I have been conducting research into legal cases involving people with Bipolar and have found this one regarding an employee who was dismissed for having a breakdown at work….

For details see the Disability Rights Commission website (UK organisation) http://83.137.212.42/sitearchive/drc/the_law/drc_legal_cases/impairment/mental_health_service_users_an/dismissal_of_person_with_bipol.html

Dismissal of person with bipolar affective disorder for alleged gross misconduct DRC00020

Summary: The client was diagnosed with Bipolar Affective Disorder. Her condition is adequately stabilised with medication. In April 2000 the client was dismissed from her employment for what her employer described as ‘gross misconduct’ after she had a mental breakdown at work and was admitted to hospital. The client considers that her employer discriminated against her by terminating her employment for a reason relating to her disability (i.e. dismissing her when she broke down at work) and failing to make reasonable adjustments to accommodate her particular needs.

Interest: The case highlights the issue of retention of a disabled person’s employment through the provision of reasonable adjustments rather than proceeding straight towards dismissal.

Outcome: ET held that client had been unlawfully treated less favourably because of her disability but did not rule that it was an appropriate case for the Respondent to make reasonable adjustments. At the Remedies Hearing on 23 July 2001 the Respondent was ordered to pay the total sum of £23,069.80 including an award of £8,000 (plus interest) for injury to feelings.

US Court ruling “Bipolar Disorder is physical disorder and not a mental illness” :

Implications for discrimination by insurers against mental health problem

(Article from Equilibrium website) http://www.bipolar-foundation.org/index.aspx?o=1354

This case revolves around the increasing and incontrovertible evidence from various areas of research that bipolar disorder is not ‘merely’ a ‘psychological disorder
It has reluctantly been accepted by individuals suffering from bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness) and other mental health disorders that they face problems with regard to insurance of all types. Life insurance, personal income insurance and motor insurance are all affected by history of pre-existing ill health of any type but some policies specifically exclude cover for the de-novo development of ‘mental illness’ during the term of the policy, treating it differently from ‘physical disorders”, as well as imposing larger premiums or imposing other limitations on people with known mental health problems.

A court ruling on this issue in the US which is of considerable significance in this area has not been picked up at all by the popular media or the professional literature either within or outside of the US. Although not of direct legal impact outside of the US, we believe this case raises important issues about the way both employers and insurers deal with claims arising from the development of mental health problems. It also raises more general issues regarding differential stigma of ‘mental’ versus ‘physical’ ill health. This case revolves around the increasing and incontrovertible evidence from various areas of research that bipolar disorder is not ‘merely’ a ‘psychological disorder’.

The Case: Fitts v. Fannie Mae[1]
The ruling by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia involves an employee of a major mortgage company who developed bipolar disorder and whose employee disability insurance provider stopped paying disability benefits after 24 months on the grounds of bipolar disorder being a ‘mental illness’. The policy provided cover until the age of 65 for physical disability. Ms. Fitts had worked for the company for 13 years before she was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1995. The employee- Ms. Jane Fitts, successfully brought a case against both the employer and the insurer arguing that bipolar disorder did not clearly fall in the category “mental, emotional or nervous diseases or disorders of any type”. The court awarded “prejudgment interest on all sums due her and the costs of this action “.

Three pieces of evidence were presented to back this argument, and two expert witnesses, including Miss. Fitts’ own psychiatrist, provided evidence:
1. Ms. Fitts’ father and brother showed symptoms of the disorder and so a hereditary predisposition coupled with having the disorder showed the genetic nature of the disorder, which must therefore have a physical basis.
2. Brain scans of Ms. Fitts showed excessive age-controlled atrophy of the left parietal lobe and abnormal wave activity on the left side of the brain.
3. Ms. Fitts suffered from physical symptoms such as headaches, chest pains, and insomnia that were ascribed to bipolar disorder.

Prof. Frederick T. Goodwin from the George Washington School of Medicine stated: “bipolar disorder is a physical illness because it is a neurobiological disorder that affects the physical and chemical structure of the brain”. He supported the claims listed above, also making the point that susceptibility to pharmacological therapy suggest a physical cause. Ms.Fitts’ psychiatrist maintained that while the clinical features of the disorder are mainly behavioural and emotional, they are due to physical changes in the brain.

