The House of My Mother: A Daughter's Quest for Freedom

Jodi Hildebrandt had started a life-coaching program called ConneXions that promoted “impeccable honesty, rigorous personal responsibility, and vulnerable humility” (95). She was considered “something of a miracle worker” (95) in the Frankes’ LDS community, and a friend recommended that Ruby try her as a therapist for Chad. Their first Zoom call took place while Chad was grounded in the family’s hotel room during their Universal Studios trip. After the meeting, Jodi recommended that she continue seeing Chad weekly and suggested his parents send him to a 49-day “wilderness therapy program” costing $13,945 (96).

Ruby was “desperate” to solve “Project Chad” and delighted to be working with Jodi, but Shari had reservations. She researched Jodi online and felt uneasy with the woman’s “complete absence of any nurturing energy” (96). After more research, Shari learned that Jodi had grown up with two “emotionally closed off” parents who showed her “very little affection” (97), and that she was sexually abused multiple times as a young child. Jodi and her husband divorced in 1999, and she eventually became estranged from her children. She became a licensed mental health counselor in 2005 and began to specialize in “foster[ing] the thing she’d never had growing up—connection” (97).