Home Loan Schmodification - A True Story about “Home Retention Programs” and other madness in Sierra County, California

I will begin this story by acknowledging a truth. I should never have signed my name on the loan documents for my house in Sierraville, California, population 200. The biggest clue, when I went in to Eagle Mortgage in Truckee, back in February of 2007, was all the moving boxes around the office. "We're relocating," the loan officer said with the smile of an executioner delivering a last meal. Nonetheless, I sat down and signed papers the loan officer had so casually filled out with a "stated income" attributed to me of $9,000.00 per month, which was the amount I needed in order to qualify for this loan of nearly $300,000.00. But with my sweaty hand sliding down the pen, I signed them anyway. Talk about magical thinking...I imagined that maybe if I became a best-selling author and became a regular on Oprah, I could make that much money each month.
As a marriage and family therapist, I could not imagine earning that much unless I charged my clients $500.00 per session which I suppose some actually do. I decided to get a job with Sierra County as a senior mental health therapist in addition to working in private practice in order to afford my house payments of $2,000.00 per month. It was still unrealistic even with two jobs. The ink had not yet dried on the loan documents before Eagle Mortgage went out of business.

It was two years hence that I realized I was in such a hole that the only way out was to sell the house. I'd put over $60,000.00 into it which I knew I would never see in a sale. The confluence of trying to work full time with Sierra County Health and Human services under absolutely horrible working conditions, complete my PhD course work and keep my nineteen year old son from self-destructing, resulted in a major physical and emotional collapse. I left my job too physically ill and mentally battered to work, and crawled my way through the last quarter of my PhD course work with the aid of heavy anti-depressant medication, sleeping medication and daily therapy. Even then, there were many days I wished for death to take me.

My experience with Sierra County Health and Human Services was so insidiously violent that I still become nauseous when I reflect on it. It began about a month after my first day in September of 2007 when sat in my supervisor's office expecting to be given some direction on how to do the multiple jobs I was given outside of my job description. I was expecting to be given support and direction by this woman who was not only the Assistant Director, she was also a licensed member of my profession who knew the ethical codes around the supervisor/supervisee relationship. Instead of supervision, I received a detailed account of her affair with the county auditor and her impending marital break-up. Not only that, she took some sort of hideous delight in disclosing deeply personal information about other employees with the county. My heart sank as I realized her disclosures would forever poison our relationship. And I knew she would come to regret her frequent episodes of what I experienced as emotional rape and she would then make my life in my job unbearable, which she proceeded to do. And there was no remedy for me; the person with whom she was having the affair was the designated county official for handling complaints of abuse or exploitation by supervisors. My complaints to the director, the union and Sierra County were also dismissed. I was told basically not to make waves and just "let it roll off." I wish I had whatever personality trait is required to allow such abuse to "just roll of," but since I stand for protecting people against abuse of any kind in my work as a therapist and as a supervisor, I found it impossible to condone and began to suffer some severe psychological and physical effects. I still wonder how an agency whose mission it is to serve people in their physical and emotional struggles could abdicate its responsibility to protect its own employees for the sake of maintaining the status quo. I surmised that the director of this agency needed to remain in the good graces of the county auditor because he managed the money she needed to run her programs; how could she reprimand his lover?
Unfortunately, as I crawled away from Sierra County Health and Human Services with barely a shred of my sanity, the housing market simultaneously took a swan dive into the toilet.
I decided to be proactive and called the Bank of America in April of 2009 and warned them that I would no longer be able to make the $2,000.00 monthly payments as of June and requested assistance under Obama's Economic Recovery Act programs. After an hour and fifteen minutes on hold, the Bank of America told me they could not help me with a modification or any of the services offered under Obama's Economic Recovery Plan until I was at least eight months in arrears.
By June of 2009, I was well enough to work again and found a job with Inyo County for which I was hired. But because of California's budget problems they could not give me a hire date. It took me another two months to find a job which required a move away from the mountains to San Diego and a pay cut of about $15,000.00. The wait time between jobs created made my financial hole so deep I couldn't see the bottom. Eight months and a Chapter 7 bankruptcy later, I again applied for assistance with BAC's "Home Retention Team." I was given reams and reams of paperwork to fill out which I enthusiastically completed. Any phone call with BAC involved at least a 45 minute wait time on hold where I heard repeated messages "We're here to help! Want to avoid foreclosure? Bank of America has many programs for homeowners! Please stay on the line and our next available representative will be happy to assist you!"

In October, when the weather turned cold, I called a friend who is a home inspector and asked him to go to the house and turn off all the water. I also called the Sierraville PUD to make sure the water was turned off at its main source. The house was left in beautiful condition when I said goodbye to it in September. In the months leading up to my departure, I put money I really didn't have into a new fence, repairs and weekly yard work so the house would have every possible chance of selling.
"Goodbye my beautiful home," I told her kissing the front door. "If I can't have you, maybe a nice family will love you the way I did."

