Telephone Call to Sister: April 1993 -- Social Security Disability Application

I had filed for Social Security disability on April 20, 1993.  Material pertinent to the Social Security application is found at the end of the post, and is highlighted in yellow.  On the day of the following telephone conversation with my sister, April 26, 1993, I hand-delivered to the American Psychological Association a copy of an ethics complaint against my former treating psychologist, William D. Brown, Ph.D.  I formed the suspicion that Akin Gump was contacted about the complaint and that some of my sister's references in the telephone call were symbolic allusions to the complaint: such as, references to incompetent doctors and the TV show Murphy Brown.

May 24, 1993
3801 Connecticut Avenue, NW
#136
Washington, DC  20008

Suzanne M. Pitts, MD
Dept. of Psychiatry
GW Univ. Medical School
2150 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC  20037

Dear Dr. Pitts:

Enclosed is a transcript of a telephone conversation I had with my sister on the evening of April 26, 1993.  I have already supplied you with a tape of the conversation.

I request that you review my editorial comments at pages 4, 6, and 7 of the transcript.

Sincerely,

Gary Freedman
____________________

[Gary Freedman:] [inaudible].

[sister:] Oh, OK.

[Gary Freedman:] Un huh.

[sister:] So, how are you doing?

[Gary Freedman:] All right.

[sister:] What’s new?

[Gary Freedman:] Not a great deal.

[sister:] No?

[Gary Freedman:] No.

[sister:] Oh.  Well, ah.  Not much new here.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] So, Suz, I think, is napping a tad.

[Gary Freedman:] Un huh.

[sister:] Yea, so how was that gay rally down there?

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] Did that have the town abuzz?

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.  I went down there.

[sister:] Oh, did ya?

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.

[sister:] Was it real crowded?

[Gary Freedman:] Yea. It interfered with my walking, ah . . .

[sister:] Oh.

[Gary Freedman:] . . . route.

[sister:] Ah, they were out in full force, huh?

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.

[sister:] So.  Oh.  We went out to dinner with Nedda yesterday.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] So, we brought the girls.  It’s enjoyable whenever they’re away.  So.  You know, they had the club on their car, and their car was stolen with the club.

[Gary Freedman:] What?

[sister:] [laughter].  Yea, the car was stolen with the club.  Ya know how they do it?

[Gary Freedman:] What club?

[sister:] You know, Ya ever see the club, ya buy it. And you put it on, um, the steering wheel.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh that, yea.

[sister:] Yea.  Well, what they did was, I mean she heard them, the horn blew in the middle of the night and she looked out, she looked out, she saw them stealing the car.  So, when they finally caught up with them, and Paul got in the car, and there was no club on the ah, you know, and he looked in the back seat.  Here, what they did, there was the steering wheel with the club on it.  What they did was, they just took the whole steering wheel off and brought their own steering wheel with them. And connected it, and off they went.  So it seems like the club is not gonna deter someone who wants to steal a car.  You just, I’m sure they know, anybody who’s a car thief, know you just take the whole steering wheel off.  Is that something?

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.

[sister:] So.  So. So, Ed’s Dad was over this weekend.

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.

[sister:] Yea.  He has this, eh, I told you he has Paget’s disease?

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.

[sister:] Yea, so he’s kind of in pain.  I mean, he doesn’t know he has it.  Cause you can’t really tell him  . . .  certain things, you can’t tell him.  He just doesn’t, I don’t know if he doesn’t understand what you’re telling, you know, I can’t understand why, but you can’t, because he’ll just, I dunno, I can’t explain it.  It’s not like he doesn’t believe you.  It’s, I don’t know, it’s weird.  So.  It’s just better left unsaid.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] Mer went to the library.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] She got a pretty good report card.  She, I think she got an A, three B’s, oh, no, no, she only has, two or three B’s and a C.  So she got the C in math, which she brought up.  So, she oughta be all right for the end, there.

[Gary Freedman:] Just coast along.

[sister:] Yea.  Coast along.  So, I.  Did you ever hear of the Stafford Loan?

[Gary Freedman:] No.

