed that kinda spoke to me about what things were like at home was “Where is this love?” by the Payolas.

As psychologically damaged as my grandmother was, my father was even worse. My father had his anger, his depression, his PTSD, his alcoholism, and his physical strength. Under no circumstance did you ever want Richard upset with you. Living with him was like walking on egg shells.

If things had gone to shit at work for Richard you didn’t want to bother him. If he had too much to drink at the mess he wasn’t too bad when he was pissed drunk, but the next day when he was having his hangover you just steered the fuck clear of him. Sometimes when Richard was a little too pissed drunk for Sue’s liking she’d kick him out of bed and banish Richard to the living room to sleep. Usually not on the couch though. He’d usually be on the floor, rolling around stark naked and screaming at the top of his lungs. Even when we’d try to take Richard a blanket or try to calm him down Sue would come down and tell us to leave him alone, that he had to learn his lesson. So, it would usually be a sleepless night listening ti him yell and howl from the living room.

It was a few years after this that I heard another song that kinda spoke to me. It was “Luka” by Suzanne Vega.

The third song that I had heard of was actually introduced to me by someone else. I didn’t hear this song on my own as it was slightly before my time.

I was working for Ed Blaha, Bruce Beveridge, and Dirk Verdoold at Rainbow Games. Ed worked for the Metropolitan Toronto Police at Central Traffic. Dirk was an officer at 14th Division. Bruce was Ed’s childhood friend from when they grew up together in Montreal.

The three of them had purchased a pool hall at Keele and Sheppard on the North East corner of the base. Initially there was a fourth partner, Gary Mountjoy, but he sold his interest in the business very early on. I started working there in late ’87 – early ’88.

One of the things that Ed noticed right off the bat is that even though I was 16. Richard really didn’t seem to give a fuck where I was or how late I was out to. I would frequently sleep overnight in the work shop. And not once would Richard come looking for me.

And things were getting rough at home for other reasons as well.

Rainbow Games provided video games, pinball machines, and juke boxes to bars and donut shops across the Greater Toronto region.

One day Ed came back from the records wholesaler with an assortment of records for the various juke boxes.

He handed me one 45 and told me to put it in the juke box and play it.

Ed told me to sit down and listen to it.

So I lit up a smoke and drank my coffee and listened to the song as it came on.

It was “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Harry Chapin.

This song, as touching as it was, only kinda touched on my family life at home.

See “Cat’s in the Cradle” is about a father who is so tied up in his work that he doesn’t have time to spend with his son like his son wishes that he would, and then when his son has grown up and the father wants to spend time with him, it’s now his son that is to busy to be there for his father. The song doesn’t seem to be about physical or mental abuse.

When the song was over Ed said that as a police officer he had worked with street kids before, and street kids don’t go there because they want to be there, they go there because there’s no one to guide them away from the streets.

Ed said that if his son was ever working for someone and his son wasn’t home for bed before 21:00 that there’d be hell to pay. The fact that my father didn’t give a shit if I didn’t return home for days on end told Ed that something wasn’t right at home.

Ed said that I was bright, that I was smart, and it was my smarts that were keeping me off the streets. Ed asked me if I felt safe at home. I told him no. I told him that in addition to my father I now faced another physical threat in the house.

Ed arranged a room for rent in a house just across the street from the pool hall. The house was a PMQ that was rented by a service member of the Canadian Forces. This guy had just broken up with his wife and his wife had left him and taken their children. He had already rented out one of the children’s bedrooms to another person. This arrangement worked fine until the summer of 1988 when the CF Housing Authority found out that he was renting rooms.

But anyways, from early 1988 until the summer of 1989, almost a year and a half, I had peace. I didn’t have to worry about physical violence or threats of physical violence. I could sleep in peace. In fact I never wet the bed again after I moved out of Richard’s house.

And while “Cat’s in the Cradle” didn’t really focus on my relationship with my father, it did have some similarities.

My father wanted nothing to do with me. And as an adult I wanted very little to do with my father.

My father really didn’t want kids. I have no kids. I don’t think my brother has reproduced either. All I know is that I’m taking this rancid Gill DNA to the grave with me.