In February, when the house still had not sold despite a sell price of $150,000 less than the purchase price, I drove up from San Diego and out to the house with my real estate agent to speak to a prospective buyer about a short sale. We could not budge the front door despite the key turning easily in the lock. When I went around to look in the window, I noted what appeared to be a sheet of ice on the living room floor and furry stuff growing between the laminate floor boards. I forced a window open and crawled inside. I heard the sound of water gushing from the downstairs bathroom like a creek. I rushed to the hemorrhaging pipe and turned it off and knelt upon the water soaked floor surveying the damage like a person at the scene of a horrible automobile accident. I stopped the bleeding but it was too late. This beautiful woman of a house was near death and I could do nothing now except try to stop further injury to her battered body.
I swallowed back vomit as I phoned State Farm Insurance who told me my policy had "accidentally" been cancelled in September when I called to request a renter's policy for my place in San Diego where I was working. It was the agent's error, but since I accepted the refund money, thinking it was a refund from a different policy, they refused to accept any responsibility. It was a quick, unapologetic phone call from a State Farm adjuster who told me I should have been more responsible. I could not argue; she was right, I should have checked into it further. My only defense was the fog and heaviness that comes along with depression which often manifested in sleepwalking through my days. I was barely over the lip of the worst of it and setbacks sent me tumbling back into immobilizing, withering inertia.
The Bank of America issued its own policy administered by Balboa Insurance Company out of San Diego. I was so dumb with depression that I just assumed that was all part of the Chapter 7 proceedings and didn't bother to check out why Bank of America was issuing a homeowner's policy when I already had one through State Farm (or so I thought). When I made phone calls to the bank or to my bankruptcy attorney, it was all I could do to have a coherent conversation without unraveling into tears.
I drove back up from San Diego in March of 2010 to meet the independent insurance adjuster from Eagle Adjusters in Reno. He seemed incapable of doing his job as the contractor I brought with me noted. We walked through the house which stunk of black mold and was littered with dead flies. I wandered the rooms, once so beautifully decorated and cared for. I wondered if I could just live here anyway. If I died from the black mold, I might not even notice, but at least I could die knowing I had not abandoned a home that felt like my mother.
I waited and waited and waited for Balboa Insurance to issue some sort of disposition as to the adjuster's findings. Serv-Pro out of Reno had already gone in and done some of the tear out and clean up in the house but on April 11th, they informed me that Balboa Insurance was denying any coverage and the work had to stop. Balboa Insurance stated that the policy did not cover black mold nor would it cover any tear-out of asbestos. The house was built in 1853. Its walls and floors contain asbestos and the black mold was a direct result of the burst water pipe. Essentially, they were stating they would do nothing at all.
So the house stood in limbo, unsellable and uninhabitable from February on. I received one written notice in April from Balboa Insurance stating they were awaiting the adjuster's report before issuing a decision on coverage. I made repeated phone calls and left messages for the claims adjuster, all of which were unreturned until I left a message threatening to contact the company's CEO and issue a formal complaint with the insurance commission, which I did.
Meanwhile, the Bank of America, parading its "Home Retention Programs" as an accessible and user-friendly program to assist people like me in retaining their homes, continued to send me reams and reams of paperwork to complete. I happily completed all of it and turned it around with lightning speed, thinking they were really going to offer me a way to at least hang onto the house for long enough to sell it when the market reversed its death drop.