[sister:] Oh, well, it’s this, ah, they have subsidized and unsubsidized, depending on how much you need.  Ah, it’s a loan from the government, and you don’t have to pay it back till you’re finished school.  So, they don’t give you much.  I think it’s like $2,600, ah, a year, for your first two years, and then after you're successfully completed two years, I guess they figure, you know, you have your better chance of making it.  And so, ah, they push it up, I don’t know, to 4,000 or something.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] So, ah, you know, you don’t have to prove any need.  You just have to request it, I guess, and they give it to you.  So.  So, I just got the forms in the mail today for that.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] [Sighs.]  So, did you have a rainstorm down there today?

[Gary Freedman:] Yea, it was raining today.

[sister:] Yea.  Yea.

[Gary Freedman:] It wasn’t as big as they said it was going to be.

[sister:] So.  Well, first of all it didn’t get cold till later, I mean they had said, I dunno, I got the impression it was gonna get cold earlier, but, I mean tonight its supposed to go down to around 40.  But, it was warm for most of the afternoon.  So, did I tell you Arthur [Calhoun] had open heart surgery?

[Gary Freedman:] No.

[sister:] Yea, Eddie, eh, found out he was in the hospital, so he asked his secretary to call up, and they said, “We have no Arthur Calhoun here [laughs].”  But as it turned out, I don’t why. . . .  Oh, yea, yea, yea, He was under an alias [laughs].  Now you say, why would he check into the hospital under an alias?  But, I think somebody, Eddie said somebody’s out to kill him.  Now, I don’t know if he’s paranoid or what.  But, somebody’s probably is out to kill him because a lot of people do, ah, you know, I think, he did, ah, a lot of people dirty, so, eh, I guess it could be any number of people out after him.  So, he had to go in the hospital under an alias.  But he was only there . . .

[Gary Freedman:] What did he do to people?

[sister:] Well, like, how about his last wife who he, um she caught him in bed with another man?  (Compare (1) sodomy with a “stolen husband” with earlier reference to finding the (2) stolen car with the steering wheel in the “back seat.”  See p. 2.]

[sister:] Oh, Joy, um . . .  Oh, yea, what’s her name?

[Gary Freedman:] The Australian?

[sister:] No, not the Australian.  He broke, he never did marry her.  Then he met Terry.  Well, actually he knew Terry and then he went off to Australia and he met, eh, her, the Australian.  Then he came back and he got engaged to Terry and he got married, and they had this big wedding.  F’you know, fancy wedding at the Pennsauken Country Club, and all this kind of stuff.  And then, um, this was the first year we were here, March of ‘90.  And then ah, she, she went aw[ay]. She went to Florida, or something, and when she came back, she caught him in bed with another man.  That was the first time we had actual proof, that, you know, he was strange.  I mean, we never had proof before.  So, ah, so naturally, that kind of broke up the relationship.  And, ah.  So, her son . . .

[Gary Freedman:] Why?

[sister:] Why [laughs]?  I don’t know [laughs].  So, her sons were hot under the collar about that one.  I don’t think they’d go and kill him, I mean, to be honest with you.  But I think a few people, ah, he’s had business dealings with, ah, weren’t too pleased with him.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] So, eh, he, you know, he’s ah.  So, he was in the hospital.  I didn’t know what for, what, do you know anything, how long you stay in the hospital for open heart surgery?  He was only there for four days.

[Gary Freedman:] What kind of open heart surgery, did he have a heart transplant?

[sister:] No, ah, they’re different, that’s right, he had bypass, about three or four bypasses.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] So, he’s home, and . . .

[Gary Freedman:] So, he wasn’t watching himself after his heart attack.

[sister:] Yea, but that was, eh, what, fourteen years ago?

[Gary Freedman:] Yea, was he taking care of himself?

[sister:] Oh, then he had another heart, well had another heart attack recently.

[Gary Freedman:] And he still smokes, doesn’t he?

[sister:] Oh, smokes, and he, he’s gained and lost weight, but I would say he, cause he’s diabetic, too.  You have to remember that.  So, I’m sure that’s not good for your, for your, eh, circulatory system.

