Ward Cameron Quotes

This unwanted black baby who spent 19 years as a ward of New York State had earned a doctorate in design fro Harvard University. I was Dr. Theresa Cameron

Even if I had convict ancestry, I wouldn’t be ashamed of it. As far as I’m concerned, the real criminals back in those days weren’t twelve-year-old boys nicking a loaf of bread or a pair of socks to ward off hunger and blisters. No, it was those who exploited them; keeping the battler in the gutter while they sat around in their manors, sipping tea and admiring portraits of their toffee-nosed great grandfathers.

For the artist who endured childhood shaming—over any form of neediness, any type of exploration, any expectation—shame may kick in even without the aid of a shame-provoking review. If a child has ever been made to feel foolish for believing himself or herself talented, the act of actually finishing a piece of art will be fraught with internal shaming. Many artists begin a piece of work, get well along in it, and then find, as they near completion, that the work seems mysteriously drained of merit. It’s no longer worth the trouble. To therapists, this surge of sudden disinterest (“It doesn’t matter”) is a routine coping device employed to deny pain and ward off vulnerability.

In August 1977 Canadians reacted with horror and revulsion when they learned that in the 1950s and early 1960s, one of the most eminent psychiatrists in the country had used his vulnerable patients as unwitting guinea pigs in brainwashing experiments funded by the CIA and the Canadian government. Behind the doors of the so-called sleep room on Wards 2 South, Dr. Ewen Cameron, the director of Montreal’s Allan Memorial Institute, exposed dozens of his own patients to barbaric treatments from which some never fully recovered. Operating under the belief that he could wipe brains clean of "bad behavior" and program in new behaviour, Cameron kept patients in a chemical sleep for weeks and months at a time exposing them to massive amounts of electro-shock and drugs such as LSD, and forced them to listen to tape-recorded messages repeated endlessly through headphones. Cameron was not alone in his desire to reprogram the human brain. The U.S. intelligence establishment found in him an eager collaborator, and funded his work substantially and covertly. Eventually, after years of stonewalling by the CIA, nine of the dozens of victims were at last given a chance to claim restitution for Cameron’s “treatments” by taking the powerful U.S. intelligence agency to court.

Sloane Sullivan, thirty years old. Pyro mage. Top ten percent of his training class. Anger issues, loyal, broken family, only child. Master of wards. Fischer Bahri, thirty years old. Cognitive mage. Interrogator, ability to not only read emotions but also push them, alter memories, hypnotize. Valedictorian of his training class. Loving family, one sister and two nieces. Cameron Jacobs, thirty-one years old. Storm mage. Protector, fierce fighter, relentless. Can manipulate weather within a seventy-five mile radius with the ability to create more localized storms. Generates lightning from hands. Severe childhood trauma. Fear of loss. Kaito Mori, twenty-nine years old. Shifter mage. Black panther: Bagheera. Heightened sense of smell, vision, and hearing. Oldest of five children. Struggled with depression in the past.

Many artists begin a piece of work, get well along in it, and then find, as they near completion, that the work seems mysteriously drained of merit. To therapists, this surge of sudden disinterest ... is a routine coping device employed to ... ward off vulnerability.