In late May, I received a phone call from another independent adjuster from Eagle Adjusters in Reno who said the previous adjuster dropped the ball and never sent anything into the insurance company at all. So he was hired to re-open the investigation and promised to be thorough and prompt in getting the necessary documentation in to Balboa Insurance Company so that the house could hopefully be brought back to life. In its current condition, it was not even a candidate for a short sale because of the black mold. That was late May. I am writing this on August 13th. On this day, I decided that I would spend a little money I managed to save up on having the grass cut and a lock put on the outside of the sliding glass door.
So I contacted my neighbor, Sara Wright about checking in on the house and recommending a person to do the yard work. She told me she could barely stand to look at the house because it had been so neglected. My shame deepened. I simply had no money to do anything. She recommended I call LaVerne Diltz who at 80 years old, still seems to have it in him to cut grass for folks on his riding mower. Since the grass is knee-high now, it needs a powerful machine to do the work. When I phoned Laverne, he informed me that he'd seen a notice in the legal section of the Mountain Messenger that my house was going to be sold at auction on August 19th.
I heard nothing from the Bank of America about its intention to auction the house; I was under the impression I was working with them to retain it until the insurance company did what they are paid to do which is repair damage to people's homes when unforeseen accidents occur. Once fixed, it would be worth more than the land it sits on and some nice family would come along and buy it at a really decent price. That idea made my heart feel less beaten and broken.
Upon hearing this news from LaVerne, I called the foreclosure department to inquire as to the validity of this news which they affirmed. They were indeed planning to auction the house on August 19th. When I asked whether they planned to inform me, they told me they were under no legal obligation to inform me of their intention to auction the house since it was in foreclosure status.
"But what's the point of going through all the trouble of doing a loan modification if your intent is to auction it anyway?"
The woman answered, "Are you living in the home?"
Exasperated, I told her I was not because the home was uninhabitable. I then launched into the story of what happened for what must have been the 50th time. I also told her I wondered why an insurance company the Bank of America was paying was doing absolutely nothing to make the needed repairs to the house. She was impotent in being able to address this issue nor was she interested in taking any action as every one of the dozens of Bank of America representatives I had spoken to over the previous months had been. She simply said, "Well, we are under no legal obligation to inform you of our intent to auction the property. Loan modification reviews do not prevent foreclosure."
Perhaps they have no legal obligation to inform homeowners that their homes are going on the auction block, but I wonder if corporations like Bank of America or Balboa Insurance or State Farm Insurance feel any ethical or human obligation to keep homeowners informed and apprised of their options and rights. And a little compassion wouldn't hurt either.
As I heard this news, I was driving out to Fallon to the reservation where there is no love put into any of the homes and no life in the land around them. I thought of how crushed I felt when I left my job at Sierra County and how utterly crushed a defeated I felt now as I drove to try to offer a family my services as a therapist. As I pulled onto the dusty road of the family’s home where I was expected to offer family therapy for a full two hours, I swallowed back tears. My pen exploded, leaving blotches of black ink on my hands and clothing and I was out of tissue. Somehow being in this place at this moment in my life seemed almost poetic; the Native American people whom I was about to serve have suffered hundreds of years of abuse and indifference. As a white woman, I have not even begun to touch that experience.
The callousness way in which corporations treat human beings who are losing their homes is literally heart stopping. I can only refuse to take on the same poisonous attitudes of corporations and employers whose stated missions to serve others do not even come close to their actual behavior which is self-serving, profit-centered and amoral.
My house will be auctioned off and my endless chest compressions and resuscitative efforts to revive her will cease. I have accepted full responsibility for overestimating my ability to pay for this house and although my heart weeps for so much at this time, I know that I put all the love and tenderness into a home that cradled many dreams. My reasons for writing this are almost entirely selfish. I lament not having the tenacity to stand my ground when Sierra County Health and Human Services should have taken responsibility to correct a blatant breach of ethics and justice. With a little advocacy and remediation, I may have been able to remain at my job and continue paying for my house, at least until the market rebounded a little. I am angry that this matter was not handled by the director in a manner fitting her position which would have been to remove her assistant director from her position and put her in some other position where she could not cause such harm. I am angry that when I presented this issue to a member of the county Board of Supervisors, nothing was done to see that my position was protected. It seems this is not an uncommon practice among employers in small counties and rural areas. The single most important redemptive experience in my employment in San Diego (which was also with the county) was that behavior such as I experienced in Sierra County would not be tolerated for a second.
The unselfish reason for writing this is to share my experience so that others in similar circumstances know they are not alone and we need to take a stand. I am disheartened and angry that these alleged "Home Retention Programs" appear to be nothing of the sort as many people have told me. In closing, I see more clearly that the problem with this country can be distilled down to a lack of love and lack of attention to each other and to ourselves. Our country suffers from the disease of indifference and an attitude that people are disposable. Reversing the momentum of this monstrous behavior requires unity and courage to speak out and to refuse to be cut-off, put on hold, bounced around and told we have no rights. This applies to the attitudes encountered in the public school systems, government and in our interactions with multi-national corporations whose syrupy sweet mottos belie their “we don’t care, we don’t have to,” behaviors.

The Wheelbarrow of Life - Could be related to something therapeutically valuable...

Today I fondly remembered my shiny blue wheelbarrow that I purchased from Home Depot in August of 2007. I also purchased a Honda lawn mower with Smart Drive which makes it easier for dainty females (and men who might not be very strong due to age or infirmity) to steer and push lawn mowers through grass that should have been mowed a week or two ago. And I purchased one of those weed whackers with the green string that could kill you if you are not wearing the appropriate safety gear, such as a suit of armor, goggles and army boots. When I loaded my beautiful blue wheelbarrow with stuff, I usually overestimated the amount with which I could safely travel across the yard because I did not consider myself a helpless and dainty female. I considered myself tough and resiliant despite the fact that I worried about how awful my toenails looked when I wore sandals. I loaded it with branches, weeds and bear crap; lawn clippings, unwanted thistles and rocks, and proceeded to push with all my might to "the pile." I was thinking this "pile" might somehow evolve into a wellspring of life-giving compost, just like the compost bins my brother in-law Richard created in his yard. Almost anything was compostable in Richard's bins and they often issued a nice plume of steam which meant the bacteria were having mad sex all the time and the ecosystem was fairly bursting with life. The earth will be saved all because of Richard's efforts and I meant to emulate him as much as possible.

But my wheelbarrow only had one wheel and I was only one small woman and despite my imagined power, I lost control of it because of my tendency to overload it. I tried to stop it, but its momentum gathered and it headed for the creek just as the lawn mower had when I left it idling for a moment while I caught my breath. It was my own damn fault; I'd waited too long to mow and I was mowing grass that exceeded my determination. My blue wheelbarrow spilled its contents all over the nicely mown grass all the way down to the creek and I had to wade in to retrieve it hoping the paint wasn't scratched.

