Medical Assistance in dying – Page 35

Trauma Counselling……

falling through the cracks again.

If there’s one thing my current nurse practitioner doesn’t seem to understand is how difficult it is for me to find trauma counselling.

I had “counselling ” from October of 1980 until January of 1983.

This involved a military social worker, Captain Terry Totzke, convincing me that I was responsible for what happened to me on CFB Namao, that it was my fault that P.S. abused my younger brother, and that I was a homosexual for having allowed the abuse to go on for so long.

Now, the thing is at the time I didn’t realize that Captain Totzke was in the Canadian Forces.

When I became involved with Pat, Wayne, Aviva, and Mrs. Washylesko in the spring of 1982 Terry would often tell me that I couldn’t trust these people. My father often took the same tack as Terry. Terry and my father were adamant that I had to watch what I was saying to Pat, Wayne, Aviva, and Mrs. Washylesko as they’d twist what I had said to them and use my words against me.

My father would often refer to Pat as a “stunned cunt”. Wayne was a “fucking cock sucker”. As I grew older I began to realize that Richard referred o a lot of people like this. Anyone he didn’t agree with was usually labelled with these epithets.

And here I was from 9 years of age until 11 years of age caught in a war with my military social worker and my father on one side and my civilian social workers on the other side.

At home any punishment I received was blamed on Pat or Wayne telling my father that he had to punish me. Of course I know now that that was an absolute lie. But still, when you’re that young you don’t understand that your father can be a liar with psychiatric issues.

So here I find myself in the year 2021.

My nurse practitioner wants me to find a counsellor that I can talk to.

The first counsellor that he suggested had a magical waitlist that just kept getting longer and longer the more detailed my issues became.

This counsellor referred me to a second counsellor. This second counsellor said that I would need specialized trauma counselling.

Fair enough.

The problem is though, I come from a military family.

A military family that lived on military bases during the ’70s and the ’80s.

An era when mental health issues were denied. An era where mental health issues were seen as personal failures and weaknesses.

An era where psychiatrists were seen as “head shrinkers” and “fucking quacks” and “feel good friends for pussies”.

Counsellors, psychologists, and psychiatrists were not viewed too nicely by military personnel back then.

So, put yourself in my shoes.

You try to find a “trauma counsellor” and this first problem that you run into is that most people won’t believe a single word you have to say. Sexually abused children on military bases? Get outta here! Next you’ll be trying to tell me that the moon is made out of cheese.

And then there’s the magical, mystical, chakra cleansing counsellors. The ones who know you can improve your life with lavender and candles.

The counsellors that I like the best are the ones who are certain that if you try hard you can come to term with your past, and if your don’t it’s because you’ve failed.

Which trauma do I work on first:

Intergenerational trauma that started with my grandmother and passed on down through my father which resulted in both being rage fuelled alcoholics?
The year and a half of sexual abuse at the hands of my 14 – 15 year old babysitter who had also been delivering me to Captain McRae at the base chapel?
The two and one-half years of “counselling” and conversion therapy at the hands of military social worker Captain Terry Totzke?
The sexual abuse on Canadian Forces Base Griesbach?
The sexual abuse at the Dennison Armouries?
Living with my emotionally unstable father until my 16th birthday?
Being attacked by Jacque Choquette in the basement of our house on Canadian Forces Base Downsview while Richard looked on with complete indifference?
My father’s periodic threats to end my life. There’s a reason why when I was interviewed by the psychologist hired by Captain Totzke in October of 1980 that I said that I was terrified of my father drowning me in a toilet. In the aftermath of CFB Namao he made a couple of threats. His most serious threat was in the spring of 1982 when Sue was threatening to leave. He said that if Sue left him that he stuff my brother and I into a duffle bag and that no one would ever find us.
The beatings and the spankings. I guess it’s true, you never fuck with a man’s military career.
Richard’s constant beratement for “not looking after my brother and not raising my brother properly”.
Richard’s drinking prior to Sue.
The three cars crashes when Richard was DUI.
Richard’s meltdown on CFB Summerside when he destroyed everything in the basement.
Grandma’s drinking while she lived with us.
There’s the guy in Toronto who tried to strangle me in his car when I was about 15.
And many many many more other issues.

There’s so much shit that went wrong. Where to start?

Hot tantric yoga therapy isn’t going to do anything.

Chanting mystical psalms isn’t going to do anything.

Fuck, I can’t even get the military to admit that Captain McRae and P.S. were up to no good on that base because DND and the CF are fearful of civil actions.

It’s always going to be me, the kid who made is 14 year old babysitter molest him and his younger brother. I’m always going to be the guy that didn’t raise his brother properly and who allowed the babysitter to molest his younger brother, who was accused of giving his younger brother drugs which caused his brother to have a seizure. Sure, I know now that Richard was a dysfunctional parent who took absolutely no responsibility for his own family, blamed others for problems with his family, and expected others to solve the problems with his family. But I’m the guy who lived through all of Richard’s bullshit. Richard’s bullshit is burnt into my brain.

Dancing around with magical crystals isn’t going to undo what Richard did.

Writing poems and painting trees and Suns isn’t going to remove P.S. from my memory. Fuck, after watching what he would do to the other kids, that shit’s burnt into my brain. You can’t watch what he did to your own brother and not have issues from that. It’s one thing when he does it to your own body. You can “go to a different place” and not be there. But to watch it, and watch what he victims were doing, you can’t erase that, you can’t block it out.

Even though I was given wine in McRae’s rectory, it doesn’t take an over active imagination to realize what was happening there. You don’t give a 7 or 8 year old child a tumbler full of wine just because you want to be the cool Padre on base. You give that 7 or 8 year old kid wine because you don’t want him to remember you sticking your fingers up his arse. Or that you gave him a blow job. Or that you put your penis in his intoxicated mouth.