[Gary Freedman:] So, maybe if he had stayed in good shape he wouldn’t have had these problems.  If he had used his first heart attack as a warning.  So apparently he didn’t, he didn’t.

[sister:] Maybe, maybe, because he did smoke, right.  Yea, I dunno.  And then, um, like he, you know, he would be in the office, and he’d eat some junk, you know, and he’d say, “Eh, I’m not going to worry about it.”

[Gary Freedman:] How’s his weight?

[sister:] Well, I haven’t seen him.  I think he had lost weight.  See, and then he had the cancer.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh, that, yea.

[sister:] So, he was supposed to die, em, well.  He told Eddie he was going to die in two years, that was when Eddie’s mom died, in 1986.  So, and then, all through the years, he’s always been saying: oh, he’s almost dying.  And then one time I talked to him, and this eh, was, because he had said, you know, he had got a hot tub, a couple years ago, he had said this, because the doctor said, gradually, you know, he’s gonna be in a lot of pain, and, so, you know, it’ll be soothing for him.  And then he told me he couldn’t walk steps, so he moved into a one-floor house.  But, meanwhile, he keeps perking along, ya know.

[Gary Freedman:] Is he your age?

[sister:] No, he, April 9th was his birthday, and I think he’s about, I was trying’ to figure, cause when Mom, Mom, his, well his birthday is in April, he was, em, 36, when he had his first heart attack.  And that was right before Mom died, so, that was like, eh, December of, eh, ‘79.  So it means in 1979 he turned 36, so figure it out from there.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh, so he’s 50 now.

[sister:] So . . . So, he’s 50, yea.  So, he’s like 4 years older than we are.  Or, 4 and a half, whatever.  So, eh, yes, so, em, he just turned 50.  So . . ., yea, so . . .

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.

[sister:] So, that’s it.  And, his son’s [Christopher Calhoun] finishing up his MBA at, ah, LaSalle.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] So, ah, cause he did his undergraduate there, too.  So he liked it, you know, we ran into him at the, ah, mall.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] So, he was saying, he knew all the teachers, so it was nice.  He felt at home at LaSalle.  So.  And, em.  That’s about it.

[Gary Freedman:] OK.

[sister:] Yea.  So, what did you have for dinner?

[Gary Freedman:] Spaghetti.

[sister:] Oh. That’s what I had.  Whole wheat fettuccine with, em, baked yam.  You know, I cannot settle this yam/sweet potato controversy.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] Then I picked up a nutrition book that said that, eh, yams eh, that true sweet potatoes, that true yams, what was that?  Yams weren’t grown in this country.  I would doubt they would import yams.  I don’t know.

[Gary Freedman:] Did you find out about the, ah, about beta carotene content?

[sister:] Yea, well, that's it. Cause some places, yea, I think some of them are maybe misinformed.  After all, the people who do research doesn’t mean they do scrupulous research.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] Don’t you figure?

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.
__________________________

The following lines merit special attention:

[sister:] So then they have some nutritional books that seem, um, you know, really, ah, well one was a textbook.  So, you figure that would be pretty well researched [compare Freud’s observations regarding infantile sexual research as a precursor of later intellectual curiosity].  And they, there’s this other Mt. Sinai

[Play on “Sign (symptom) eye?”  In about April 1968, my sister, then 20 years old, consulted an ophthalmologist about an eye symptom of undetermined cause.  The elderly physician (Dr. Donnelly?), who my sister said was probably senile and incompetent, was unable to diagnose any organic cause of the symptom, of longstanding duration a constant feeling of mild discomfort as if caused by a foreign body.  Intriguingly, my sister apparently felt some shame in connection with the symptom.  I had accompanied my sister to the doctor’s office and she swore me to silence about the office visit.  Thus, another possible reference to the competence of a doctor.  Also, the following possible phallic reference (“big thick thing”) suggests the possible psychosomatic origin of my sister’s eye symptom (”Sign-eye”), namely, scoptophilia.)

[sister:] Book on nutrition.  It’s a big thick thing [phallic reference?].

