ASK ELLIE - Advice Columnist (THE TORONTO STAR)

October 13-2020

Ask Ellie 'There's no bad time to get counseling' Ellie Tesher Ottawa Citizen p.A ll Oct. 13-2020 web site: employeescasecanada.ca 2020 RECENT 7 Oct. Sub-heading: 'ASK ELLIE'

BY: Roger Callow Ottawa-Age 79 'Open Letter to Ellie Tesher' personal advice commentator

MESSAGE:

1) Normally, I do not print correspondence with columnists on my website which I keep up with on a daily basis regarding content in their columns. Here is one exception as it relates to a 'happy divorce' by a literate writer in which he asks: My question: You recently wrote that there's no "best time" to get a divorce if a marriage is troubled...but when is the best time for getting counseling? And when should you go on your own when your partner refuses to join you? Second Chance Happy.

2) Ellie replied: Getting counseling should be seen no differently than seeing your doctor for a pain or condition that's not getting better with regular remedies. Dealing with mental health concerns is as important to well-being as treating a persistently bad cold or flu. Ignoring them makes you feel much worse. In my late mother's homespun words (d. 1988); Good physical and mental health are important; but of the two, mental health is more important.

3) On occasion, I have written Ellie. For example, I pointed out to her that people whom write her do not have the necessary financial resources to see a therapist; that's why they write her. I notice that she has modified her column since to suggest non-cost therapy resources.

4) On another occasion, I asked her what happens to a writer with a serious problem but the letter for one reason or another does not get published? Former advice columnist, Ann Landers, would respond if the writer included a self-addressed envelope. Ellie's answer was to note that she has no specific regimen but, if she thought it necessary, would refer the matter unofficially to the appropriate authorities.

5) As a high school teacher many decades ago, when the topic arose in class, I always told rape victims (usually girls...1 in 6?) to get counseling immediately and not wake up years later to discover the fact that the assault has coloured their entire future relationships with men. Today hospitals are geared to that long-overdue message.

6) I belong to a professional dating service which I commenced in 2019 after 45 years of a good marriage; such separation not an unusual occurrence among seniors. My mother attributed that fact to seniors possibly having minor strokes in their sleep leading to a personality change. My problem began when my wife contracted a serious illness in which she has no immunity forcing her into taking a plethora of drugs. She would object to a cause and effect here; nonetheless, I submit that she was the one whom had changed but her mental condition was completely missed by our young female family Doctor who caused me much grief in our separation including my dropping this doctor. (Later, under a court order, I was given a full battery of tests including an MRI last Xmas which I passed. As to the dating service, it took me awhile to appreciate to noting on the forms that I was 'non-violent' as I suspected that many of the matchings were with women with multiple marriages and separations; possibly related to an earlier assault which was not treated. My parting from my estranged wife was at my request for legal reasons (SEE web).

7) What does Nazi Germany have to do with this article? In the 1930's, through the acts of Omission and Commission, Jews were targeted not only with antithetical laws but also horrific medical treatment in concentration camps. The point to be made here is that while the public in general recognize the sleaziness in the legal profession, they are blind to a parallel charge against the medical profession whom, from my own negative experience, I label as cowardly. Most people trust to their doctors not recognizing, for example, that to congratulate a medical doctor on his or her bed-side manner is an insult. For a broader example, in the 1990's, one New York family owned pharmaceutical hired sales people to convince doctors to prescribe 'hillbilly heroin' which, one and at the same time, enriched doctors - whom could see the ill effects - by creating a nation of addicts. Today that family is in disgrace with criminal court cases and has been expunged from society with even Universities returning their grant money. My point? The universal silence of doctors witnessing the effects of this scourge.

8) The 'Franco Alulio' story, the Deputy Minister of Transport - Medical has borrowed from Nazi Germany this scourge noted above by suspending my driver's license in November 2019 in a perverted untestable scam which negatively impacts the entire driving market. Can you get by without your driver's licence? No institution including repeated messages to ON A.G. Doug Downey (plus NDP, Liberal leaders and Media) will respond to a suspension given without reasons. The $10 million fraud action against him goes without a legal response. The publicized WE scandal has nothing on the crime committed here. Clinics and Doctors plus related institutions I asked for comment are seen running for the doors. Ellie is well aware of this scam and yet retains her silence as well which I do not excuse.

9) Considering that this is an Open Letter to Ellie, I should conclude by one challenge which I have left to her: namely, as she deals with cowardice on an individual level on a daily basis from many who made bad choices when they were young; to extrapolate that concept on a basis of Canadian 'national cowardice'; a topic never before enunciated. This is to be a continuing dialogue. For example, one U.S. film showed a U.S. military ship Captain to be a coward which is anathema to U.S. military values...so they made him a Canadian. We read on a daily basis of how the authorities in Canada fail on a daily basis to address institutional shortcomings (my IA-'Institutional Autism' where institutions speak only to other institutions with the 'individual' coming second best, if at all.) Whistleblowers of which I am one are to be punished which, in my case, led to my senior teacher 'lay-off for purported economic reasons' by the West Vancouver School Board under the imposed BILL 35 - B.C. 1985 (think imposed carbon tax); in an Act used only against this individual before it was withdrawn (Banana Republic Justice). B.C. teachers remain mute behind their own Union's 'sweetheart deal' in this matter; another application of national cowardice abetted by over 50 judges in every province but one in Canada - more national cowardice - in an unresolved legal case where no compensation has been paid. In brief, no Canadian legal Decision has any credibility with this PLACARD from 2004 seen in public for the last 16 years: STAY OUT OF A CANADIAN COURTROOM UNLESS YOU FIRST BUY THE JUDGE. COVID-19 concerns are bringing all these Canadian shortcomings to a head...last one out, turn out the lights....