And to say that dealing with the Canadian Armed Forces over the last 10 years hasn’t been a trauma all on its own would be a lie. I’ve never seen such a dishonest organization that is hellbent on keeping secrets a secret no matter the cost. The fact that someone decided to erase the fact that my grandmother raised my brother and I from 1977 until 1981 is pretty un-fucking-believable.

So yeah.

There’s just so much fucking wrong upstairs.

And no one is willing to help.

Interesting.

Okay, today (November 12, 2021) I received an email from the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service Victim Services coordinator.

Turns out that the CFNIS is handing my case over to the civilian police after the edict from the new Minister of National Defence on November 4th, 2021.

This is exactly 10 years to the date that the CFNIS on November 4th, 2011 told me in a telephone call that the CFNIS couldn’t find any evidence to indicate that the person that I had accused of sexually assaulting me and my brother was capable of committing the crimes I had accused him of.

In 2020 the MPCC would lay bare the fact that the CFNIS had actually established that the accusations I had made were founded.

There was one caveat in the email. The civilian police may chose to hand the matter back to the CFNIS.

Regardless, this is a perfect raspberry for all of those that said that military crimes could not be investigated or tried in the military justice system.

The military justice system has never had sole jurisdiction over criminal code matters. What we had though was a chain of command that was more than happy to “wash the laundry” in house and present a complete bullshit façade to the general public that life on base was just like Mayberry.

I wonder how many people who were sexually abused on base as military dependents will be willing to come forward now that they’re no longer in the grips of the CFNIS and the military police.

This case is related to the man in the sauna at the base recreation centre.

In the days after I had been caught being buggered by P.S. but before the house fire at P.S.’s house on June 23, 1980 P.S. had found me in the change room at the base swimming pool.

He escorted me over to the sauna. In the sauna was a man in his mid to late 40’s if not early ’50s. P.S. had somehow promised this man that I would perform oral sex on him. P.S., always had a position of authority over me. P.S. wasn’t afraid to use physical violence to get what he wanted. He was an extremely angry teenager. I didn’t dare refuse. I performed oral sex on the man. I would have been 8 at the time. P.S. was just shy of his 15th birthday at the time. The man stopped me right before he ejaculated. I don’t know why he stopped me before he ejaculated. I’ve got some ideas. Anyways……..

I’ve got some ideas as to who this man may have been. If he is who I think he might have been, this man would have been a Major in the Canadian Forces.

This man has charges related to the sexual abuse of other children on different Canadian Forces Bases, and he was on Canadian Forces Base Namao during the Captain McRae matter in June and July of 1980.

The Minister of National Defence, the Chief of Defence Staff, the Vice Chief of Defence Staff, and the Provost Marshal would have their obvious reasons for not being able to find enough evidence against the person I had accused. But will the civilian police have any better luck seeing as how the civilian police would have to go through the military to get pertinent records and documents.

And there’s still the issue presented by the two historical flaws in the pre-1998 National Defence Act, namely the Summary Investigation flaw, and the 3-year-time-bar.

Only time will tell.

Where oh where shall I die?

16 months to go, but why leave things until the last minute.

Wasn’t really going to discuss this until closer to March 2023 when I’d know for certain if M.A.i.D. for psychiatric issues was actually going to be passed into law.

Where do I want to die? Where do I wish to undergo M.A.i.D. if I meet the criteria? Where do I wish for my body to go?

I think undergoing the procedure in my own bed would be nice. I’ve lived in the same apartment for 11 years now, which is a record for me. It’s a nice little bachelor apartment. In the months, weeks, and days leading up to my demise I would let everything go so that basically on the day of my death it would only be my bed and a couple of other personal belongings in my apartment. Stuff that could easily be disposed of after I die.

Getting my body out of the apartment wouldn’t be a problem as there is elevator service and the elevator can handle the newer stretchers that allow for patients or bodies to be angled to fit. So that’s covered.

I can’t see the property management company having any concerns as it’s not like my body is going to be rotting away in the apartment. Once I die, the attending physician notes the time of death, the Coroner may or may not have to attend, then my body is taken for disposal. The rent will be paid up for an extra month. And it’s not like my death will be known to the next tenant renting the suite.

Now, what happens if it’s decided that my apartment is not an appropriate place for me to die?

I could receive my M.A.i.D. procedure in a clinical setting such as a hospital. I’m not certain at this time how I would book a room. I’m more than certain that if I were to elect to receive M.A.i.D. in a hospital that the hospital admin staff would insist that I take a private room. As comfortable as I am with my death, I think that it would freak out other patients if I were to undergo M.A.i.D. in a four patient room. I know right now that there will be certain hospitals that I will not be allowed to receive my M.A.i.D. procedure at. Catholic hospitals generally frown upon procedures like this.

All is not lost though, there apparently is another option that might be more widely available in a few years. Today I learnt that MAIDhouseTO is trying to obtain a space that has a room or rooms set up for those wishing to receive M.A.i.D. but who for various reasons can’t undergo the procedure at home and who do not wish to undergo the procedure in a clinical setting such as a hospital.