My wheelbarrow was often loaded with shit from bears, dogs and deer until I began to treat the bear and deer shit differently than the dog shit. The bear shit was a symphony of berries and apples and I asked myself what Richard would do. I actually abbreviated that thought to "WWRD." Instead of loading the wheelbarrow with poo, I just got my shovel (also purchased at Home Depot), and used the "scoop and fling" method, which was kind of fun. I flung the bear and deer poo into the landscaped areas that I paid far too much money for so that the ecocycle could continue. Bear and deer shit, when airborne, distributes very well and all areas of the garden and landscaping benefitted from this method. That shit is loaded with bacteria plants can use. They recognize the code and they dance with delight as they are showered with berries and "bearly" digested apples.

The dog shit was different. That shit is just plain foul because most people feed their dogs from bags and the food is made of ghastly mixtures of things, just like what Kentucky Fried Chicken or McNuggets are made of. The farts alone from this type of product can kill a human when no other ventilation is available. So I threw the dog poo into the garbage. I am sure that two years hence, it still festers in the dump trying desperately to decompose along with Twinkies, Kotex products and Pampers.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes...the wheelbarrow of life. So today, when I fondly remembered my shiny blue wheelbarrow and the various things I chose to load it with, I thought of how I often load my life with things I think I can push but inevitably end up feeling exhausted, tits up in the creek, wishing I could just take a nap right then and there and stop working so hard to push things that don't really matter.

And I thought of how nice it feels to have a balanced load. I thought of the wisdom in throwing things out that simply do not belong in my life and the lightness I feel when I can offer things to nature that need to be recycled. I do not need to keep more than a few pairs of shoes; I only need one car and one bike. I don't need to stock up on things in case the world ends because if it does, I would rather just perish along with everything else.

I find that these days, I live life as if I might die tomorrow. I love deeply and I love with devotion; I don't hold back anymore and I take risks even though the fear makes me cry. And I let go of what doesn't really make sense to tote around.

If Not Now - an update on Sierra Agape Center

Placing an ad in the AT&T Yellowpages last March was nearly the most challenging thing I have ever tried to accomplish. Almost as challenging as trying to get the lead role in my nursery school play. I still resent being miscast as a shepherd when I should have been Mother Mary and having to wear a dishtowel around my head.

Anyway, it seems At&T was not particularly excited about Sierra Agape Center for Soul-Tending whose mission is to make therapeutic healing services available to people who cannot afford to pay the typical fees for psychotherapy. I decided to offer my services based in the Buddhist Paramita of Dana. There are eight Paramitas, each building upon the next, all intended to extend or open one beyond what is comfortable. Dana is the Paramita of generosity, which in its true meaning, is meant to challenge people to give up what they think they need and give more than they think they have.

I had to make numerous phone calls and leave several warrior-like messages in order to execute my business with AT&T. I don't think they really wanted my business even though I paid all my bills last year. I filed a Chapter 7 which was evident when they looked up my credit report, so I was written off as a bad risk. After my repeated phone calls and messages, I think they went so far as to categorize me as just another crackpot with a weird new idea. But persistence paid off and I finally received a return call from a weary representative who took my order but not without a prior warning that I would not be extended any credit and that I would need to pay in advance for my advertisement. In typical Orphan fashion, I marshalled my dignity and proudly offered my debit card number for my humble space in the AT&T Yellowpages.

Sierra Agape Center was a seed I was too weak to cultivate back in 2007 when I spent far too many hours alone in my old house in Sierraville having conversations with mice. I felt rumblings and callings to change the way in which my profession operated, which became more audible once I began my quest for a PhD in Depth Psychology, but the load of work and school and a badly broken heart left little energy for developing a shift in the way I practiced psychotherapy. Depth Psychological thinking and practice involves a sort of slow process of disrobing and then peeling one's own skin off until nothing is left but raw flesh and bone. It is an alchemical journey of opening door after door after door and greeting the thin line between the underworld and the world in which we live, which is like dancing on the sliver of a new moon. The choice is then to close one's eyes and leap into the abyss, hopefull landing in the small boat which carries you through the night sea journey, or the journey of the soul's whim and beckoning. There is nothing to hold on to, and one's vision no longer belongs only to the eyes, for all the senses are engaged, and the world becomes a landscape of shadows and vales where knowing by seeing is no longer dependable.

In this night sea journey, I was reduced to rubble and had intimate conversations with the question of life or death. When I stirred from this sleep, and found myself still alive, I decided there was no point in living anything less than a truly authentic life. For me, this meant challenging the prevailing paradigms in which psychology is taught and practiced. It also meant living with an undefended heart in all situations whether it be work, play or love. Love was and is especially challenging because I tend to embody the archetype of the Orphan whose shadow aspect is of longing, suffering in love, and of being bereft. However, the lighter side of this archetype is resourceful, abundant and capable of massive love and compassion. I would prefer to embody that. Liberating this aspect requires an undefended heart and moving against the tide of fear of loss.