What has stuck with me all these years about “Cat’s in the cradle” is the fact that Ed went out of his way to buy this one 45 to act as an icebreaker meant that my dysfunctional home life was actually visible for all to see.

I just wish that the right people had seen the dysfunction and reacted properly.

Blimey, it just keeps looking worse and worse.

I think someone forgot to flush the toilets at 101 Colonel By Drive…. the shit is overflowing at NDHQ.

Well David Pugliese had this article in the Ottawa Citizen today. The story involves the Minister of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces Chain of Command using the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service to harass and intimidate the Office of the Ombudsman of the Canadian Armed Forces.

The Federal court has rebuked the military and compensation has been paid to members of the Office of the Ombudsman of the Canadian Forces.

It just doesn’t get any fucking better than this.

The story is available here at: https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/dnd-investigations-into-ombudsmans-staff-exposed-as-shoddy-lacking-in-evidence

The Office of the Ombudsman for the Canadian Forces enjoys a rather unique position of independence from the Canadian Armed Forces.

Unlike the Military Police Complaints Commission which may only ‘ask’ for documents from the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal during investigations of complaints against the CFNIS. And unlike the Military Police Complaints Commission which may only ‘ask’ for persons to participate in their investigation. The National Defence Act makes mandatory the participation of military members in any Ombudsman investigation.

This is because criminal charges cannot result from any Ombudsman investigation or inquiry. The Ombudsman may only recommend changes and possibly compensation or other remedies.

The Office of the Ombudsman of the Canadian Armed Forces was the agency that recommended that while the Canadian Armed Forces were “technically correct” to deny benefits or compensation to any of the 12 to 18 year old cadets that were killed or injured in the 1974 grenade explosion at Canadian Forces Base Valcartier, it was absolutely the immoral thing to do considering that the regular force member whose negligence led to this disaster was allowed to receive benefits and compensation from the Canadian Armed Forces. The Ombudsman recommended that the Canadian Forces make amendments posthaste and offer the survivors compensation, counselling, and therapy.

There is one problem with the Office of the Ombudsman of the Canadian Forces. That problem is that the Ombudsman may only undertake investigations that the Minister of National Defence agrees to.

See, the Office of the Ombudsman of the Canadian Forces would have been the perfect agency to investigate the matter from Canadian Forces Base Namao. No criminal charges could ever flow from an Ombudsman investigation or findings.

P.S. could give all the information that he wished and he would never face criminal charges for what he said. Nor would P.S. be in violation of his Non-Disclosure agreement that he had to sign with the Government of Canada in November of 2008 in order to receive his settlement from the Government of Canada.

The Ombudsman could have called witnesses, including anyone who had been subject to the Code of Service Discipline during the events of the Captain Father Angus McRae affair.

Even though my father is dead now, had the Ombudsman conducted an inquiry while my father was still alive it would have been fun asking my father to explain just exactly who the hell was looking after his children from 1977 until 1981 if he was always away on training exercises and his wife had “abandoned the family” years prior. Was he letting his children run feral on a military base? Did he just drop his kids off at a random neighbour’s house for 6 weeks while he went and played soldier out in the woods?

The Ombudsman could have made recommendations to DND and the Canadian Forces so far as how to deal with the survivors of the Captain McRae fiasco.

But I can see why the Minister of National Defence would have declined the Ombudsman the permission to review the matter.

This would have been far too risky for DND.

If this matter had been reviewed by the Ombudsman, and news of this review made it to the media, how many other former military dependents would come forward with their allegations against DND and the CF?

Would the Ombudsman have made the formal recommendation that any and all child sexual abuse matters be formally handed over to the civilian police?

Would the Ombudsman make the recommendation that the Canadian Forces and the Department of National Defence hire an independent investigation firm to conduct a completely independent and arm’s length investigation looking at how many children were sexually abused on the bases from 1950 until the present day?

Would the Ombudsman make recommendations that Parliament pass the required legislation to nullify the effects of the pre-1998 3-year-time-bar flaw and the Summary-Investigation flaw for matters that could be considered to be child sexual abuse?

