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.
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.
Over the last ten years I’ve come to fully understand just how horrifically the kids from Canadian Forces Base Namao got fucked over by the leadership of the Canadian Armed Forces from May of 1980 until July of 1980.
And the one thing that the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service have made very fucking crystal clear to me is that under no circumstance is the Canadian Armed Forces or the Department of National Defence going to ever acknowledge that children were ever sexually abused on defence establishments by persons subject to the Code of Service Discipline.
In the 2020 final report of the Military Police Complaints Commission the MPCC remarked that the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service had in its possession the Court Martial transcripts of the 1980 court martial, as well as the 1980 Canadian Forces Special Investigations Unit paperwork for the 1980 investigation of Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae.
This is important for a few reasons.
On May 3rd, 2011 I told Mcpl Christian Cyr about the visits to the rectory at the chapel and the “sickly sweet grape juice” that P.S. would give to me. The next day Mcpl Cyr called me and told me he checked historical records and there never was a rectory at the chapel, the priest lived in other places.
Well, both the CFSIU paperwork and the court martial transcripts make it known that Captain McRae was known to have been taking children over to the RECTORY at the chapel and giving the children ALCOHOL.
The MPCC also indicate that it is very clear that the military police and the CFSIU knew that P.S. was molesting children as this is what initiated the investigation into Captain McRae in the first place and that Captain McRae’s defence counsel tried attacking the credibility of P.S. by raising the issue of P.S.’s habit of molesting children during the court martial hearings. McRae’s defence counsel also raised during the court martial hearings that P.S. had been sent for treatment with a psychologist due to his predilection of molesting children. The Court Martial transcripts describe one of the incidents where P.S., then 14, had forced anal intercourse with a ten year old boy behind the recreation centre in the “horseshoe forest”.
The MPCC also indicated that P.S. had a very lengthy criminal history for molesting children. One conviction in 1982, one conviction in 1984, two convictions in 1985. Three of these convictions were for molesting children while P.S. resided on Canadian Forces military bases in military family housing.
This is important as on November 4th, 2011 I was contacted by the CFNIS and told that they couldn’t find any thing to indicate that P.S. was capable of molesting children.
I don’t know who coaxed the statement out of my father, but his statement to the CFNIS in 2011 was easily disproved by readily available social service records. Was he coaxed into saying what he said, or did he say what he said to cover up for something in the past. Did he take a promotion in trade for keeping quiet about what happened to my brother and I. Or was it something else.
Anyways, back to the topic of this post, which is:
It looks as if the adult members of the Canadian Armed Forces are getting an apology.
I know that I’m going to probably sound crass and out of line, but these are people that CHOSE to join the Canadian Armed Forces. Yes, they shouldn’t have been sexually assaulted. But they had the choice to join the military.
Children living on Canadian Forces Base didn’t have that choice. The choice of where we lived was that of our serving parent. We we put on these bases into housing provided by and administered by the Canadian Armed Forces which was often located on secured Defence Establishments that the Canadian Forces supplied security for.
We were often sexually abused by members of the Canadian Forces. We were sexually abused by other military dependents. Our matters were investigated by the same defective military police that couldn’t protect the adult members of the Canadian Armed Forces.
I received two-and-a-half years of conversion therapy at the hands of military social worker Captain Terry Totzke due to the “homosexuality” that I had apparently exhibited when I had been abused by a boy twice my age and the base chaplain.
Military dependents are basically told be successive governments that we don’t matter and that we didn’t matter and that the abuse that we suffered didn’t matter because we weren’t serving members of the Canadian Armed Forces.
And people wonder why I’m depressed and why I’ve given up.
When that midazolam, and then the propofol, and then the rocuronium, and then the bupivacaine flow through my veins I will finally be free of this ‘life’, this shitty fucked up and rather meaningless existence that the Canadian Armed Forces sentenced me to for no other reason that I was a child living on a Canadian Armed Forces Base and I had the audacity to get molested by a 14 year old boy and a 45 year old member of the Canadian Armed Forces.
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.
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.
I have a feeling that my quest to receive medical assistance in dying is going to turn into a never ending journey of seeking out “treatment”. Not treatments that will do anything for me, but treatments that will make my health care professionals feel better about themselves for trying everything to save my life.
Death and dying are such taboo subjects in North America that it must perplex most doctors when someone comes to them asking for assistance with dying.
Physically my body is okay.
Mentally my brain is damaged.
The technology to “fix” my brain does not exist today and it will not exist in the near short term.
Yes, the escitalopram is “helping”. I use helping in quotes because the escitalopram isn’t fixing anything nor is it undoing any of the damage. It is numbing my emotions, which I guess is fine for a short while. It puts a limit on how low my depressions can go. It has limited my anxiety. But that’s it.
One of the things that will work against me I guess is that fact that I haven’t received much in the way of treatment over the years.
Being caught in the never ending war between my father and Captain Totzke on one side and my civilian social workers and child care workers on the other side left me with a severe distrust of anything to do with the psychiatric profession.
Growing up in the Canadian Armed Forces taught me that psychiatrists and psychologists were not to be trusted and that any outward sign of mental illness was a sign of weakness.
