Chapter One
Beginnings
October 22, 1976, was a cloudy day, blustery and cold. The prairie wind whipped gnarly brown-gray willows and the myriad of beigey brown grasses to and fro, and the ponds in the countryside had begun to ice up. In Saskatchewan, it was normal weather, and the harvest was for all intents and purposes, finished. People were bundling up their children for school, and the ducks were feathering out into their winter plumage, becoming impervious to the icy waters in which they dabbled, fully prepared for the North wind that would soon push them as they migrated South.
October 22 was the day I was born,… It was a date I would look upon with great anticipation for years to come, until my mental health suddenly began to collapse– and it was a day in the season that was itself, a cause for celebration. Autumn was a wondrous time of hunting trips all around the countryside, delicious apple pastries mother would bake, and most of all– exhilarating adventures along the beautiful banks of the Shell River – a waterway that snakes its way through the Hislop family farm, on the way to its confluence with the mighty North Saskatchewan River, which is the river that flows past the house that my father built in 1985 in the city of Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. I loved going along the Shell river with my father, breathing in the amazing smells of rotting leaves, blooming high and low bush cranberries, and various other weeds, and dirt. Yes, even the dirt has a smell. It was a kind of sweet earthy smell, and the partridges when they burst into flight, made a distinct thundering sound with their wings hitting the air creating a literal sonic boom,…. learning of and experiencing these phenomena in nature was beyond exciting… each sense of mine was overwhelmed with the profound and precise beauty that dwelled in every thing. A partridge- the ruffed grouse- a “chicken like bird”- was so much more than that “chicken like bird,”…, so much more than anything I can say— for just the way the feathers formed and aligned into sophisticated and mathematically accurate shaped fractal patterns, patterns which are readily found all throughout nature, just that pristine preordained order of the feathering, was enough to make me stop and contemplate!…. “Who designed this?” I pondered,…. “It must have been God,…” I would say to myself, and I would feel a pleasant a surge of pins and needles throughout parts of my body, and then feelings of pleasure, thoughts of goodness and the idea of God, a God whom I thought was perhaps in charge of everything and perhaps was judging the actions of all people and then sending them to Hell or Heaven upon their deaths. Those were some of my thoughts as a youth. Perhaps God had created me too with the various qualities that I seemed to possess and God also was responsible for causing me to have certain unpleasant thoughts and feelings which at times in my youth caused me great torment,…. My beliefs and notions on God morphed over time and I will tell you all about that as I write.
I was born a large baby, and I always thought that size was important growing up. “What a big boy,…” was the remark I was lovingly told, and it made me feel good. I had two sets of living grandparents, Bob and Marjy (Father’s parents), on a farm near the Shell River and town of Shellbrook and George and Lilly, living near Prince Albert…. I also had three Great Grandmothers and my parents often took me to visit with them.
Strength was important to me from a young age. I watched cartoons every Saturday morning with great relish. I particularly enjoyed Hercules and the Smurfs, especially the minute details of the various characters’ faces, bodily musculature, and the intricate music and sound effects of it all… I thoroughly enjoyed those Saturday mornings….I loved storytime in general and often my mother or father would read books to me at night before bed,… I especially liked the story of “Rags” about a dog who protected his master one night when robbers entered his house, and I was filled with mixed emotions about the story and its implications- that the evil doers were never successful and that the good were always rewarded- I thought to myself that I naturally wanted to be happy, that I wanted to feel safe, that I wanted to be on the good side of things. I also would remember a very disturbing experience, that happened to me when I was about 5 years old, and think ; “If God rewards those who are good and punishes those who are evil, then why did that bad experience happen to me?”
Food was never scarce during my childhood and I ate heartily, thinking that if I was big then I would be strong, and from a very young age I wanted to be strong and if not strong I wanted to be virtuous. I guess because I just wanted to be loved. Strength and virtue were everywhere around me! My dad was strong, my uncles were strong, and my grandpas were strong…. Hercules was strong,…the Incredible Hulk was strong– I wanted to be strong too and virtuous….My father was incredibly virtuous– meaning he could do so many things with ease, and I admired that. I think I also, deep down, worried that I might not be as virtuous as him- as talented and as confident, and as sure as he seemed-…and this is an important point- he was so talented. He never ever hinted to me of any kind of weakness- he was “a hunter!” He “drove trains.” He had killed a large black bear that was pestering his Honey Bee hives (yes, he was a beekeeper too, selling honey on the weekends for extra cash on top of his already well paying job!) and then he skinned the hide off the bear so that the claws were intact and the skin on the head of the bear was stuffable and then, he had a taxidermist make him a Bear rug and he had that Black Bear Rug with the stuffed head and claws on display on the basement floor in the house in which my family lived at the time of my birth.
