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The journey back book4/6/2023 I shared a room on the sixth floor residence with another boy. So, in the summer of 1987, I moved into the Child Study Centre. Whatever the case, by age ten it had become clear that I could no longer reside at home with my adoptive family. I think they eventually settled on fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. They thought I may have been manic depressive, then decided I was likely too young for such a diagnosis. Attachment disorder, fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol spectrum disorder were all suggested. Many suggestions were made, but I don’t believe there was ever a firm diagnosis. Numerous attempts were made to find out what was wrong with me, including CAT scans, EEGs and various psychological assessments. My mother and I routinely rode the OC Transpo bus into Ottawa in a never-ending series of visits to doctors, child psychologists and psychiatrists. Meanwhile, my family and I had moved from Almonte, Ontario, to Kanata, a suburb of Ottawa. I was assessed and reassessed over the years. Things got so bad that, for a time, a lock was installed on my door and I was contained for hours of the day alone in my room. I would break things, smash holes in the walls and damage property in my intense fits of anger and rage. As a form of punishment, my parents had gradually removed all of my personal belongings to the point where all I possessed was a mattress on the floor of my room. Several “behaviour modification” techniques were attempted. As I grew older, my behaviours escalated more towards self-harm, violence and physical abuse of my family members and others around me. I was a “behavioural” kid, diagnosed at age eight with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and prescribed Ritalin and later Cylert (it was the mid 1980s). There were a number of issues that led me there. I was there because my adoptive family could no longer manage my disruptive and self-destructive behaviour. It was the summer after I had completed grade four. The building itself sat on the grounds of the University of Ottawa, at 120 University Private. The Child Study Centre was a children’s mental health facility, equipped and designed for children with a variety of psychosocial and behavioural problems. They’re not all bad memories, but still, they stand as reminders of a traumatic childhood and a time of immense and difficult transition in my young life. I’ll never forget my first day at the Centre, the beginning of a nearly two-year period that would alter my life forever. The journey back to where I began Finding myself at the Child Study Centre
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