And yes, sure I was only a military dependant, but back in the ’50s through ’80s mental illness was a very taboo subject. And it was well known by the service members that you didn’t ever want to be seen as mentally ill. And that mentality would find its way back into the PMQs.
When I was younger, whenever I’d fall into a depression my father’s response was that if I didn’t smarten up I’d get a back hand or the belt.
And I have no doubt that what was perceived back then as a “temper tantrum” was nothing more than a depressive episode. I’ve come across literature that says that what was often though of back in the good ol’ days as a temper tantrum was more than likely a depressive episode.
Sure, I understand now that lots of things have changed between the early ’80s and now. For example, when my brother had his first grand mal seizure on Canadian Forces Base Downsview my father was adamant that I gave illegal drugs to my brother. He tore my bedroom apart looking for said illegal drugs. But we now know that epilepsy is genetic and that epilepsy is prevalent in the Dagenais genes.
We now know that young traumatized children can suffer from major depression and can suffer from severe anxiety and when these three issues collide in a young brain a tantrum or a fit often result.
So, here I am at age 50.
I have constant flashbacks to the years of 1978 through 1980.
I was seven years old. P.S, the babysitter was 14 for the duration of most of the abuse. When we were caught together in his bedroom he was just weeks shy of his 15th birthday. He was sexually mature, I along with most of the other kids he was molesting didn’t have a single hair between our legs. The only thing I had ever used my penis for up to that time in my life was to pee from. As I said, what P.S. was doing was anything but “childhood curiosity and experimentation”. P.S. was doing to us what Canadian Armed Forces officer Captain Father Angus McRae was doing to him.
Watching P.S. abuse my younger brother is forever burnt into my brain.
Watching P.S. abuse the other kids is forever burnt into my brain.
Watching P.S. abuse the little 6 year old girl with his fingers is forever burnt into my brain.
There’s still the flashbacks to giving a blowjob to the man in the sauna at the base recreation centre that P.S. provided me to one day.
Probably explains why I find sex to be revolting.
The beatings I received on CFB Namao from the other kids in the aftermath of having been caught in P.S.’s bedroom are still fresh in my memory.
And there are no pills or therapies that will undo that. You can’t undo that. That shit stays with you until the day you die.
The five visits that P.S. took me over to the rectory at the base chapel to see Captain McRae and which always ended with me drinking a tumbler full of wine will always be with me. Sure, I may have been intoxicated and completely out of it, but at some level I know that something happened to me. A military chaplain and his altar boy don’t just go around handing out wine to young children for no reason at all.
There is no Elctro Convulsive Therapy that will erase those memories without destroying other parts of my brain.
And even if they did succeed, then what? I’d have massive holes in my memory that would just leave me asking more and more questions.
I can’t escape my memories of Captain Terry Totzke, of Terry’s conversion therapy, of being caught between my civilian social workers who were trying to get me to open up about what home life was like and Richard and Terry telling me to keep my mouth shut.
When you’re nine years old and someone tells you that they have the military police watching you and that if you step out of line that you’re going to a psychiatric hospital for treatment, that really fucks with your brain.
When you are told as a child that the people whom seem nice (Pat, Wayne, Mrs. Washylesko) are in fact conspiring to steal you away from your father, it fucks you up.
I have always been very guarded with what I say, and I can’t see that about to change anytime soon.
My mind was poisoned against psychiatric professionals by my own father.
I was taught by my own father and Terry that psychiatric professionals were only there to “twist my words” and to use them against me.
I was blamed by my father and by Terry for the abused I endured on CFB Namao.
As Terry would say, the fact that I had been caught having sex with another boy meant that I was mentally ill. Sure, I was only 8 and the other boy was 14 and was my babysitter, but that didn’t seem to matter too much to Terry or my father.
I was blamed by my own father for issues with my brother because I allowed the almost 15 year old babysitter to molest my younger brother when I was 7 to 8 years of age.
As far as my father was concerned, my emotional issues were just me acting up and doing things to get attention.
So no, I’ve never really sought help in the past.
Yes, there have been attempts in the past. But the problem with those is I was never an attention getter. I never made my attempts in plain view. I was always able to get out of the situation with the realization that if I was successful the both P.S. and my father would get away with their lies and I would forever be the filthy homosexual that made the babysitter molest his younger brother.
And if I have to prove to a panel that I’ve tried to receive help, well that’s not going to be possible.
And then we come right back to the start.
Even though I’ve been through hell and have suffered for it, I have to beg to be allowed to die because someone feels that maybe I haven’t suffered enough in life and that I should suffer some more.
I have to suffer because my continued living will make someone feel like they saved a life.
The Canadian Forces National Investigation Service called me a “societal malcontent with an axe to grind against the military”.
Alberta Crown Prosecutor Jon Werbicki stated that is was very significant that I never told anyone in a position of authority about the abuse after P.S. moved away even though military police reports and court martial transcripts exist that show that the military police in 1980 were well aware that P.S. was molesting children on CFB Namao and that it was this abuse that brought Captain Father Angus McRae to the attention of the Canadian Forces Special Investigation Unit in May of 1980.