Of course, prejudices against dying and death seem to be hindering MAIDhouseTO in finding a permanent space that they can fix up to offer quiet peaceful places for persons to undergo M.A.i.D.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/medically-assisted-death-nonprofit-says-fear-is-hampering-its-search-for-permanent-space-1.6230573

I’ve known since last year that select funeral homes in Canada have been revamping some of their private rooms into rooms where a patient can undergo M.A.i.D.. This is an interesting concept. It really is. You can literally walk in under your own power and then be carried out in an ash urn. Or even embalmed and buried on the same day if that’s your choice. And if resomation (alkaline hydrolysis) is available you could walk in and be flushed down the drain all on the same day.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/funeral-homes-pivot-to-offer-rooms-for-medically-assisted-deaths-1.6224353

Then there’s also the option of somewhere scenic. But that comes with a cost. And really, is it worth it? When you’re dead you’re not going to remember the petty scenery. And I’ve never been a fancy romantic.

What do I envision that my last day would look like?

I’d probably go sometime in the morning. No need to delay the procedure.

I think I’d wake up, get showered and get dressed. Wait for the physician to arrive. I haven’t decided at this point if I’d want anyone in attendance. But if someone wanted to be there, I wouldn’t say no. If someone had a legitimate reason to want to film my procedure, and my death, and the disposal of my body, I wouldn’t say no either.

I’d definitely have the windows open, but the curtains closed. They’re translucent curtains. Just don’t want to force my death on the neighbours who might just happen to be looking out their window.

After the physician shows up I might have a cup of coffee or a cup of tea. And then get back into bed.

The physician would then cannulate me and connect me up to the dosing pumps.

Then when I’m ready, I press the button and in under 2 minutes I’m gone and another 4 minutes for my body to be dead.

What happens after that really isn’t of any concern to me.

I do hope that my brain goes for research purposes.

I do hope that my body is either used for medical research, forensic research, or it disposed of via the resomation process.

There’s one person in mind that I would love to be able to give my skull to, but sadly in this country I can’t decide who gets my bones even after they’re cleaned and sterilized.

What I’d really like for my body is for it to be buried in Burns Bog so that in a 1,000 or so years someone can dig it up and see my tattoos.

But really, after the propofol hits my brain I really won’t have any control over what happens with my corpse. And in all honesty it won’t be a concern of my anymore.

Lawyers and Coppers

I received a telephone call from one of my lawyers today.

This one is for my case involving Earl Ray Stevens.

My lawyer informed me that the Ontario Crown is taking a little longer than promised to release their records to my lawyer. The Crown is telling my lawyer that the police are taking longer than they should in handing their investigation file over to the Ontario Crown.

My lawyer has said that the counsel for the defendants have agreed to proceed to discovery without the Crown documents.

I really don’t know at this point how this case will work out.

Sure, Earl wasn’t found guilty in a court of law. But both the Toronto Police Service and the Ontario Crown thought that the case was strong enough to proceed to trial. Even the justice presiding over the preliminary hearing thought that this case was strong enough to go to trial.

Earl died of bladder cancer before the trial could commence.

Earl was a retired member of the Canadian Armed Forces. Earl was very smooth and Earl knew what he was doing. One can only wonder how many children Earl molested on the various Canadian Forces Bases while he was enlisted.

Earl’s career in the Canadian Forces more than likely explains why he knew that I would be terrified if either my father or the military police found out what I was doing with Earl and why Earl was able to use this as leverage to get me to keep my mouth shut about what he was doing. He knew from his time in the Canadian Forces that no military dependent would want anyone to know that they were “gay” or “homosexual”.

I wonder how many other military dependent children Earl was able to abuse in silence by threatening them with the revelation of their “secret”.

On another note I also received an email from the victim services coordinator with the CFNIS Western Region. They inform me that the investigation into the “man in the sauna” is still ongoing.

It’ll be interesting to see how this one works out.

The military police are taking such a trashing in the public eye these days. The military police and the CFNIS just don’t seem to be able to get convictions on anything.

The primary witness in this investigation is P.S., the babysitter from CFNIS investigation 2011-5754. The investigation which the CFNIS actually determined was “Founded – Not Cleared”.

The Military Police Complaints Commission in their final report that was released in 2020 stated that the CFNIS knew in 2011 that the charges against P.S. were founded.

Why the CFNIS told me in 2011 that they couldn’t find any evidence to indicate that P.S. was capable of the crimes I had accused him of will forever be a mystery. I have some plausible ideas.

How willing P.S. will be to talk to the CFNIS in this matter is anyone’s guess. And how willing the CFNIS will be to push P.S. to talk is again anyone’s guess. P.S. provided me to the man in the sauna. P.S. was the only witness to what had happened. And P.S. obviously knew what the man in the sauna was going to want from me.

At this time I only have a guess as to who the man in the sauna was. I know it wasn’t Captain McRae. There was an officer of the Canadian Forces who had been sent out from Ottawa to assist Captain McRae with McRae’s affairs during the lead up to his court martial. This officer, who was a major at the time, had been charged in the 2010s with molesting a young boy on Canadian Forces Base Borden in 1974. This is the same man, who after he retired from the Canadian Forces, had made a cash settlement with a family in Ontario for having improper sexual relations with a 16 year old boy.

Again, the major flaw with this whole investigation is that if it turns out that the man in the sauna was an officer of the Canadian Armed Forces and if this officer was responsible for directing P.S. to bring me to the sauna, a sauna that was owned by the Canadian Forces and was located on a secure Defence Establishment, to perform oral sex on this man, this would expose the Minister of National Defence to civil actions for the actions and behaviours of their officer.

Two problems exist with this scenario though.

First is that the 3-year-time-bar which existed in the National Defence Act prior to 1998 would prevent the Canadian Forces from being able to charge this man with Gross Indecency or Indecent Assault.