[Gary Freedman:] [Sighs]

[sister:] It's, eh.  Well, it’s funny ‘cause in Cherry Hill [female sexual reference?] in the reference shelves, and you can’t take it out [play on “take out on a date?”] but in the Moorestown library, it's on the, um, you know, I never could find a definitive answer [compare earlier reference to finally arriving at a definitive answer regarding the sexual orientation of friend, Arthur Calhoun].  Then, another thing I can’t find is sweet potatoes.  But I think they only have them in the fall.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] So, I figure.  I’ll eat the other anyway, it’s got fiber [anal, or alimentary , reference?--symbolic reference to regressing to anal position because of frustrated genital satisfaction?--"can’t find definitive answer in the big, fat thing”].
___________________________________

[sister:] Right?  I mean I’m sure it has a lot of good things in it even if it's not up to par on the.  ‘Cause you know what I started to do, I don’t know if I told you this, every day at, when I have my sandwich at lunch I cut up a carrot.  So, at least I know I’m getting one, cause one carrot has an awful lot of beta carotene in it.  Oh, did I tell you, did I tell you what, what has a tremendous amount of ah, I don’t know if it’s vitamin A or beta carotene?  Polar bear liver?

[Gary Freedman:] Yea, it’s full of cholesterol.

[sister:] Yea, but whatever, I mean, but it has so much vitamin A you would probably, ah, kill yourself with one bite.  Like 5 million international Units or something.  It’s really highly concentrated.  But who would eat Polar bear liver?  I guess Eskimos.  But eh, so I thought that was kind of weird even to have that in a book.  I mean, you know, who would, it’s not like it’s a source of, eh, food that the average person would have access to.

[Gary Freedman:] [sighs]  Ah, gee.  You don’t want to deplete the Polar bear population.

[sister:] No.  No. [sighs]

[Gary Freedman:] All right.

[sister:] So, so do you watch Murphy Brown?

[Gary Freedman:] Ah, yes.

[sister:] Do ya [laughs]?  I like that show.  Boy, I can’t believe Suz is still asleep.  And then she woke up and she won’t be able to sleep . . .

[Gary Freedman:] I think May 13th is the last episode of Knots Landing.

[sister:] Oh, you like that, don’t you?

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.

[sister:] You watched that all through the years.

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.

[sister:] Yea.

[Gary Freedman:] Yea, it's sort a, I saw it like, ah, the 86-87 season was really good.]

[sister:] Oh.

[Gary Freedman:] And . . .

[sister:] Yea, I watched it years ago and I, I guess the characters have changed through the years?

[Gary Freedman:] Well, yea.  Like Sid died back in . . .

[sister:] Like Joan, Joan Van Ark, she’s still on it?

[Gary Freedman:] She got killed in the beginning of the season.

[sister:] No kidding.

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.  But she’s com . . .

[sister:] And how about Ted Shakleford?

[Gary Freedman:] He’s still there, Gary Ewing, Gary Ewing, Yea, he’s still, he’s like the main character, and, and Michelle Lee.

[sister:] Yea, yea, yea.  Oh, oh, yea, Oh, yes, that’s right.

[Gary Freedman:] Un huh.

[sister:] Yea, the staples.  Yea.

[Gary Freedman:] I think she was in it from the beginning, wasn’t she?

[sister:] Um, probably.  Yea, she was in it, yea.  Ah, boy.

[Gary Freedman:] Her and Sid.

[sister:] I mean I didn’t even know it’s still on.  I mean, I know, cause you’ve mentioned it, but I wouldn’t even know it’s still on the air.

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.  Cheers is going’ off.

[sister:] Yea.

[Gary Freedman:] Now that’s, that’s a real loss.

[sister:] Oh, you making’, you bein’ sarcastic?

[Gary Freedman:] No.  I love that show, I think that it is so incredibly inventive.  That’s one of, that’s really well done show.

[sister:] Oh.  Oh, you mean the dialogue, or something?

[Gary Freedman:] Yea, the dialogue.

[sister:] Yes.  Well, I don’t know, I never could take to it.  I liked Shelley Long.

