10 years later 📆⏳My first attempt at drawing a bird in watercolours on this day, November 5th 2015 (above) was followed by the “Superb Fruit Dove” (below).

This second drawing was a gift to my father and has since returned to me after his passing on November 5th 2024.

I travelled to Israel to bury my father on November 8th, 2024, and sat shiva—the seven-day Jewish mourning period—with his half-brother my father had not gotten along with, often describing to me how controlling he was, though I had had no choice but to contact my uncle when there was nobody else to help him. This uncle asked me to keep my visit under a week. During those initial days of mourning, he repeatedly positioned himself as an editor and tried to shape how I would tell my own story, with suggestions about how to “frame” my life for his circle of friends, as he did not think it appropriate to openly state I’d been on burnout for as long as I have.

Later, when I returned to Montreal, he repeatedly pressed me to sign over my hereditary rights as my father’s only child—supposedly to “help secure money” for me—but it became clear that his real interest was controlling both the narrative and the legacy. That intrusion, during and after a period of grief, added immeasurably to my distress.

Even more disturbing is that no mention of my father’s tragic death, nor the fact that my mother cut off contact with me three months after his passing, appear anywhere in the psychiatric or court records.

Those omissions are not accidental; they erase the very context of bereavement and familial rupture that any honest assessment would have to acknowledge.

The fact that I have in my possession a total of ten official records, which include a “Request for a Community Treatment Order for 24 Months” by my treating psychiatrist Dr. Zigman from the Allan Memorial Institute

Plus eight psychiatric reports by four psychiatrists and one intern

Plus a Superior Court Order for an Authorization of Care

… and that exactly none of them mention my father Zeev Shamir’s passing, though I’ve talked at length about how difficult it’s been for me to lose him to a freak accident that left him without the use of his hands — so that he was not able to reach for a glass of water or call me for the last two months of his life — is not normal.

The fact the Superior Court document goes into such details as:

“Ms. Shamir does relate a difficult relationship with her mother. She believes that her mother tried to electrocute both herself and her (as an unborn child) by cutting a live electrical cord with kitchen scissors”.

Which has been confirmed by my mother’s partner of 26 years in a letter the judge also had in his possession, yet makes no mention of my father’s passing is not normal, considering we know that bereavement for a close relative is a difficult process.

The focus instead has been on framing me as deeply unstable and inventing lies to support a psychotic episode narrative (“she believes she is immortal”).

If anyone thinks the antipsychotic injections they are forcing on me will make me less angry about the systemic abuse and violations of my freedom and autonomy, they are delusional and should have their heads checked.

I am not shutting up about any of it any time soon.

Thinking of you, אבא, you are missed.

(See my upcoming blog post on fascism.)

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• A Christmas gift to myself
• A few of the drawings I destroyed this year
• THE AKATHISIA FILES: PT 5
• THE AKATHISIA FILES: PT 4
• “I like rocks.”