I spent 10 years in residential schools. This is what I want my grandchildren to know

This First Person article is the experience of Paul Dixon, a residential school survivor who lives in the Cree community of Waswanipi, Que. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

WARNING: This article contains details of abuse.

From painful, distant memories, I can only tell you what I remember and suffered.

For our childhood, those most vulnerable and critical years in life, we were forced to live a life that was a lie. The story is not mine alone.

Every fall, children were abducted from small, scattered hunting villages or reserves. The mob — an Indian agent, RCMP, priest and a nun — arrived, picking up Cree kids. After some shoving, shouting, dogs barking and crying parents holding on to their children, police pulled out their guns. They threatened our parents and grandparents with jail time if they didn't let us go. Some went to jail.

Parents could only watch as kids were wrestled onto buses, trains or planes. Family visits ceased. Couples hid from each other to cry.

I was six when I was sent to the Mohawk Institute Residential School run by Anglican priests in Brantford, Ont. Later I would move to the La Tuque Residential School in Quebec.

Dad said that with things left where we last played, it was as if we'd all died. Mom's heart was ruined forever. Our grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles lost a connection where children were once the centre of life. No more hugs and kisses. Little did we know, it would be the beginning of the end of many things in our Cree way of life. And the worst was yet to come.

Upon arrival, boys and girls were quickly separated for the year, older brothers in separate dorms. Rare quick waves to my sisters, but no Cree talk. Shamed, long hair chopped off and no role models around. Untrained staff barked orders; rough, vulgar wake-up calls and a rigid routine was the new norm. They carried pocket-size straps to hit us on the wrist or bare back.

Missing home hurt a lot so I lived in my own little world. No soft tents, just big brick buildings with steel stairs, high barbed-wire fences.

We witnessed sinful, criminal acts. I still freak out hearing bells, whistles, shrieks, sobbing. I hate buses, trains, planes. Anything can trigger a flashback: the mention of residential schools, the Queen, pope or religion. Nightmares, fits of anger, verbally attacking family in English or French still linger. Confused and scared, I often cried alone. I can still hear muffled cries of kids at night.

Poked with fingernails, pencils, pointers — they threw books, keys, broke wooden rulers over us, leaving scars. They slapped our heads, faces or ears, pulled our ears, nose, tongue. Red-hot hands puffed, cut by stiff straps. Cringe or move your hand, you get more.

One Cree word and you're forced to eat soap and strapped. Punished in front of others for nothing with bare fists or kicked. So many belittled survivors are still too humiliated to speak out now.

They taught European history, art and religion. We did the laundry, cooked or were farmhands — child labour. Can't become doctors or lawyers with that. The principals were priests, the teachers unskilled. Forced to watch The Three Stooges and cowboys killing Indians on TV.