Second, the Minister of National Defence is in fact the “Chief of Police” as the minister via the Vice Chief of Defence Staff can direct any CFNIS investigation. The Supreme Court of Canada and the Military Police Complaints Commission have both said that this is improper. The Supreme Court of Canada has specifically ruled that it is improper for a police agency to conduct police investigations that could subject its parent agency to civil actions based on the outcome of the police investigation. This is why almost every police agency in Canada will always call in an outside police agency to conduct investigations when it suspects its own officers of serious wrongdoing.

Anyways, enough for now.

Dying.

“If you want to die, how can you be afraid of dying?”

As I’ve said, I don’t fear death.

Once you are dead you are free of the senses, you do not feel pain, you no longer exist.

It’s the dying part that scares me. It always has.

And I don’t mean in the sense of heaven or hell or gods or the such.

What I fear is the pain or the terror that would fill my last minutes, or hours, or even days.

I actually don’t like being inside automobiles due to my father’s penchant for aggressive driving and drunk driving. I don’t relish the idea of dying in an automobile collision. There was a pile-up on the Q.E.W. in Southern Ontario back in the ’90s. A young girl got trapped inside one of the cars and slowly burned to death. That is not a death that I would wish on anyone.

Yeah, I understand that dying by my own hand would only last for so long, but I’ve never been a big fan of panic and terror.

It’s fairly obvious that I’ve never bled to death before, but the idea of slicing an artery and bleeding out doesn’t appeal to me due to the shock and panic that would set in as the volume of blood in my body decreased. The nausea that would come with the shock would be very unpleasant.

Asphyxiation would be the same thing

Asphyxiation, choking, etc…… no thank you.

You hear about the successful cases. What you never hear about are the unsuccessful cases which often lead to permanent brain damage.

Drugs? Yeah, no. There’s just something about ingesting copious amounts of drugs that doesn’t appeal to me. Maybe it’s the vomiting and the retching. Maybe it’s that you actually stand a good chance of inhaling your own vomit and dying a very prolonged and painful death.

Unless you manage to get things right your last moments on Earth will be filled with pain and misery. Sure, eventually everything will be over. But as I said I don’t want to tack on more suffering to the suffering that I’ve already endured.

And I can tell you one thing, you never want to die in a hospital hooked up to a ventilator in the ICU in a drug induced coma. That’s probably the worst way to go that I can think of.

Dying is not an easy thing to do. It’s honestly not as easy as you’d think it would be. It’s definitely not as easy nor as romantic as it’s made out to be in the movies or literature. One part of the brain wants to die while another part of the brain wants to survive.

This is why I am really intrigued with Medical Assistance in Dying.

If the protocol is adhered to and if the proper doses are followed one shouldn’t be aware in the slightest that they have stopped breathing and that their heart has stopped beating. There’s no choking. There’s no gaging. There should be no violent convulsions or spasms. Just a complete loss of consciousness and then nothing.

Sure, the anxiety may be something to contend with in the months, and weeks, and days, and then hours leading up to one’s demise under M.A.i.D.. But I think with the proper mindset that one should be able to make it right to the end without too much of a problem.

I think that one of the things that terrifies most people about death is the lack of control of the where and when. Death typically comes randomly. It follows no schedule. It generally doesn’t take into consideration what your plans are or if your affairs are in order. You could be at work, you could be on the subway, you could be out for a bicycle ride. You death can be quick, or it can be lingering. You could slowly die on the cold pavement while gawkers stare at you. And I think this is what frightens most people about death, the general lack of control around the circumstances of one’s demise.

Why do I want to die?

I don’t actually want to die. I need to die. There is a difference.

My brain is hopelessly damaged beyond salvage. You may agree with this or you may not agree with this. But it’s only my opinion that matters on this. I’m the one who has lived with this. And I’m the one more than willing to die to end it.

I’ve had no one advocating for my mental health over the years. So it is quite perplexing the number of people that want to suggest ways that I can take care of my mental health.

It wasn’t like my mental health hadn’t been flagged in the aftermath of the CFB Namao fiasco.

It was.

My mental health had deteriorated to the point that I was supposed to have been institutionalized. When you’re nine-years-old and psychiatrists are recommending that you be institutionalized you know that there is something seriously wrong. The fact that I wasn’t institutionalized doesn’t mean that I got better on my own. It just means that my deteriorating mental health was ignored.

Who kept me from receiving the help I required to treat my mental health issues? Was it my father? Was it Captain Terry Totzke? Was it someone else up the chain of command in the Canadian Armed Forces? I don’t know. And due to the loosey-goosey record retention policy of the Canadian Forces I don’t think that we’ll ever know.

And you know damn well that someone in the Canadian Armed Forces hierarchy interfered. On January 26th, 1983 Captain Totzke was told that Alberta Social Services was getting ready to place me into foster care or residential care. On January 28th, 1983 Captain Totzke told Alberta Social Services that my father was withdrawing me from the program and that my father had just receive a posting to Ontario.

And at this point in my life does it really matter?

For just over 42 years I’ve been left to cope with the following:

CPTSD;
Major depression;
Severe anxiety;
Gender identity issues;
Sexual Orientation issues;
Inability to form relationships;
Inability to trust;
Feelings of hopelessness;
Feelings of helplessness;
Feelings of worthlessness;
Vividly reliving the sexual abuse of me, my brother, and all of the other kids I witnessed P.S. molesting;
Grappling with being blamed by my father for allowing the babysitter to molest my younger brother;
Grappling with being called a homosexual apparently because I participated in the abuse for as long as I did;
The endless replaying of the man in the sauna;
The abuse at the hands of Earl Ray Stevens;
Existing in a dysfunctional household.