[Gary Freedman:] Yea, she went off in ‘86.

[sister:] I never liked Ted Dan . . ., huh?

[Gary Freedman:] She went off in ‘86.

[sister:] Yea, I know, but I never really cared for it that . . .  I think Murphy Brown’s really good.

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.  That’s, that’s on a par with that . . .

[sister:] And you know what’s funny?   We watched an episode, and yes, dialogue was really funny, that um,  Mad About You?

[Gary Freedman:] Oh, yea.

[sister:] That is really funny.

[Gary Freedman:] With Helen Hunt and . . .

[sister:] Yea!  You know she’s like, she’s in so many movies . . .

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.

[sister:] And if somebody said “Helen Hunt” to you , you’d say, “who’s that?”  But, I mean, she was in, em, oh, I don’t know, she was in a movie we saw recently, I can’t think of which one it was.  Ah . . .  And then when she came on in something else, I said wait a minute, that’s the girl who was in that movie, and Eddie said. “No, it’s not” and I could see it wasn’t, and then we were in the store and she was in another movie.  She’s just like one of these people who you see all the time and I don’t know if she'll ever develop a name.

[Gary Freedman:] Helen Hunt.

[sister:] Yea.

[Gary Freedman:] Well, she’s developing it!

[sister:] I guess she is.  Yea.  Em.

[Gary Freedman:] Stell, you know what’s the most idiotic show, but it sort of grows on you?

[sister:] What?

[Gary Freedman:] Jerry Steinfeld [sic].

[sister:] Oh I, no, I like that, in fact, I was gonna say that next.  Yea.  I like him.  He’s funny.

[Gary Freedman:] Yea, it is funny, but I, I didn’t like that show at first.

[sister:] He’s funny, like odd-ball characters?

[Gary Freedman:] It is the most meaningless show.

[sister:] It’s meaningless, but it’s funny.  It’s funny.

[Gary Freedman:] It is.

[sister:] They are funny, and they are, eh, the, the acting, I mean, they, they’re comic actors, who are, comic, you know, comic timing.

[Gary Freedman:] Uh huh.

[sister:] They’re really funny.  Yea.  I like that.  I just don’t watch it that much.

[Gary Freedman:] Yep.

[sister:] But eh, yea, some shows are pretty good.

[Gary Freedman:] Hm.

[sister:] D’you ever, oh, I don’t know if you. . . .  Do you ever see, eh, well . . . . Do you get those Fox and all those?

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.

[sister:] Yea, em, Married with Children?

[Gary Freedman:] You don’t like that, do you?

[sister:] I didn’t but it’s, it’s so goofy, it’s so . . .

[Gary Freedman:] [laughs]

[sister:] You know, you can’t help watching it sometimes.

[Gary Freedman:] Now that Steinfeld [sic] show started out on Fox, I think . . .

[sister:] Oh, did it?  And then it went to the network?

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.

[sister:] Although they say Fox is a network.  Do you ever watch Beverly Hills 90210?

[Gary Freedman:] Ah, I caught it once in a while.

[sister:] The teenagers.  I like it, I mean, its good.  Now they’re gonna be graduating.  It’s not gonna be the same because they’re graduating high school. [My sister's daughter Meredith was graduating high school that spring, 1993.]  And Brenda’s going back to, ah, Minnesota, and they’re all going to different colleges in California, and they’re bringing some new people on, but . . .

[Gary Freedman:] Un huh

[sister:] Not the same.

[Gary Freedman:] Yep.

[sister:] Yea. So.

[Gary Freedman:] [inaudible]

[sister:] OK.

[Gary Freedman:] [sniffles]

[sister:] D’you have a cold?

[Gary Freedman:] I’m sort of stuffed up.

[sister:] Oh.

[Gary Freedman:] I don’t think it’s a cold.  I don’t know what it is.

[sister:] Yea.  Well, Mer has to  . . .  In fact, you know what, Mer went to the doctor for a cold, which she thinks she caught from her friend when they went, eh, you know, went on vacation together.  So she finally came down with it, and when she went to the doctor, he said, he says, “I don’t see tonsils every day of the week.”  He says, “But yours look awfully weird.  So, I’d like you to have ‘em checked out with an ear, nose and throat doctor.”  So, we’re gonna get her over to an ear, nose, and throat doctor.