It is not easy by any means, and will be a daily practice for the rest of my life. Although Sierra Agape Center is my heart's quest, I still struggle with the intertia of fear and the shadow Orphan's tendency to curl up under the roots of a big tree and sob with despair over how harsh the world can be. I still shrink into shyness and frailty at the thought of trying to promote my mission and pitching my ideas to potential grantors because it all seems so complicated. I often feel like Dorothy the Small and Meek trying to convice the wizard to send me home to Kansas when I need to feel and behave like Helen of Troy.

And then there is the reality of paying the bills. My colleagues ask me if my clients pay when given the option to donate what they can and what is affordable. I am delighted to report that all but one or two gladly pay what their pocketbooks can comfortably part with. I am genuinely touched by their devotion to themselves and to spending time with me. Those who say they have no money usually do not return for more than a second session. I am still suspending any solid conclusion as to why that is, but it seems that the majority of clients who seek me out really want to be fair and they are genuinely motivated to learn what they can from the experience of soul-tending. Others may not be quite ready for such a journey.

I could not survive on donations only at this point and am seeking sources of funding to increase my capacity to serve, but I am finding that I love this work more than I ever have. When I doubt myself, I turn my eyes inward to face my heart which asks simply, "If now now, then when will you trust in me?"

Enough about therapy...let's talk about my petunias

I like to surroound myself with beauty and color. I do not have a garden which is a good thing because it would die a horrible death from neglect, overfeeding or underfeeding of fishy smelling stuff that promises to make up for all one's horticultural deficits. So I have planter boxes and little pots in which I have planted petunias and lobelia. I really took a risk and mixed in some kind of pansy looking thing in some of my wooden pots. And because I am very much for sustainable living in any form, I also planted some cilantro and and basil, imagining myself cutting the leaves with my Martha Stewart shears and creating wonderful soups and sauces. I even have my gardening tools all arranged in a cute little basket out on my front steps so all the neighbors can see how devoted I am to my horticultural development.

So I happily placed my wooden pots of newly planted petunias mixed with pansies and lobelia on my porch. It looked so inviting and welcoming that I could hardly wait to drive into my driveway each evening to see the burst of color coming from the rectangular redwood planter boxes on the porch railing and the little pots along the side of the house leading to the front door filled with basil, cilantro and deep purple petunias.

You cannot imagine my dismay when I opened my front door one morning to take the garbage out. I always have a mild anxiety attack on Monday mornings when it's garbage day because I know he will be here any minute and I must have the recycle bag out and the actual trash out by 7AM or he might pass me by. And then he would think of me as just another lazy female who cannot be bothered to remove her own garbage receptacles from the bear box and place them on the street for easy pick-up.

So I always make sure I haul them out there even when wearing my most hideous pajamas.

Anyway, I opened the front door and looked forward to gazing upon my beautiful basil, cilantro and petunia pots only to discover that they had been ravaged. Nothing but stems remained of my horticultural children. There was but one small leaf remaining of my basil and barely a leaf of my cilantro. My petunias had been eaten down to leaves only, nary a blossom remained.

The culprit? An adorable little bunny rabbit who lives under the house. How could such an adorable little creature do such heinous damage? I was confounded,thinking that bunny rabbits only ate carrots and other vegetables like they do in movies. But petunias? And basil and cilantro? Was I dealing with a bunny rabbit with culinary dreams and a palate like Julia Child's? Mais il est tres impossible!!

But it was true...

My only recourse was to call Richard. Richard is my brother in law, who is not only a horticultural wizard, he also counts birding, mediation, qi gong, wine tasting and home construction among his many gifts.

"Have you tried elevating the petunia pots above bunny rabbit reach?" he inquired, as if I had not already thought of this tactic.

"Why yes, Richard, I have considered that option," I said. "However, I am looking for just the perfect object or system for this purpose and have thus far been unsuccessful. I saw two white bar stools at the thrift store which would have served the functional purpose, however, white bar stools did not fit in with the rustic decor I had in mind."

He was without any other suggestions which was dissapointing because I was certain he might have invented some sort of elixer that was non-poisonous yet extremely foul and objectionable to keep his own herbs and petunias safe.

"Well Richard, don't you use some kind of spray or deterrant for critters that eat your flowers and other important plants such as your cannabis?"

"Yes, but my problem is not bunny rabbits, it's snails. And I retard them."

"What do you mean 'retard'? Do you mean salt? Pouring salt on them?"

"Well, yes. 'Retard' is just the polite word for it."

"So you dissolve the snails with salt," I affirmed.

"Yes...I dissolve them. It is better than using other types of snail retardant products wihich tend to prolong the suffering," he said.

"Sort of like love," I said. "Better to use salt and dissolve the entire fucking thing immediately rather than using some other kind milder poison like lying or something..."

"Well I never thought of it that way, but yes."