There’s just far too much risk for the Minister to allow the Ombudsman to go digging into the MIlitary’s copious dirty laundry.

And I know from speaking with various investigators with the Office of the Ombudsman that the Ombudsman has been fighting for even more independence from the Canadian Armed Forces and not having to rely on the permission of the Minister of National Defence to conduct investigations that look at historical matters which occurred prior to when the Office of the Ombudsman was created in the late ’90s.

Here’s a posting from my other site.

https://cfbnamao.ca/2021/12/05/duuuurrrrrpppppp/

And you should know I have another site that deals specifically with the Canadian Armed Forces. This site is mainly to do with me. But I feel that some of the topics that I post on the other site might me of interest to those following this site.

https://cfbnamao.ca

The Art of being Insignificant.

or how I realized that to be at peace with one’s self you have to realize that none of this matters.

It’s interesting how little people actually matter.

I could disappear tomorrow and to be honest not a single person would miss me. And that’s not being glib, it’s just being realistic.

Sure, there’s the pleasantries that would be exchanged. “Where’s Bobbie? Anybody seen Bobbie? No? Okay, who wants to go watch a hockey game next week?”

But me, like you, and like everyone else, are completely expendable.

As long as a person proves to be useful to someone else and we fill their requirements, then we matter.

But the instance you stop being useful, and the instant you stop fulfilling the needs of other, you’re dispensable.

In March of 2011 when I went to the Edmonton Police Service with my complaint against P.S., I honestly had no idea of just how putrid this was going to turn out to be.

The more that I uncovered, the more blown away I was that I was actually part and parcel of something much larger than I could ever have imagined. I was no longer the little homosexual faggot that made the babysitter molest my younger brother.

I was now one of at least 25 children, if not many more that Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae molested on the three Canadian Forces Bases and one Canadian Forces Station that he had been stationed at from 1973 until July of 1980.

I thought that with the uncovering of the Captain McRae court martial transcripts and the CFSIU investigation paperwork that this would get the ball rolling. That people would start asking “If this could happen to a schmuck like Bobbie, how many other kids were sexually abused by members of the Canadian Forces?” and “How many other kiddie diddling priests were in the Canadian Forces bouncing from base to base?”

I thought that with the Military Police Complaints Commission noting that the CFNIS in 2011 and 2015 to 2018 had in their possession the paperwork from the 1980 investigation of Captain Father Angus McRae and the 1980 court martial of Captain Father Angus McRae which indicated that the military police in 1980 were well aware of the antics of P.S. that this too would get the ball rolling.

Nope.

Outside of one story by David Pugliese, not a single bit of interest from the media or anyone else for that matter.

And with that I think that I’ve reached the final conclusion of my engagement with the Canadian Armed Forces.

Child sexual abuse obviously did not occur on the bases.

Children were obviously not sexually abused on base.

The Canadian Forces military police were obviously competent enough to protect the children living on base even though they couldn’t protect the adults.

My brother was not abused by P.S.

I was not abused by P.S. or Captain McRae.

P.S. didn’t have me provide oral sex to a much older man when I was 8 years old.

None of that happened.

And that’s okay.

I am not the person to expose this.

Not within my skillset.

So now I just have to concentrate on what’s going to happen in 2023.

We’ll have to see how my application for M.A.i.D. goes.

As I’ve said before, suicide isn’t for me.

Too much pain and too messy.

M.A.i.D. is ideal from the look of it.

Very painless, very quick, no mess, no fuss.

I don’t want to be the poster boy for M.A.i.D. for psychiatric issues.

But it is what it is.

I get to leave on my own terms.

I get to tie up all loose ends.

I get to fulfil my “bucket list” if you will.

And then I never have to worry about anything ever again.

And I promise you, no one will be the wiser when I’m gone.

Sure, you may say “but Bobbie, aren’t you letting the Canadian Forces off the hook too easy?”.

Nope.

Not my fight anymore.

Not my concern anymore.

I’m probably going to take some time off from work before I go through with M.A.i.D..