I’ve managed to fall through the cracks for a majority of my life. That’s the double edged sword of being intelligent. The people that I worked for were more than willing to overlook my issues because I brought so much benefit to their organizations. So what if I broke down and cried at random times, or so what if I blew up when I’d get frustrated because my depressed brain wasn’t capable of handling stress, or what if I didn’t come in for days at a time. When I could do electronic repairs, electrical repairs, mechanical repairs, HVAC repairs, the meltdowns and breakdowns were tolerable.

Being highly functional with mental illness is not fair. People just write off your mental illness as being “melodrama”, or “just being an asshole”.

And the sad thing about mental illness is that it doesn’t show up on a blood test, it really doesn’t show up on an MRI.

Mental illness can only be diagnosed by a psychiatrist. But psychiatrists have their own options and biases. So the fact that I’ve never been unemployed or locked-up in psychiatric care, or in trouble with the law means that I can’t really be that ill.

Throw into that the “Just Society” bias that many people have which results in doctors and psychiatrists being of the opinion that if something did happen to me then surely someone would have done something about it, right?

The other side of the “Just Society” bias means that many other people are of the opinion that if the military police didn’t lay charges in 1980 or 2018 that obviously nothing occurred. Because if something did occur, surely somebody would have done something, right?

The only problem is that as the years went by and I learnt to “cope” and “hide” my issues. And as the years went by I could feel the desire to die building inside.

It is so very tiring keeping my “happy” face on while my brain turns into a cancerous tumour full of rot.

There’s no fixing my brain. The damage is done. The damage has had time to set and solidify.

I’m not suddenly going to find a magical counsellor or magical pharmaceuticals that will erase the past, and erase the memories from CFB Namao, and erase all of the other shit that I went through before I turned 16.

My brain is not your “fix-it” project. My emotional well-being is not your hobby.

When I was first interviewed by master corporal Robert Jon Hancock back in 2011, I told him during the interview that I understood that there was not going to be a magical time machine that would send me back and undo all of the things that happened to me.

Life honestly has no joy and offers me no pleasure. It never has.

And this is where things get interesting.

I have had people tell me that my desires to die make them feel uncomfortable. That maybe if I stopped thinking negative thoughts and just thought happy thoughts that everything would be okay.

But that’s not how this works.

Bobbie, you’re such a “warrior”.

No.

You’re a “champion”.

No.

You’re so “brave”.

No.

“You can’t be serious”.

Yes I am.

“You’re just doing this for attention”.

No I am not.

I’m somebody who got caught up in some very bad situations that were far beyond their control.

I came from a dysfunctional home.

I was exposed to adults that were suffering from their own intergenerational traumas.

I was sexually abused for a prolonged period.

The blame for this abuse was placed upon my shoulders like some sort of mantle of shame to wear.

I was then brain fucked by an organization that should have known better than to fuck with a child’s brain.

I didn’t receive the psychological help that I should have received.

In fact, my father’s methods of dealing with my issues were the exact opposite of what I required.

Do I really want to live for another 20 to 30 years?

No.

Sure the escitalopram is doing a great job with my anxiety and my depression. But it hasn’t fixed them. They’re still there. They always will be there. Just like the memories of CFB Namao, of P.S., the visits to the chapel, of the abuse, of Captain Totzke, of Alberta social services, of my father’s anger and temper. Those will be with me until the day I die.

I’m single. I’ve never really been attached to anyone. I have no family to speak of. I have no one dependent on me.

Death, I am not afraid of. It’s the dying that I’m afraid of.

When you’re dead, that’s it. You’re dead. There is no happiness. There is no sadness. There are no memories. There is no regret. There is nothing. You don’t exist anymore. You don’t feel anymore. You don’t think. You don’t contemplate. You sure won’t be aware that you’re dead. And no, you won’t feel your corpse decompose.

Everything that you felt, saw, heard, touched, tasted, learnt, dreamt about, longed for, or cherished dies along with you.

Existing longer than you need to in the hopes that you’ll eventually find some supposed meaning in life is pointless, especially if existing brings pain and not joy.

You don’t get extra bonus points for enduring life longer than you needed to.

I am an atheist. I do not believe in a supreme being, an afterlife, a heaven, a hell, or a purgatory. I do not believe in reincarnation.

Dying is the hard part of death. Transposing from living to dead is often quite painful and traumatic. I’ve seen the end result of vehicle collisions. I’ve been aware of failed suicide attempts. I’ve seen people slowly die from brain injuries and strokes. I’ve known people who have died from incurable disease.

Life itself is not special. There are over 7.5 billion humans on the planet right now.

The value of human life varies depending on the situation. If a car driver makes a right hand turn on a red light and strikes a pedestrian, ooopsie.

If I’m out riding my bicycle and a car driver runs a stop sign and kills me but didn’t have the intention of killing me, ooopsie.

Society seems more than willing to tolerate deaths from motor vehicle collisions as a small price to pay for the convenience of fast travel.

How many lives have been lost in civilian aviation due to bad designs (737MAX) or a cutback in maintenance (Alaska Airlines)?

How many innocent civilian lives were lost in wars since the year 2000 due to bad intelligence and questionable motives?

How many people have died due to simple preventable diseases?

How many people have died from starvation?

Even when it comes to drug users, society seems to have little concern.

There seem to be only two times when a human life is lost that society loses its collective marbles. Murder or Suicide.

When it comes to murder, murder is almost universally reviled. The amount of revulsion shown is a sliding scale that seems to vary depending on who is being murdered and who is doing the murdering.

Suicide on the other hand is often seen as a selfish act perpetrated by someone just acting out for attention. Suicide is often seen as an overreaction to a silly issue. Suicide is rarely seen as the end result of events for which the person committing suicide felt that they had little control over.