[Gary Freedman:] [sighs]

[sister:] Oh, we had this doctor, but Eddie says he’s a quack.  So . . . [laughs].  We don’t go to him anymore.  But, he’s, um . . .

[Gary Freedman:] I know about them.

[sister:] Oh, you know about them.  This guy graduated from the University of Guadalajara Medical School.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] So, we’re just not too sure about him.

[Gary Freedman:] What’s his specialty?

[sister:] His specialty is, um, arthritis.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] Arthritic conditions.

[Gary Freedman:] Stell, these people who go to off-shore medical schools, how do they get into residency programs in the United States?

[sister:] I don’t know.  But I say to myself, if in the whole United States he couldn’t be accepted to one medical school, you know what I’m saying?

[Gary Freedman:] Uh huh.

[sister:] How bad could he have been?

[Gary Freedman:] Uh huh.

[sister:] And do you want him, see now, I, like Eddie went to him for something, and he didn’t, eh, wasn’t impressed.  And I went to him with, eh.  Well, I went to him with pretty minor things.  But I had that poison ivy on my face, which he really didn’t do a whole lot with.  I ended up going back to the, well I didn’t go back to the dermatologist, I was going to the dermatologist cause it was my acne check up, and he looked me over and he gave me another medicine.  So, he really, I don’t know if it was his fault or not, but I just don’t have too much confidence in him.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] Yea.  He doesn’t seem like a doctor, you know.  He seems, ah, I dunno, doctors are usually kind of serious, you know [laughs]?  This guy’s, eh, I don’t know . . .

[Gary Freedman:] Fun loving.

[sister:] Well, he’s sociable.  You know, let’s put it that way.  He's sociable.  But, eh, maybe that’s what kept him out of medical school [laughs] in the United States.  I don’t know.  But, eh, so, and you know what, another funny thing, which I thought about this afterwards, he doesn’t wear a coat.  You know how you, you go to a doctor, they always have a coat on.

[Gary Freedman:] Un huh.

[sister:] The white coat.

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.

[sister:] Or like one of the pediatricians, they’ll wear a, no the pediatricians wear a blue coat.  But, they always wear a coat.  And it dawned on me one time, you know, he doesn’t wear, he just goes and he comes in in his shirt.  And it’s, eh, it’s unusual for, maybe that's what, you know, it just an aura, its like a psychological thing.

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.

[sister:] So that you just, maybe he just feels, eh, it's pretentious, or, whatever.  You know.

[Gary Freedman:] He’s just down-to-earth.

[sister:] Yea.  He’s just a down-to-earth type of guy.  Yea.

[Gary Freedman:] Yea.

[sister:] But, eh.  You know, I wouldn’t want to go to him with a serious illness.

[Gary Freedman:] Eh.  Not like major heart surgery.

[sister:] No.

[Gary Freedman:] [laughs]

[sister:] No.  OK.  So I guess I’ll go, huh?

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.  I didn’t receive my financial assistance yet.

[sister:] No. No.  Well are you in dire need?

[Gary Freedman:] Well, you said you sent it out already.

[sister:] No.  I didn’t say I sent it out.  I said we’ll be sending it out.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] Yea.

[Gary Freedman:] Un huh.

[sister:] Yea.

[Gary Freedman:] Well, like, like, sometime in the near future?

[sister:] Yea.  In the near future.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh, like when the spirit moves you?

[sister:] No.  Well, you said you’re not in dire need.

[Gary Freedman:] Not dire need, no.

[sister:] No.  Well, we won’t let you get down to the dire part.  So, eh, yea.  What you applied for, is that SSI?

[Gary Freedman:] No, it’s disability.

[sister:] Oh.  Ooh, did you read that article?  There’s an article in the paper how, eh, claims, for disability, you know like your problem, not your specific problem, but like mental problems, have increased so much.

[Gary Freedman:] Why is that?