I found out that my pension will actually pay out early if I’m about to die, and yes M.A.i.D. is an acceptable cause of death for early payout.

Won’t be much, but it’ll be enough that I can do somethings.

Maybe travel.

Maybe just disappear right up until the day before the procedure.

But yeah, I’m not working to the end. And I have no intention of letting my pension go to waste.

My corpse can go to UBC medical school.

I’m hoping that my brain can go to the Montreal Brain Bank.

And in the end, when I’m gone I’ll be just as missed as I was prior to being conceived.

Once you realize just how truly insignificant you are you begin to realize that everything in the universe will carry on just fine without you.

You don’t need to be here.

You’re free to go anytime you wish.

You do not owe it to anyone to continue to exist.

Richard the gaslighter.

I saw this yesterday. And it really sums up Richard to a “T”.

Richard was a master manipulator.

Richard loved playing people against others.

Richard could “rage out” and beat the fuck out of you or spank you hard enough with his leather belt to leave bruises and scratches, but yet he never once remembered spanking me with the belt. He backhanded me one day and chipped my tooth and drew blood. The next day he claimed that he didn’t remember anything and that even if he did hit me that he wouldn’t have hit me in the mouth and that if I didn’t want to get hit that I shouldn’t talk back to him.

When I was about 10 years old, I fell off the roof of Tim’s camper that he had loaned to Richard for Richard and Sue’s 1982 honeymoon trip to Jasper. My brother had stuffed leaves into the air vent and I knew that Richard would have killed me if he came home and found the vent stuffed with leaves.

Richard was like that though. Richard couldn’t or wouldn’t accept responsibility for his family. He always blamed the problems of his family on others. Quite early on he had decided that it was my responsibility to raise my younger brother. He had even told Alberta Social Services that he considered it to be my responsibility to raise my younger brother. And once my younger brother noticed that I’d get the blame for anything he had done, it was game on.

So, I fell off the roof of the camper. It was one of those pickup truck mounted campers. And the pickup truck was a real 4X4 off-road truck, so it was quite the distance to the ground. I fractured both wrists. I also had the wind knocked out of me. One of the neighbours came over and helped me. Richard got called home from the squadron. When he got home he wanted to know what the fuck I was doing on top of the camper. I told him. His response was that it was my own damn fault for not keeping an eye on my brother. If I had watched my brother like I was supposed to then he would have never been able to get on top of the camper. And Richard said that I should consider myself lucky that my brother didn’t fall off the camper, because if he did Richard was going to beat me so hard that I’d wish that I had never been born.

I got sent to my room. I was told to stop my whining and just “get the fuck to bed” or he’d “give me something to cry about”.

I guess that Sue was finally able to convince Richard the next day that I needed to go to the hospital to get my wrists looked at.

My casts were supposed to stay on for six weeks.

They stayed on for longer than that.

Richard’s reasoning was that he wanted me to “learn my fucking lesson” and not be so “fucking stupid” the next time.

When we lived on CFB Griesbach in the time after grandma moved out of the house, Richard and Sue wouldn’t allow us into the house when they weren’t home. So that meant that after school my brother and I had to wait outside of the PMQ for them to get home from work. School was out at 15:00 Richard and Sue got off work around 16:30. In the summer and fall this wasn’t too bad. In the winter this was fucking stupid. We weren’t allowed to go anywhere, we had to stand on the porch and wait. Well, one cold day my brother decided that he wasn’t going to wait, so he kicked in one of the basement windows and got into the house that way. When Richard and Sue got home Richard was fucking furious. Again it was my fault for not watching my brother. If I had been watching my brother he never would have kicked the window in. Never mind that it could get down to -10 on a typical Edmonton winter day. No, the big problem was that someone kicked a window in to seek warmth.

It’s no wonder that by the time we moved to Canadian Forces Base Downsview in Toronto in April of 1983 my brother and I despised each other so much that the school board had to send us to separate schools due to intense sibling rivalry.

But that’s the way that gas-lighters work.