My death will not be a suicide. Unlike a suicide, which is often random and unpredicted, my death will be scheduled. My death will be sanctioned by medical professionals, and my death will be overseen by medical professionals even though technically it will be me starting the dosing pumps.

Unlike a suicide, even a suicide with a note, there will be no unanswered questions about my death and why I’ve chosen death as opposed to living.

Everything will be explained along the way. There will be no chance for misinterpretations.

When I go, there will be no loose strings. Everything that needs to be closed off and addressed will be closed off and addressed.

You’re all more than welcome to come along with me on this journey.

Not all of the posts on my blog will be about my death. But I will warn you that a majority of my posts will be. I was hushed up about the child sexual abuse on Canadian Forces Base Namao. I will not hush up about my death.

Remember this, all of our journeys end with our own death. Mine will only be different in the sense that I am going to hopefully be able to schedule mine and choose the location.

Defending myself

One of the oddest things about growing up in Richard’s house is how defending myself often put me at the risk of being on the receiving end of Richard’s rage.

Being a child with severe depression and severe anxiety meant that I liked to keep to myself a lot. There were two boys on Canadian Forces Base Downsview that used to take extreme pleasure in beating me up. One of the kids lived at the end of the row house that I lived in. And we both attended Pierre Laporte Junior High. This kid I’ll refer to as “G”. The other kid that “G” hung out with was “S”.

Military bases were like the proverbial “company town”. Everybody knew everybody’s business and everybody knew everybody’s issues. If you came from one of the many dysfunctional families that lived on military bases in Canada, you may as well have had a scarlett D tattooed on your forehead.

There were four kids that attended Pierre Laporte Junior High that made my life a living hell to the point that one more than one occasion I contemplated stepping in front of the CN train that ran through the middle of the base just behind the PMQs or even the TTC subway train. “G”, “S”, “R.K.”, and “R.A.”

And the thing was, these four would often gang up on me. So it was never a fair one-on-one fight.

These four and their girlfriends were always taunting me about my lack of a girlfriend and my apparent “funny walk”. Also, my father’s frequent anger outbursts and the domestic dispute which occurred in the summer of 1985 seemed to feed these kids even more.

On one occasion I was coming home from school when both “G” and “S” caught me behind Downsview Secondary School. What I didn’t anticipate was that my only friend at the time, John, saw what was happening and he intervened to keep “S” out of the fight. I don’t know if “G” didn’t put as much effort into the fight because “S” wasn’t able to help him, or if I just realized that I had a once in a life time chance to fight back. But I landed a few good punches and “G” decided he wasn’t interested in fighting me.

When I got home my shiner was starting the develop.

Let’s not kid anyone. At that point in my life I was on the scrawny side. “G” was much more developed than I was. Christ, even my younger brother was taller and more muscular than I was. I didn’t actually break 120 lbs until I quit smoking in 1996 when I was 25. At the time I lived on CFB Downsview I’d be very surprised if I broke 90 to 100 lbs. During my adolescence my chest muscles and body fat were so thin that you could easily see my ribs.

I thought that Richard would have approved of me standing up for myself instead of getting the shit beat out of me as usual. Nope. I got a nice back hand across my face and he told me that I had to stop doing things to get myself beat up. He said that he was getting tired of me picking fights and then playing the victim.

I can only look back and wonder if Richard was projecting.

Projection in the psychological sense is where you take all of your flaws and superimpose them onto someone else.

In 2011 when I received my foster care records from the Alberta Government I would discover that both the psychiatrist hired by the Canadian Forces as well as my civilian child care workers had noted that my father refused to accept responsibility for his family, blamed others for his problems, felt victimized, expected others to solve his problems for him, often told conflicting stories, and often told those he perceived to be in positions of authority what he thought they wanted to hear.

Richard had already made it known to me at various times between the summer of 1980 and the fall of ’87 when I moved out that I was at fault for allowing the babysitter to molest my younger brother. As an adult I full well realize that this is the stupidest thing that Richard could have ever said. But as a child this cut right to the bone.

So was that it? Was Richard projecting all of his shortcomings and failings on me? Richard wasn’t home like he was supposed to have been and he left my brother and I in the care of his alcoholic mother. Did Richard blame me because otherwise he’d have to step up to the plate and take responsibility for his two kids being sexually abused on a secured defence establishment?

Richard would often “rage out” and get so violent, but then turn around mere hours later and forget all about it. Did Richard view me standing up to “G” and fighting back as me “raging out” like he was prone to?

I forget what rank “G’s” father was at the time, all I know is that he outranked my father. Was my father just afraid of catching flack from “G’s” father or from a superior of “G’s” father?

Richard’s refusal to allow me to defend myself has had repercussion well into my adult life.

Not being allowed to defend myself fostered a very low self esteem.

Not being allowed to defend myself taught me to appease others and just go with what others wanted as this would avoid confrontation.

This will always be a mystery to me as Richard is long since dead.

And honestly whether or not I ever got an answer from Richard would be pointless as the damage has long since been done.

A good doctor.

Well, today I had another telephone call with my physician.

I’ve been seeing him for a while. About a year I think.

I’ll call him Dr. T.M.. I’ve kinda mentioned these blogs to him. I don’t know if he’s checked them out. If I’m not mistaken he is younger than I am.

To be honest, I’ve never had a good relationship with physicians in the past but Dr. T.M. seems quite on the ball and is actually quite involved with my care.

I’ve had massive battles with depression for all of my life. One of the unhelpful doctors I went to a while ago wanted to know what was troubling me. When I started explaining to him what I had been through he told me to stop. He said he didn’t want to hear about problems from my past. He wanted to know what was currently bothering me.