"So Richard...I was thinking that if I put carrots in the pots, the bunny rabbits would eat those and get really full and then they would not be hungry for my petunias or my basil. What do you think of that idea?"

"Hmmm...well I suppose it's worth a try. It's just that they might tell all their friends and relations that you're serving carrots and you will be buying a lot of carrots which is okay because you can buy them fairly inexpensively."

"Well I think I will try that approach and see if it works."

Richard was supportive and enthusiastic about this unique way of handling the problem. If the carrot method fails, I will be revisiting the bar stool idea.

"Dear Dad, Today I am going to tell you...

...how I feel inside because mom never understands what I feel like deep down inside of my heart. I feel like I have so much madness and sadness boiling and festering inside of me that it is so bad. One time or maybe even a couple of times, I wished I was dead. There I said it.

I hope someday, my madness and sadness will turn into joy and happyness."

This letter was written by a twelve year old girl whose father committed suicide when she was eight years old. She has not been successful at connecting with her mother who is so consumed with her own problems that she cannot see beyond herself.

I have written about her before, this girl who dreams of becoming a flying dragon, or Pegasus the winged horse, or whose dream upon her thirteenth birthday is to become a shape-shifter. Her imagination sees beyond the world we apprehend with our concretized eyes and ears, and yet this wonderous love and reverence for imagination is perceived as mental illness and she is issued a diagnosis. She is prescribed medication that dulls her senses and subdues the images of her dreams and her imagination so that she does not create problems in school, or for her mother, who tires of her endless questions about the landscape she sees when she closes her eyes and the spirit of the wolf in her Cherokee ancestry.

Today she sobs uncontrollably in front of her mother and me when I read her letter out loud to her dead father. She is so hungry to connect with something that validates what her soul already knows. She lives in the realm where image and dream are reality and the world just gets in the way. Carl Jung would have taken her into his arms and wrapped her in love, assuring her that her intuition is indeed the authentic voice, a voice many of us ignore or silence because of its ill fit with constructed reality. He would have told her that she shares a special place among many poets, artists and dreamers who have been condemned as "insane," throughout the last three centuries.

She rocks herself back and forth as tears fall like a river. "Mom, you are not being the wolf spirit! Wolves are our feminine spirit animals and you are not being that to me!" she cries gazing up at the photo of the wolf on the wall.

I glance at her mother who for once is not yelling or criticizing. When she attempts to yell in defense, I hold my hand up in a gesture of silence, allowing her daughter to continue.

"I just need you to love me like my dad loved me mom! He was the best dad ever in the whole world....even the whole universe!"

Her mother defends, "You barely ever saw him! He was never here!"

My eyes fill and I try to hold her daughter's experience of her father while also containing her mother's perception of his absence.I explain that her daughter is cherishing a memory that offers a glimmer of the sweet love she craves. Whether her memory is factual is immaterial; it is the longing for love and connection that matters. It is simply expressed as the idealized love she experiences when she remembers her father.

Her mother escalates, raving about how her daughter steals food in the middle of the night, how she steals her jewelry to wear in front of the mirror just to see what it feels like.

My voice is almost a whisper. "She longs for you. Her stealing is symbolic of a hunger she is trying to feed. It is not for food or jewelry or money; it is simply this; She wants you to teach her about what you know very deep inside from long ago, about wolf spirits and dragons. She wants to feel a kindred with you, not with me or a case worker or social worker...just you."

I swallow hoping she will not turn away and tell me to leave her house immediately.

"You must teach her to love her imagination. You know perfectly well she is not insane or mentally ill. Our culture has segregated imagination and dream to fit a construct created by people who benefit by such things as diagnosing people with mental illness, namely the medical community."

She nods her head in affirmation. She recalls her own dreams and a dream journal she once kept, now tucked away on a shelf covered in dust. I notice that all her crystals and mandalas have been dusted since my last visit.

I let my breath out and her daughter looks into my eyes. I tell her, "You must be careful about whom you share these visions of yours. Not many will appreciate and understand what you know and see. You must learn to be the shape-shifter you wish to become on your thirteenth birthday, which means you must speak whichever language works in the reality you are in. Do you understand?"

She nods and says, "yes." her mother nods "yes."

She tells me about a recurring dream she has of a sea gull eating her older sister. The bird is red and blue, red symbolizing anger and evil, blue symbolizing calm and peace. She says the bird becomes more red with each recurrent dream and she is unable to speak or do anything to save her sister. She feels powerless against this force of evil and wonders if there is some power that she can access from her ancestry to save her sister.

She asks her mother if there is such a power in her ancestry. A power that she can access to reclaim peace and serenity. Her mother nods that indeed, such a power exists.

"When will I know it?" she asks her mother.

"You will know. It is not something that happens at a certain age; it happens when you are ready to know it," her mother says.

I sit in the room surrounded by dusty pictures of wolves, of grandmothers dressed in deerskin, and shelves of stones and symbols where meaning still lives among the symbols of American life.

I have only one or two hours per week and only so much energy in this tired body to give.