This “do-gooder” attitude sucks.
I understand.
Fine.
Sure.
Death is a “bad thing”.
I get it.
But so is sexual abuse.
So is untreated sexual trauma.
So is untreated psychological trauma.
The answer is quite simple if you don’t want people like me making requests to be allowed to die.
Don’t allow us to be sexually abused.
If we are sexually abused, don’t blame us for our abuse.
If we are having psychological issues, don’t hide us away out of fear that your secrets might become public knowledge.
If we are young, don’t blame us for the abuse of our younger siblings, especially if we’re half the age of our abuser.
If we come forward with our tales of abuse, don’t call us “societal malcontents with axes to grind against the Canadian Forces” and don’t conclude that it’s really suspicious that we didn’t tell anyone in a position of authority about our abuse when in fact police reports exist that show that the person we accused was well known by the police to have committed the crimes we accused him of.
Basically don’t shit on us for all our lives and then expect us to change our moods to satisfy you.
I will never get back what was taken from me.
I will never get to experience the opportunities that were removed from my future.
All of that was taken away.
With the right kind of help and care back in the immediate days after CFB Namao things could have been drastically different for me.
Until the day I die I will never understand why P.S. was treated like the victim and the rest of us were shat on by the Canadian Armed Forces. How does the abuser become the victim. Those of us abused by Captain McRae and P.S., shouldn’t we have been looked after better than P.S.? Sure, P.S. had been molested by Captain McRae, but did that give him the right to molest us in turn?
In 2015 P.S. was living at home with his father. His father needed him. His father blamed the Canadian Forces and Captain McRae for his son’s extensive criminal history for abusing children across Canada.
P.S.’s older sister D.S. lied about when the family moved off from CFB Namao as if she was trying to cover for P.S. as this obviously wasn’t the first time that someone from P.S.’s past had come forward.
P.S.’s younger brother covered for his brother as well. Actually the entire family lied about the younger brother saying they didn’t know where to find him, that he had moved to the West Coast years ago and that he never contacted the family. Turns out that he was living 10km away from P.S. and that P.S., J.S., and D.S. were in frequent contact.
My father, what did my father do? He lied to the CFNIS in 2011 and told the CFNIS that we never had a babysitter. He also “forgot” to tell the CFNIS in 2011 that his mother, our grandmother, was living in the house on Canadian Forces Base Namao and had been raising my brother and I as my father was rarely home. He knew it was grandma that hired the babysitter. He knew what the babysitter had done as he had frequently brought it up while berating me for allowing the babysitter to touch my brother. Did he trade his silence for a promotion back in 1980? Did he promise that he would never make a complaint on my behalf in trade for overlooking some of his disciplinary issues? Who knows. But there is no way that he forgot about grandma.
So yeah.
All of the sexual abuse, the physical abuse, the mental abuse, the turmoil, the lies, the neglect, and the subterfuge have left me with a brain that has suffered irreparable damage.
And sometimes the best option is to simply let go.
I’ve been shaving my head since the summer of 1991 when I lived in Edmonton.
That’s just over 30 years now.
I would have been 19 and I was living in my first apartment and I had a lot of time to myself.
Marie, my mother, freaked out when I went to visit her at the acreage.
All Richard would say is that I was obviously insane like my uncle Al.
There were a few reasons why I decided to shave my head.
One of the reasons that I shaved my head was that I really liked how Sinéad O’Connor was able to pull off the look. If you have a round head, you can pull off the bald look easily.
The second reason that I started to shave my head in the summer of 1991 is that I was already sprouting a lot of grey hair. Not just one or two hairs. It was noticeable.
The third is that the top of my head was already thinning out.
In my 20’s I’d occasionally let it grow back in, but it usually came off really quickly as the grey was getting very noticeable.
If you’ve followed along with my blog to date you’ll know that I am taking escitalopram for major depression.
The escitalopram has worked with my depression. But it has had some minor side effects. Nothing serious. But side effects none the less.
One of the side effects that I am getting now is acne. Acne on my face and acne on my head. Nothing serious. But enough that I don’t shave each and every day. In fact I haven’t shaved my face or head for about a week now.
My beard and my hair are pure white. There isn’t a single black hair on my head or on my face. Even my moustache is white.
I’ve never grown a beard before, and I really don’t want a beard, but I want to see what this looks like. I’ve never seen what I look like with all of my facial or head hair white.
I’ve got facial tattooing coming up in February. I’m going to get some portions of my face filled in with black blocking so I should be able to get about 3 months of growth before I have to shave it all off again for the tattoos.
I’ve worked at the hospital since 2005 and no one there has seen me with facial hair, hair on my head, or even eye brows. Yes, I shave my eye brows off, otherwise it looks like I’ve got two very hairy caterpillars sleeping over my eyes.
The only hair on my face that I never trim is my eye lashes. I used to trim my eye lashes when I was younger when I was in school. But that will be for another blog posting.
I’ll probably post a couple more pictures of my facial hair in the upcoming weeks and months. As I’ve said, I’ve never had a beard before. And I probably won’t again. But this be something different.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Beeshive 