Other doctors weren’t trustworthy or honestly just didn’t seem to care, period.

When I had my heart issue back around 2012 a family doctor that I started seeing at the time was far more interested in my piercings and if they hurt, or got infected, or if I was wearing them to scare people. I didn’t see him for too long.

As far as getting psychiatric help, I’ve taken advantage of some programs at work through my employer. But not to toot my own horn, but I’m a fucking basket case.

growing up in an alcoholic household with intergenerational psychiatric issues.
growing up in a household with anger control issues.
1-1/2 years of sexual abuse at the hands of a very confused teenager who was being groomed and controlled by a Captain of the regular force of the Canadian Forces
2-1/2 years of psychological abuse at the hands of a military social worker who was determined to cure me of my apparent homosexuality that I had exhibited when I was sexually abused for 1-1/2 years.
Blamed by my father for matters that were far beyond my control or responsibility.
failure to receive proper psychiatric care when it was indicated that I had major depression and severe anxiety.
As of this date the depression and anxiety have been allowed to fester like a cancer in my brain.

One of my issues with seeking psychiatric help earlier in life is the way my father and Captain Totzke pitted me against my civilian social workers. After that, I had very little trust or faith in “professionals”.

Also, there was my father’s reactions to my mental health back then. I was an embarrassment to him. If any of my illness started to show it would be a back hand or a spanking. He drilled into my head that I was just a crybaby having breakdowns as a means to gain attention. So it should come as very little surprise that I’ve had great difficulty obtaining help.

As I said before, I don’t cry any longer not because I have nothing to cry about. I don’t cry any longer because I’ve long since run out of tears to cry.

I am so fucking numb to just about everything.

Dr. T.M. hasn’t been judgemental once. He hasn’t fussed over my piercings nor my tattoos. When I told him about my literal breakdown earlier this year he had absolutely no hesitation in putting me on sick leave, and when the rest didn’t work on its own, he put my on escitalopram right away.

He has been quite open to my request to look into M.A.i.D.. If that’s what I want, then he’s willing to work with me starting next year when the the committee currently reviewing M.A.i.D. for psychiatric issues makes their recommendations to Parliament. Whether or not Parliament accepts all of the recommendations or just cherry picks the recommendations is yet to be seen. We won’t know until March 2023 what the requirements and rules will be.

Who knows, by then maybe by the time M.A.i.D. had been approved I’ll have changed my mind. I haven’t given up on alternatives. It’s just that I’m very pragmatic and realistic. Maybe the drugs will make significant changes, maybe they won’t. The baggage and the unwanted visitors are still residing in my skull.

But it is nice having someone listen to my desires and the rational for my desires and not laugh me off as being melodramatic silly.

Welfare.

Just recounting my times on welfare.

Okay, so this topic came up in the last post, and I thought what the hell if I’m writing the story of my life can’t do it without mentioning this.

I have in fact collected welfare a few time in life.

I’ve also collected U.I. and E.I. a few times in life as well.

The first time that I collected welfare was in Edmonton, AB. I forget the exact dates and my tax records aren’t exactly clear, but I was on welfare from around September of 1991 until February of 1992.

The thing I remember the most about applying is (a) how fucking humiliating it was, and (b) because I had been born in Nova Scotia, Alberta was willing to buy me a plane ticket “back home”. I say “back home” as I hadn’t lived in Nova Scotia since I was 5 years old.

Why didn’t I call my father for money? There is no fucking way on Earth I would have ever called him asking for money. You just learnt as a kid to never ask him for money. You just didn’t. Most times he’d just answer that he was “broke” and didn’t have money, but if you could wait for a month he might have some money then. And this would be for amounts like $20. So asking him for $300 to cover rent for the month would have been out of the question.

Marie didn’t have much money, but she did help me out with groceries a couple of times.

Edmonton was a hell hole in the early ’90s. It was in the midst of a recession. I tried delivering Pizza, but that was super risky walking into some parts of town with money in your pocket. I did “dial-a-bottle” delivery for a while. Same risk as the pizza though, but this time not only could they steal your money, they’d steal the booze too. I worked at a car wash. Nothing better than working in a car wash in Edmonton in the winter.

I moved to Vancouver in February of 1992. The job I had come down for ended up getting moved back by a couple of months because the two mechanics that were supposed to be leaving Lions Gate Lanes stayed for longer as they were having issues getting their venture going.

I applied for welfare in BC. Only thing is at the time unless you lived in BC for sixth months you couldn’t get welfare. I was given two options. A free bus ticket back to Edmonton or I could go stay at Catholic Charities Hostel for Men on the periphery of the infamous Downtown East Side. I chose the men’s hostel.

At the hostel you got a couple of meal vouchers. One for breakfast, and one for lunch. I would use the breakfast voucher and trade the lunch voucher for singles. Singles were single cigarettes.

I started smoking around age 13. My younger brother was smoking before I was. Richard didn’t care. By the time I was 18 I was up to two packs a day. By the time I hit Vancouver in ’92 I was still at two packs a day. Singles weren’t enough. So I ended up picking up butts out of ashtrays and using the unburnt tobacco to roll smokes in rolling papers. I was able to find piecemeal work, but I was only allowed to stay at Catholic Charities for 6 weeks. After six weeks you had to get out and find smoother place to stay.

Luckily the job at Lions Gate finally opened up.

I worked at Lions Gate from June of 1992 until June of 1993. The reason why the two previous mechanics left was that the owner of the shopping mall was not going to renew the lease for Lions Gate Lanes and Brunswick was shutting the centre down at the end of the ’92 – ’93 league season. I stayed on with Brunswick for the dismantling of the centre. I then got hired on by Larco to help build the new centre. When Larco cancelled the lease for Lions Gate Lanes, they thought that they would simply walk in and operate the centre for a couple of years until the redevelopment happened. The only problem with that is Brunswick had years of experience repossessing bankrupt bowling centres. We had Lions Gate Lanes stripped to the bare walls in 12 days.