"Do you believe dreams come true if you imagine hard enough?" she asks me as I prepare to leave.

"Oh I absolutely believe that we have not even begun to know the power of our imaginations," I say and hug her goodbye.

If I did not believe in miracles, I do not think I would survive one more second in this work.

"Oh please, oh please," I pray as I get in my car to make the long drive home. "Let this mother and daughter find one another..and make it soon."

And now for my next act...

Therapist leaves an apartment after visiting a mother and daughter. Therapist decides she can no longer participate in this charade where children are assigned mental illness because its convenient for their parents. Therapist wonders about the ultimate consequences of simply being truthful about who the patient really is and refusing to pretend she is "doing therapy" with people who don't want it or need it. Therapist envisions herself working as a housekeeper at the Hyatt where nobody speaks her language and never being heard from again.

Therapist has a fantasy between Reno and Truckee while stuck in construction traffic:

"So, Lola, I'm thinking that it isn't actually your daughter who could benefit by therapy." Lola sits on her sofa in her living room which is so clean that I feel I should suspend myself over the furniture so I don't make a dent in the upholstery. All the items in her refrigerator face the same direction. The towels are folded, but she re-folds them every few minutes and scolds her daughter if one is incorrectly folded. She smiles at me after I tell her this.

"Oh?" she says forcing a worried smile.

I tell her that her daughter doesn't actually have a discipline problem. I tell her that it's too much to ask of an eight year old to organize all her dolls so that they face a certain way, that every piece of lint is picked up of the carpet and to make sure every book is in alphbetical order. And I tell her that this level of regimentation and pressure on her daughter will result in horrible disaster,I would guess right around 12 or 13, when she realizes she can loosen her chains and run away into the arms of her dark side. There, she will explore her own underbelly in ways her mother never thought possible even when she herself was a crack addict living on the strip in Vegas, cocktailing to feed her habit. This little girl of hers, now so clean and tidy, not a hair out of place, will suddenly turn and become very messy somewhere inside. Maybe a raging eating disorder? Anorexia to act out her starvation and to manifest how the quest for perfection has dried her out and made her wither inside. She will get smaller and smaller, closer to death, disappearing from this noisy world of folding towels perfectly and peering fearfully from her perch of perfection into the abyss of disapproval. Or maybe she'll burn and cut herself, marking herself as a separate being from her mother. She will carefully take the cigarettes and leave perfect circles on her arms and legs, alternating them with careful carvings which she will leave in her flesh, each one telling a story of unspoken rage. Or she might curl up inside and retreat, becoming withdrawn, closed and dark, like a snake preparing to shed her skin. She will be dusky and silent and in time, she will be unable to distinguish between reality and unreality. Or perhaps she will turn on all her faucets full force, spewing psychic blood and vomit everywhere, thereby reminding her mother that the dark side never goes away. One cannot exorcise it with three hours per days of Bible study, or take a dust cloth and polish and polish and polish hoping the shine will hide the shadow. She will be everything her mother is fearful of and she will not be discreet. She will smell like every dirty mattress she sleeps on with men she doesn't know and she will only live at night. By day, she will sleep it off somewhere while her mother paces and calls the police to find her...again.

Who the F**k do I think I am? And who do THEY think I am?

Yesterday was my day at a half-way house in Sparks. It occurs to me that every time I have to go there, I am not sure what it is I am supposed to do. I was given the instructions to "go there and do therapy," with whomever happens to be thrown into the mix that week. All the residents are boys 18 or older who have been released from kiddie prison. The "house managers" are a couple who seem only to be present to put food in the fridge and monitor the rules, which include curfew and cleaning chores which appear to me to be absent altogther.

These boys do not run to greet me exclaiming, "Oh goody, it's therapy time!" They are polite and they cooperate with me, but they are all understandably guarded and most definitely not really that interested in exploring their deepest emotions. They do not show outward signs of any mental illness, most have conduct problems arising out of horrible childhoods and institutionalized life. They all have parole officers and some have a crew of so-called treatment providers to help them launch into adulthood without boomeranging back to prison.

This half-way house is dismal. It's dirty, it has no soul or warmth, and the house managers are not interested in participating in any way to help me know what exactly it is that I am here for. I just know I have been instructed to "do therapy." I feel like a surgeon who gets scrubbed and shows up to the operating theatre ready to work. There is a patient on the table and the surgical teams says, "Just do surgery." "On what?" I ask. "We don't know...but do surgery." I ask the patient, "Do you know why I am here? Does anything hurt? Do you have a tumor I can take out?" The patient says, "No nothing hurts and I don't think I have a tumor. They just told me I need surgery."

I tear off my latex gloves. "Goddammit," I curse and leave the theatre, pissed off that I have wasted an entire afternoon preparing.

I walk into the half-way house after getting a phone call from Derwood the house manager who tells me I need to be there as soon as possible because he needs to go somewhere. And could I please change my schedule around to come earlier because it isn't convenient that I am coming later in the day. "I arranged it this way because Jose works until 4PM." I tell him. "Oh well that changed and he now has Wednesdays off." "Well people need to inform me of these changes," I say brusquely.

