Above is a picture of Brockville Psychiatric Hospital in Brockville, Ontario.
I was a patient a the Royal Ottawa Hospital (ROH). I was on the Whitney 4 ward. I tried to hang myself in my room and it was decided by my psychiatrist to send me to Brockville Psychiatric Hospital (BPH) .
In March of 1973 I was transferred from the ROH to BPH by an ambulance. It took one hour as the BPH is 60 miles away. I sat in the back of the ambulance, anxious not knowing what was in store for me. I was feeling very suicidal and depressed. I had been abused at home for l7 years by mother. She beat me, choked me, strangled me, threw me down stairs, called me all sorts of names and she abused my brother Chris and she abused our animals. My mom was sadistic
and I still am recovering from the abuse. I am 52 years old and I have been in therapy since I was 17 years old. Her brother my uncle Lyman molested me when I was 4 years old. My father beat my mother and he abused my brother and I emotionally and as well did physically abuse sometimes. I came from a very unstable and violent home where I did not feel safe at all.
My brother and I protected each other. My brother would pull my mother as she would be on top of me strangling me. He would try to call the police and my mother would pull the phone out of the wall and threaten to kill us if we told anyone. We were very afraid of our mother for good reason and did not tell anyone. We told a school counsellor at Chamaplain High who did little for my brother and I. Child abuse was a taboo subject and hidden in the closet in the early 1970s. No one talked about and very few people did anything about it. Today it is very much different and people do report child abuse cases and most times something is done about it.
Well the ambulance ride did not ease my mind at all but made me more anxious. I never went to Brockville, Ontario before and never knew anyone who had been a patient at the hospital.
The ambulance arrived at the hospital and a big red brick building. The hospital had big spacious grounds with large trees and many buildings, just off the main highway and near the water.
I got out of the ambulance and was escorted to the entrance of the building by the ambulance attendant.
