Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a mans real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death. Henry David Thoreau, On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience There was an unfortunate incident in my youth, not involving rape or murder by me. It occurred because I suffer from manic depressive illness, modernly known as bipolar affective disorder. As a child, therefore, I had many problems with my behavior, and so was punished for it, usually by corporal punishment. One modern scientific study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, describes the effects of corporal punishment on a child as often irrevocably damaging the childs subsequent life. The study highlights a correlation between sufferers of child abuse and sufferers of mental illness. In effect, my life was destroyed because I was born afflicted by a debilitating illness, which supposedly can be controlled via medication. This study can be found by referencing the following link: https://www.scribd.com/doc/219858972/CMAJ-Child-abuse-study Table 1 describes the physicality of corporal punishment as child abuse. Table 2 shows that about half the time, some commonly accepted milestones of life success are not achieved by victims of child abuse, compared with those achieved by normal people. These include level of education attained, level of income achieved, whether or not married, and so on. I am unable to take post-secondary courses because of the poor quality of social interaction with fellow students. Accordingly, I live in alone in poverty, have no friends, and am unmarried. What Ive found, as welland you can attribute these observations to the paranoia which comes as part and parcel to my illnessis that the general derision of me and my name, no matter what Ive accomplished, is now almost a part of Canadiana. That is, for decades, total strangers remark well within earshot of me, either verbally or through writing (in articles, newspapers, etc.) on my supposed failings are a human being. In other words, deriding me has become such a part of the common Canadian lore that any faint reference whatsoever to my name evokes feelings of contempt. Needless to say, that being innocent in the first place, I am unhappy. These evocations are often exploited by such entities as political parties looking for a quick fix toby comparisonassuage their reputations. That is, by publicly denigrating me through innuendo and the sort, they falsely construct a more robust credibility, especially as perceived by the news media. I write this in order to make this record public. My conscience is clear. Is yours?