[sister:] I, they don’t know.  They’re trying to figure it out.

[Gary Freedman:] Eh.

[sister:] Unless people are just stressed out, but they said claims for mental disabilities have gone way up.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh, geez.

[sister:] So your . . .

[Gary Freedman:] So, I guess they’re gonna be extra scrutinizing with it.

[sister:] Yea.  Well,  you could pass the test, don’t you think?

[Gary Freedman:] Well, I, everything I told them was factual.  It’s not like I was making something up.

[sister:] And you have, you have doctors.  It’s not like you’re at home saying, “Gee, you know, I’m hearing voices,” or, I mean, you’ve been in, you know, you’ve been, you have a hi . . . , I mean you can document . . .

[Gary Freedman:] I have a history of . . .

[sister:] Well, I’m saying, you, you can, um, document that you’ve been to doctors for years, can’t you?

[Gary Freedman:] And that I'm paranoid and violent.

[sister:] Oh,  I don’t believe that.

[Gary Freedman:] I got a statement, says I’m paranoid . . .

[sister:] I know [laughs].

[Gary Freedman:] Why do you laugh at that?

[sister:] I laugh because, just because somebody says something doesn’t make it true, that’s why . . .

[Gary Freedman:] Well, why would somebody say that?

[sister:] Huh?

[Gary Freedman:] Why would somebody say that?

[sister:] To have justification to fire you.

[Gary Freedman:] But,  then I got, a le . . ., this memo from Dennis Race, from his confidential file, the . . . Not something he told me, but something he put in his file.

[sister:] Oh, for no one for no ah . . .

[Gary Freedman:] For, his eyes only.

[sister:] Which said what?

[Gary Freedman:] That I was paranoid and violent.

[sister:] Well, how do you have it if it wasn’t [inaudible] . .  .

[Gary Freedman:] Because he put that in the, um, in the Response that he filed with the Department of Human Rights.

[sister:] And how did you get a hold of it?

[Gary Freedman:] Well, when they sent me that Response that I responded to with my Reply.

[sister:] Oh. Oh, OK [sighs].  Oh, so, in other words, you feel that he personally felt that . . .

[Gary Freedman:] Of course.

[sister:] Oh, well . . .

[Gary Freedman:] Eh . . ., yea.

[sister:] I don’t know.

[Gary Freedman:] And then my psychiatrist said she felt threatened by me.

[sister:] Yea.

[Gary Freedman:] She said, “I can understand how people would say they are afraid of you.”

[sister:] Oh, well, that’s doesn’t make you feel too good.

[Gary Freedman:] No [laughs].

[sister:] [laughs].

[Gary Freedman:] No, it wasn’t an ego boost.

[sister:] No.  So, what days do you see her?

[Gary Freedman:] Tuesday and Friday.

[sister:] Oh, do you look forward to that?

[Gary Freedman:] Not really.

[sister:] No?  Oh.

[Gary Freedman:] In a way, I mean I don’t dread it.  I don’t have negative feelings, but I don’t look forward to it like when I was seeing Dr. Palombo.

[sister:] Oh.  So, what’s gonna happen when she’s eh, goes, eh. Graduates?

[Gary Freedman:] Ah. She’s gonna stay on.  I don’t know what happened there.

[sister:] Oh.

[Gary Freedman:] But she’s gonna be staying on.

[sister:] Oh.  And she wants to keep your, eh, case?

[Gary Freedman:] I guess so.

[sister:] Oh.

[Gary Freedman:] [sighs]

[sister:] Ok.

[Gary Freedman:] So, don’t let me get in too dire need.

[sister:] No, we won’t, we won’t.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] OK?

[Gary Freedman:] So, you’re not giving me any specifics?

[sister:] No, pretty soon.  You know, I mean, eh.  A week or two.

[Gary Freedman:] Oh.

[sister:] OK?

[Gary Freedman:] Yea, that’s fine.

[sister:] Yea. Yea. OK.

[Gary Freedman:] All right.

[sister:] Ah. Take care.

[Gary Freedman:] OK.

[sister:] Bye. Bye.

[Gary Freedman:] Bye.