I worked for a man like this once. His way of keeping anyone from noticing that he didn’t have managerial skills was to keep everyone at each other’s throats. He had the admin assistants fighting amongst themselves. He had subordinate managers fighting with each other. He had the building operators distrusting each other. Even after the board of directors wised up and fired him and his assistant the damage was done.

And that’s the same with Richard. He was a fuckup. He knew he was a fuckup. Social services in three provinces knew that he was a fuckup. A psychologist hired by the Canadian Armed Forces knew that he was a fuckup. And what do fuckups do when they don’t want people knowing how much of a fuckup they are? They gaslight everyone around them. They have to. It’s the only way they can keep from having to admit that they’re fuckups.

My mother? Did she get kicked off the base? Nope, she “abandoned” her children.

Did she leave because she couldn’t take his drinking and his abuse? Nope, according to Richard she was a “slut” that would spread her legs for any man.

Was my brother getting into trouble because my father was a shitty parent? Nope, I wasn’t raising my brother correctly.

Did my brother start getting into trouble on CFB Downsview because my father was a neglectful parent. Fuck no, if only I had raised my brother right he wouldn’t be getting into trouble.

Was I having psychiatric problems due to sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect? Nope, I was just acting up to get attention.

Were my brother and I having issues because of Richard’s psychiatric issues? Hell no, it was his mother’s fault. She was the reason my brother and I were acting up.

There was one time that Richard had to pick me up after a weekend cadet camp out in a town near Kingston, Ontario. Richard pulled up in his Mustang. I put my dufflebag in the back of the car and I got into the passenger seat. As soon as I sat down Richard made a slapping motion towards me. I recoiled. But Richard stopped short of slapping me. He laughed and chuckled. Then he said that I was so fucking lucky. I asked what for. He said that he was so looking forward to slapping my fucking face when he came to pick me up. I asked again “for what?”. He said that earlier in the day he used his oscilloscope to work on something electronic and someone had poked holes in the anti-glare screen. I said “Wasn’t me”. He said “I know. I remember using the oscilloscope on Saturday morning and it was okay, so that means it was your fucking brother that did it”. He then continued on ” Why the fuck can’t you look after him. He’s your brother, you should be teaching him how to respect my equipment. Older brothers are supposed to look after their younger brothers. I guess that your just too fucking self-centred to give a shit about anyone else other than yourself”

This tendency for Richard to blame me for everything resulted in my younger brother remarking that he knew that all he had to do to get Richard to punish me was to take a screw out of something of Richard’s and to leave the screwdriver and the screw beside the equipment so that Richard couldn’t help but notice.

Sure, I can look back now at laugh. But it doesn’t really undo all of the psychiatric pain and suffering that was inflicted.

The damage that Richard did was fucking astounding. But the sad thing about gaslighters is that they do so much fucking damage that there often is no recovery.

The problem that a person like Richard causes for a person like me is that when you’re dealing with major depression and severe anxiety, the bullshit and the lies deliver a much more devastating blow. If I wasn’t suffering from CPTSD, major depression, and severe anxiety I probably could have weathered Richard’s gaslighting and victim blaming. But it wouldn’t be until I was 40 years old that I would learn the truth about Richard. By that time Richard’s gaslighting had a lot of time to cement itself and fix itself into my brain.

Even though I now know the truth, the damage can’t be undone. And even if it could be undone the problem is that the majority of my life was wasted away with Richard’s gaslighting being my only frame of reference.

I’m tired.

I’m broken.

I’m defeated.

I’m at peace with the way things were and the way things are.

I know that I can’t rewrite the past. The past will always be the past.

The future doesn’t really hold anything for me.

I know that my depression, my anxiety, my CPTSD, and my distrust of others, my crippling self doubt and my intense self hatred will plague me to the end of my days.

There is nothing that can be prescribed that will undo what was done.

ECT could erase some of the memories, but it also stands a good chance at obliterating the few good memories that I have.

The gaslighter made damn sure that if he couldn’t enjoy his life that no one else would enjoy theirs.

“in the end it isn’t the gods that cause us so much suffering, but those closest to us” – Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice.

A song that I’ve liked for a while.

