FAMILY COURT USES PSYCHIATRIC LABELS TO TERRORIZE LITIGANTS!

I think it is a female thing, this business of going to a therapist.  Yes, I know real men have therapy too, but with women, I swear it's definitive to the gender.  We like therapy!  We like to chat!  We like to think that what we go through is so important that it requires counseling of some kind. 

Break a nail, go to counseling!  Have a sneeze, go the counseling!  Husband look at you cross eyed, go the counseling!  Kids bothering you, go to counseling!  In fact, I dare you to show me the woman who hasn't gone to counseling at one time or another, because I doubt you could find one. 

Now, I am all for doing what you can to deal with your problems, and if you are a protective mother, you have ten times more reason than most to be in counseling.  But the problem is, if you are in counseling, and you end up with a diagnostic label, what will that mean when it comes to your divorce and custody battle.  It will mean serious problems for you. 

These problems can be so serious that I have even advised people to just see a counselor and not tell anyone and not apply to insurance for reimbursement.  That way the whole enterprise is hidden and no one will find out about it.  Then you have this private consultant no one knows about whom you can use as a support for your struggle.  What does a psychiatric label do to you?  What damage does it cause?

LOWERED EXPECTATIONS:  When I first met with my divorce attorney, he was very eager to move forward with the divorce.  He told me about the aggressive strategy he expected to follow through on and the tough motions he intended to file at trial court.  Then the opposing attorney called him and gave him all sorts of information regarding the psychiatric label I'd been given years ago. 

Then, all of a sudden, my attorney told me he didn't think he could accomplish as much as he said he could previously.  His output in my case slowed down to almost nothing as he failed for follow up on motions he'd already submitted and he pretty much dragged his feet about the other tasks that needed to be done such as establishing a solid parental reponsibility plan or filing subpoenas in order to obtain financial information. 

My attorney wouldn't come to the phone when I called and wouldn't call me back even when I left a message asking him to do so.  All of a sudden I heard that I couldn't expect to achieve this goal or that goal.  In other words, I was supposed to accept much lowered expectations than I would have had to had I not had a psychiatric label. 

INADEQUATE PROTECTION:  Throughout the pendente lite period, my ex husband refused to provide the child support that he had agreed to, refused to maintain the family car that the children drove around in, and allowed our home to fall into disrepair.  He pretty much emptied the house out of all of the property that we had and transferred it out of state to a home that he was staying in. 

He continued on to neglect the children, refusing to care for them properly when they were in his care, leaving them out in public places unsupervised, i.e. leaving them in the car in the parking lot of a shopping center with the keys in the ignition.  When I brought these concerns up to the GAL and to my attorney, I was pretty much ignored, even though I put these concerns in writing and faxed them. 

Later, when the custody evaluation came out, the psychiatrist described my attempts to get something done about the injustice I experienced as an expression of oversensitivity, vindictiveness towards my ex husband, hypervigilance, and narcissism.   In other words, because of that original psychiatric label, they thought I was just making it all up.

PROLIFERATION OF ADDITIONAL PSYCHIATRIC LABELS: When I initially filed for divorce, I had one or two diagnostic labels that my therapist had included in bills submitted to my health insurance company.  By the time the divorce was finished, I'd had a broad range of labels thrown at me--controlling, domineering, histrionic--you name it, I was supposed to have it. 

I almost ended up with the diagnosis which is known as the kiss of death--Borderline Personality Disorder--but ultimately even though it was bandied about the label never stuck.

After a while, all that your attorney, or the GAL or the trial court sees of you are the broad range of labels that have been stuck all over you.  They no longer see the person and they become totally deaf to the story that you are telling them, about the abuse you've experienced, the financial fraud; all of that is completely eclipsed by the labels.  Because once you have labels, it becomes impossible for people to see anything else about you.

PERMANENT SUPERVISION FROM MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS WHO ARE THERE TO REPORT TO THE COURT:  The end result is that, once the custody evaluation in your case has been completed and you have taken a psychological test confirming additional psychiatric labels, the trial court will take steps to place you under permanent supervision by mental health professionals who are put into place to report back to the trial court regarding your behavior. 

This supervision can arise in the form of family therapy which is ordered just for you and the children, rarely for the abusive spouse, and also through the appointment of a parent coordinator or conflict manager. 

These people are not accountable to you; they are only accountable to the GAL and the trial court, both of whom are generally run by the abuser in your life.  In other words, mental health professionals simply become the means whereby the abuser continues to dictate to you exactly how you are going to live your life and parent the children, and if you don't comply, the mental health professionals working with you will simply label you as "crazy" and threaten or actually simply take the children from you. 

Every new mental health professional you and the children see provides an additional level of documentation that will misrepresent what is going on in your case.  Before you know it, if you don't do as you are told, you will only be seeing your children for an hour, once a month, under supervision, if you are lucky, and if your ex husband allows it. 

THE RIPPLE EFFECT:  And it doesn't stop there.  Once there is a document describing you in the light of psychiatric labels, those labels will drift out into the conversation of everyone associated with the case.  Your ex husband will mention it to all your friends and relatives and make reference to them in school conferences. Not only will you get a diagnosis, but all your children will have a diagnosis as well. 

It becomes one great big party for all, more reason to diagnose, more reason to label, more reason to put you and your children on psychiatric medication, more reasons for more therapy, more reasons to spend thousands and thousands of more dollars on mental health treatment that, trust me, will never end.

The rumors and misrepresentations regarding your mental state will continue to spread all the way down the line until you are surrounded by each and every one.  It is worse if your case goes to appeal and the judgements in your case end up published on the internet and then those diagnoses and misrepresentations end up being read by people throughout the United States and the world.  It never ends.  It is the gift that keeps on giving. 

SO WHAT CAN BE DONE?  Stay away from mental health professionals throughout the entirety of your divorce unless you are willing to pay them in cash and not mention them ever.  Avoid custody evaluations.  You don't actually have to have one.  I know of people in high conflict divorces who simply refuse to participate in a custody evaluation. 

Simply refuse to participate whenever you are called to do so.  Say it is against your religion.  Say anything.  But don't let those slimy mental health professionals, widely known throughout family court by people who truly know as "whores of the court", destroy your life.

There has been a strong consumer/psychiatric movement throughout the United States and the World, leading to the establishment of organizations that are ready and willing to challenge the assumptions and prejudices generated by the mental health system.  Those of you who are struggling with corrupt mental health professionals during your divorce may find such organizations helpful.  A few of the most well known are as follows:

www.mindfreedom.org
www.psychrights.org
www.power2u.org