The thing was, with the bear skin rug, that I was frightened of the bears’ snarling face. The mouth had been set in a snarling fashion by the taxidermist and even though the bear’s head was obviously not dangerous- it could not bite because it was dead and stuffed, I was terrified of putting my hands in the stuffed bear’s snarling mouth for fear that it would bite me. In general I was a very happy child with a great imagination and great zeal for life. I was, however, greatly disturbed one time with a kind of moral dilemma that made a strong impression on me. This experience, although a touch embarrassing, is of utmost importance to my story.
As a young boy, perhaps aged 5, I was curious about the smell of my underwear or my body and its various emitting odors. I was also curious to see how my family members’ underpants smelled and so one day, I decided to smell the dirty undergarments of my family members from the laundry pile! As I was about to take a whiff, my sister walked by and said, “what are you doing?” She wasn’t upset,… she was just curious, and I – well I was mortified! I was so humiliated, embarrassed, ashamed and anxious. I dropped the underwear and I sheepishly said “Nothing.” Afterward, I immediately began to worry that my sister might tell mother, and that if my mother found out I wouldn’t be able to face her, that it would be so bad, emotionally, the thought of mother scolding me for trying to smell underwear- I could hardly stand it! I felt anxious and guilty- with knots in my stomach- and the recurring mental question “what if I can’t stop thinking this?”- I started having those thoughts and feelings as soon as my sister caught me ‘red handed’ – and they would not stop. The longer I fought the thoughts, the more unsettling they became– which is true to form for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder– I even had the thought at the time and did many times after the incident, of “what if I have this problem for the rest of my life? What would I do…?” With that question, and the absence of any real answer I was bound in the grips of an existential Hell! Already! In 1980! I was a tender little boy with a cute mushroom cut…. I loved my family- I loved my sisters! I loved my mother and father! I was so scared– and my heart was racing as I sat alone at the bottom of the stairwell to the basement of the house on 1386 6th Street East, facing the East and the Sun’s rays cheerily illuminated the dust in beams of light down the stairwell like in a movie, and my sister Kama’s room was next to me, its door shut tight on the right, and behind me was the laundry room–and further to my right the old piano with its intricate wooden grains and fine craftsmanship– and the house was still and everything was quiet– but yet in me a violent storm was erupting, my little heart was pounding, and that little stomach was churning and I felt so low and ashamed for even thinking these thoughts! I felt angry at myself and ashamed of the experience I was having, and I cried out to God whispering shamefully and yet desperately and fervently “PLEASE GOD, I LOVE YOU,… MAKE IT STOP!” I then waited in silence…. but the thoughts persisted and I sat there in a dilemma,…. I had to make the thoughts and feelings stop,… but I COULD NOT tell father,…, I wouldn’t be able to live with him knowing that I was this weak and this weird,…. This was how I thought at that time,.…
I struggled for a couple of days in that state,… consumed with the dilemma. How could I free myself from this guilt and fear…? Eventually I thought if I confessed to mother that I had wanted to smell the underwear that she would forgive me, partially because I had the will to confess, and the thoughts would stop, and so the next day I did confess, and the thoughts did stop, and I felt so relieved.
That is my first memory of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I would reflect on it often immediately following the ordeal but gradually it floated into the background and was only remembered from time to time. The entire experience changed me a lot. I decided right then and there that to avoid this kind of ordeal in the future, I would try harder to not make mistakes or keep any kind of secrets from my mother. From that day forward I became especially conscientious of my actions, wary of any kind of wrongdoing, particularly wary of lying or not telling the complete truth at all times. I was determined to not be a victim of the guilty conscience ever again. After the ordeal I reasoned to myself that it would be far easier to be extra careful and avoid any kind of similar trouble than to ever face another situation like that again.
If I had known the kind of life that was in store for me, the relentless punishment that I would experience from 1995 onward, my childhood would have been ruined. But I had no idea, and I carried on blissfully with a wonderful childhood, at home with my mom, spending time with my Grandparents, hunting with father, playing with friends, playing musical instruments, and reading voraciously in my spare time.