I leave a message for Edward, whose role I am uncertain of. He seems to be a case manager of sorts who is there a lot of the time. I have told him before that I can't really "do therapy" with people who don't want it. In fact I won't. It's a waste of time and tax payer money and it's unethical to excavate a person's psyche against their will. The boys are in the half-way house for up to three months to learn basic life skills, to get treatment for emotional and mental health problems if they need it, and to re-integrate themselves back into society. They are expected to find jobs or get into school, save enough money to get a place to live and obey all the rules of the house while they are there. One boy has Asperger's Disorder which is a form of autism, not quite as severe, but still, most with Asperger's have difficulty understanding social cues. They are eccentric and odd in their behavior, which isn't a bad thing, it just puts people off if they don't know. Although he is very bright, he has the classic spectrum of behaviors I would expect which means he is an anomaly here in this half-way house. He has weird tics and habits, which include binge eating because he has no impulse control; excessive masturbation because he sits in his room most of the day with his computer and nothing to do, and intrusive behavior with other boys, who, having just been released from prison, have no patience and no way of understanding him.

When Edward presents me with this set of problems with this boy, I tell him that he will not respond to traditional therapy because he does not know me or trust me and he will deny that he has any problems with food or masturbation. He casually told the other boys that he would like to have sex with the house manager's Chihuahua but she was too small. He eats without attending to cues that he is full and is unconcerned that he is eating other people's food. He eats until he vomits. Edwin would like me to perform some kind of therapeutic magic. I envision myself a surgeon again in the operating theatre. "Just remove whatever it is that causes him to want to have sex with the dog," the team tells me. My first thought is of course to go right to the most obvious source.

I tell Edward, "This client does not feel comfortable enough with me yet to have discussions about deviant sexual behavior and its consequences. Therfore, I suggest that you, as the person he feels most comfortable with, tell him that having sex with animals or any other living thing without consent or cooperation is against the law and unless he wants to end up in prison where he'll get plenty of non-consensual sex, he'd better knock it off. And furthermore, the kid needs to get off his ass and do some hard work for about eight hours a day; then he'll be too fucking tired to sit in front of his computer jacking off." Edwin blushes and shifts around in his chair. He wasn't expecting me to say "jacking off," I could tell. "And as far as the eating behavior, the medicine slows his metabolism and increases appetite which is even more reason for him to quit sitting around, so I suggest you get him into a fitness program as well. Got it? That's my "therapy."

I leave the operating theatre.

I walk into the grungy, disgusting kitchen where the other boys are searching for something edible. "So, Lozado, I hear you fucked up and didn't come home last night," I say. Edwin complained that he wasn't following house rules. Lozado is a tough kid. I weigh about 110; he weighs about 160, all muscle, teeth and memories of knife fights. But his eyes soften when I catch them. "Yeah...I was trying to get home but my bus transfer expired," he says in his gang-twang Mexican tinged English. We sit down on the dirty sofa. His father was deported the other day and he is uncertain that his mother will be able to pay rent. She has three other children including a daughter who at fifteen, has just aborted her second pregancy. Nobody is sure whether she did it on purpose, it happened in a bathroom at the mall. I ask him if it helps to talk. "No, talking don't really help. It just makes it worse," he says wincing. He talks anyway though. He talks about how the food is disgusting here; Derwood makes rice and beans without any flavoring. The kitchen is disgusting and there is never any food. "Let's go look," I say. We take a tour of the rotting food in the fridge and the layers of scum on its shelves. Tins of catfood with crusted edges, containers of putrefying salad dressing, the stench of soured dairy products make my stomach turn.

Lozado and Fish, the other boy,newly out of prison, are preparing to make chicken. The mother in me arises and the therapist leaves my body. I notice the fouled sponges and dish scrubbers sitting by the sink. "Those will kill you," I tell them. Don't use those to wipe counters or dishes, they are loaded with bacteria. Lozado says, "I usually try to find a rag and some bleach." I want to hug him for knowing this. "Good!" I exclaim, now fully engaged in kitchen coaching. We look at all the food that should be tossed. "Do you think Derwood would kill me if I threw all this shit away?" I ask. They laugh. I realize that what is needed here is a sense of community and a cooperative environment where evryone feels valued. "Does Derwood involve you guys in deciding the menu for the week and preparing meals?" No he does not. He makes the same fuckin' thing week after week. The cupboards are filthy. I see two boxes of the cheapest and least nutritious cereal there is, a container of white flour, a couple of cans of what used to be corn before it was robbed of its nutritional value by processing, and some Top Ramen, which has the nutritional value of a cardboard box.

So who am I now? Not a therapist. I am a mother who wants to create a home place. I imagine these boys would love a chance to particpate and decide about meal planning and preparation. I promise Lozado I would bring my cleaning gear and some real Mexican spices next week. He smiles. "Thanks. I feel better now," he says.