This left Larco in a lurch as they had promised the leagues that there would be bowling for the ’93 – ’94 bowling season. But Lions Gate Lanes was an empty shell.

Warren Flanagan with Brunswick Corp said that there was a job waiting for me in Mississauga if I wanted it.

Phil had been hired on by Larco to oversee the construction of the centre. Phil called me and asked me if I wanted to help build the new centre. I said sure. Larco hired a company from the states to supply lanes, pinsetters, scoring equipment, and the rest of the capital equipment. It took about six week, but we built that 36 lane centre. The only problem was the pinsetters were a mishmash of used American and Japanese Brunswick machines. Some of them even came from a flood damaged centre in the states and were super rusted. The electrics were iffy on the machines and not a single one of them had been overhauled.

The bowlers were rightfully pissed off. The lanes weren’t ready for the start of the season. In fact, the lanes weren’t ready until about 2 weeks later. But the pinsetters were in such rough condition that they were having jams and blackouts non-stop.

One of the machines couldn’t detect standing pins. And this was the lane that the League President was bowling on. He told Phil that if the machine screwed up once while he was bowling on it he was taking the entire league and they’d move to a different centre. Phil begged me to keep it running. I tried to keep it going without having it shut down or sweep standing pins. Unfortunately I got my arm crushed in the machine.

After I got my arm free of the machine I stumbled my way up to the front and I asked Phil for a ride to the hospital. He told me to take the bus. I quit then and there. The next morning I called Warren and asked him if the job was still open in Ontario.

Because I had opened an U.I. claim when Lions Gate Lanes closed and we were all laid off, my claim was still open. When I went to the U.I. office a couple of days later I explained what had happened. They considered that I had already been through the waiting period and therefore they would get my payments underway right away.

With my final cheque from Park Royal Lanes and my U.I. cheque, and my savings I moved to Toronto in late November of ’93.

The job waiting for me was at Brunswick Mississauga lanes. I went in and met the manager. The manager said that he had heard excellent things about my from both Warren and my previous centre manager Wendy. I can’t remember the manager’s name, but I can remember the head mechanic’s name. Don W. The manager got on the intercom and called to the back. As soon as Don emerged from the walkway I could tell this wasn’t going to work. “I told you, no one from the fucking West Coast is going to tell me who the fuck I have to hire”. Don and the manager went into the office and had a yelling match. Don emerged and look at me and said “get your stuff, we’re going to the back, and don’t get comfortable because the first time you fuck up I sending you out the fucking door.” I lasted at Mississauga lanes for about three weeks. U.I. reviewed my termination and determined that it wasn’t justified. As my claim was in British Columbia they’d have to transfer the paperwork over. In the meantime I was now collecting welfare in Ontario. Once the U.I. office got the paperwork sent out it was a few weeks for the the processing to take place. Once that was done I was back on U.I. again.

To keep rent down as low as possible I had been staying at the Salvation Army down by Moss Park.

Toronto wasn’t great at the time. Job interviews weren’t leading to job offers. So I ended up heading back to Vancouver. The only thing I hadn’t counted on was the 6 weeks that it was going to take to change my mailing address. They would also have to re-evaluate my claim as I had moved to a different claims jurisdiction. And of course, they’d have to transfer my paperwork back to British Columbia.

So I ended up receiving emergency welfare from the BC Government. No wait period this time, but it would be clawed back from my U.I. cheques when they started showing up.

Why didn’t I call Richard and ask Richard for money? Not worth it. Not worth the humiliation. Not worth the degradation.

I ended up getting a room at the Salvation Army Dunsmuir House for Men. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was wrong with this place. Someone broke into my room and stole my knapsack and when I called the VPD the Sgt. responding laughed at me when I said I wanted to file a report.

Most of the men in this place were angry. And I mean really angry. Fights would start over the slightest issue.

In 2011 I would learn that the Salvation Army Dunsmuir House for Men was a Federal half-way house and housed men who had just been released from prison. At the time when I moved into the Dunsmuir I just needed a cheap room. No one ever told me that this place also housed freshly released prisoners.

I’ll save this for another post, but my return to Vancouver was when I tried to work up the courage to jump off the Lions Gate Bridge. Instead of working up the courage to jump off the bridge, I worked up a case of pneumonia.

I ended up getting work at a small bowling centre in East Richmond around the end of June. I was there until 1999 when I got into commercial property management. And as they say the rest is history.

So yeah, the first part of my 20s was very, very rough.

Which is why when I read Richard’s statement that he gave to the CFNIS 2011, I choked. He made it sound as if I kept calling him non-stop for money and that he had been giving me money whenever I asked for it.

Did the CFNIS suggest to Richard what he should say?

Was Richard really so keen to play the victim that he said what he said?

Was Richard just vengeful?

This will always be one of life’s little mysteries because Richard is dead.

Yes, I’ve collected welfare. And yes I’ve collected U.I. / E.I..

But I’ve spent less that two years of my adult life collecting welfare / U.I. / E.I.

Another way of looking at this is I’m 50. My first welfare claim was when I was 19.

I’ve been working since I was 16.

2 years out of 34 years is 0.058%.

I’ve spent less than 0.058% of my adult working life collecting welfare / U.I. / E.I.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This attitude still prevails.

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

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

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

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

And on and on and on.

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

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

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

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

Actually, no.

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

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

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

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

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