I forget when I first hear this song, it was before I started working at the hospital, but I’ve loved it since first hearing it.

And yes, while the song is apparently about bipolar disorder, I think it can easily apply to good ol’ fashioned depression.

I’m fairly certain that I am not bipolar as I don’t get the manias.

I only get stomach turning brain spinning depression.

My father used to call me a “lazy ass” for not getting out of bed in the morning. But between waking up at least once a night with nightmares, and the crushing realization that I didn’t die in my sleep, it was so hard to muster the energy to get out of bed. I still have that to this day. Sure, the nightmares of my father, of P.S., and of all of the other shit from my childhood have faded over the years, but it’s still such a bear to get out of bed in the morning. So much so that I have to have two alarm clocks set for three alarms each as well as automated lights to come on.

Being that my depression is caused by trauma and genetics I don’t think that I will ever be free of this demon.

It’s “A Better Son/Daughter” by Rilo Kiley

Sometimes in the morning I am petrified and can’t move 
Awake but cannot open my eyes 
And the weight is crushing down on my lungs 
I know I can’t breathe 
And I hope someone will help me this time 
And your mother’s still calling you insane and high
Swearing it’s different this time 
And you tell her you give in to the demons that possess her 
And that God never blessed her insides 
Then you hang up the phone 
And feel badly for upsetting things 
Crawl back into bed to dream of a time 
When your heart was open wide 
And you loved things just because 
Like the sick and the dying 
And sometimes when you’re on 
You’re really fucking on 
And your friends they sing along 
And they love you 
But the lows are so extreme 
That the good seems fucking cheap 
And it teases you for weeks in its absence 
But you’ll fight and you’ll make it through 
You’ll fake it if you have to 
And you’ll show up for work with a smile 
And you’ll be better 
And you’ll be smarter 
And more grown up 
And a better daughter or son 
And a real good friend 
And you’ll be awake 
You’ll be alert 
You’ll be positive though it hurts 
And you’ll laugh and embrace all your friends 
And you’ll be a real good listener 
You’ll be honest 
You’ll be brave 
You’ll be handsome and you’ll be beautiful 
You’ll be happy 

Your ship may be coming in 
You’re weak but not giving in 
To the cries and the wails of the valley below 
And your ship may be coming in 
You’re weak but not giving in 
And you’ll fight it 
You’ll go out fighting all of them

Depression sucks.

Major depression is a killer.

Severe anxiety doesn’t help.

The pills kinda help though.

And I mean the legal pills.

I think that one of the things that has really hindered me so far as receiving treatment for my major depression and CPTDS is that I’ve never self medicated. No booze, no needles, no illegal pills, nothing.

And I think this is what’s kept me from being taken as serious.

As a kid, the doctors and the psychiatrists were telling my father and Captain Terry Totzke that I was having serious problems and that I should be institutionalized. My father didn’t care as he “knew” that it was all an act. Captain Totzke didn’t care as he had his orders.

And now as an adult no one takes me serious because I don’t push a shopping cart up and down the alleys and scream at telephone poles.

Not having anyone “on my team” i.e. friends (I don’t have any), family ( don’t have that either), there’s been no one there to alert my health care professionals or to vouch for what I’ve told my health care professionals.

So here I am at 50. Everyone who knows me and the issues that I am going through and the trauma that I’ve suffered are wandering around telling me to “Don’t worry, be happy”. As if I were to just smile then my life would be all fucking happiness and sunshine and rainbows.

All I can do is reflect upon what was taken from me, what was stolen from me, what was denied to me. This is shit that I’ve never getting back.

Everybody has an easy fix for my life…..

Bobbie, why don’t you find a boyfriend / girlfriend?

Bobbie, why don’t you just go out for drinks with the boys?

Bobbie, why don’t you go to a sportsball game?

Bobbie, why don’t you take trade training?

Bobbie, if you like electronics why don’t you take a course?

None of these things have ever been an interest to me before, and they’re sure not going to be an interest to me now. Especially the drinking. With the way that my father and my paternal grandmother were both raging alcoholics, drinking alcohol is the last thing I need.