Ms.Fitts’ psychiatrist maintained that while the clinical features of the disorder are mainly behavioural and emotional, they are due to physical changes in the brain.
The defence team argued that bipolar disorder clearly falls within the “mental illness” category because previous judgments had ruled it to be such on the manifestation of the symptoms and because it appears in DSM-IV.
This case was an appeal on a previous judgement against Ms. Fitts’s claim. The first filing of the suit focussed on violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the District of Columbia Human Rights Act (DCHRA), and breached certain contractual and common law duties. This court dismissed all of Ms. Fitts’ claims except her Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) claim. ERISA requires all policies to be written in unambiguous language and given that bipolar disorder did not clearly fall within the definition of mental illness in the insurance policy, the court was bound by the doctrine of contra preferentem, which has been applied as federal common law to ERISA. The doctrine states that in ambiguous definitions the ruling should be against the drafter of the contract.

Other cases
Another case ongoing in North America illustrates the unfortunate consequences of stigmatisation of bipolar disorder leading to an understandable reluctance by those affected to openly disclose to employers a history of pre-existing mental illness. The Canadian insurers of the television series The Dead Zone filed a suit against star Anthony Michael Hall to recoup more than $612,000 for failure to disclose he suffered from bipolar disorder, AP reports. The suit claimed production of the series, shot in Vancouver, was halted from May to August 2001 when Hall was treated for “bipolar affective disorder depression with psychotic features” for which the production company submitted a claim and received money. The case is waiting to be heard at The Supreme Court of British Columbia. (Source: Vancouver Sun)

In a case in New York, which does not have parity legislation, a court ruled that a disability insurance policy is not discriminatory because it provided only 24 months of cover for disability due to unipolar depression, rather than cover to the age of 65 years as it would have done for disability due to physical injury. The appellant, a Charlene Polon, continued to suffer with unipolar depression and has not been able to claim disability allowance under her policy from 1996. The case was made under the Insurance Law, and the court ruled that the law only protected from discrimination “with regard to her eligibility for and access to insurance” and not within the terms of the policy[2]. This case demonstrates that many instances of discrimination continue to occur and that even the covering statutes are unclear

For the rest of the article, follow this link:http://www.bipolar-foundation.org/index.aspx?o=1354

 Private mental health clinic states rising demand for services from stressed out city types. How will the stress of these people get passed on to their families, especially their children? Does the stress “fallout” from these people amount to the same kind of “fallout” from people who are already suffering from mental health problems and, if so, is their own parenting brought into question? I very much doubt it.  Do they fall into a different category somehow because their symptoms are caused by external events rather than internal chemistry? Probably. People will see these people as sufferers of the financial crises and, rightly in my view, feel sorry for them as they face losing everything they’ve worked so hard to achieve. (I don’t personally subsrcribe to the seemingly widely-held view that these people deserve everything they’re getting because it was their own fault somehow for being “greedy”. You simply cannot tar them all with the same brush.) Whatever your view on whether they deserve to lose out or not, their children don’t deserve to have this visited on them yet they will often bear the brunt of the fallout whilst they feel the strain and stress at home.

Yet, I think it highly unlikely that social services or CAFCASS or any judge would hold that these people are “incapable” of looking after their children as a result of any depression or anxiety resulting from these job losses. This depression and anxiety is likely to be looked on sympathetically by those people in total contrast to how they would perceive someone with a mental health diagnosis such as Bipolar who suffers from the same level of depression and anxiety. Would this then be discrimination?

Is this fair? What do you think is the difference between the effect of a depressive illness brought on by job loss compared to a depressive episode in Bipolar? Should they be treated as resulting in an inability to parent their children? If not, why not? If so, why? Your views and perceptions would be gratefully received.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/oct/08/mental.health.financial.crisis

The text of the Guardian Article:

An independent mental health hospital located near London’s banking district has identified a new disorder sweeping through the devastated ranks of City bankers and hedge fund managers.

The clinic says it is seeing more and more cases of “square mile syndrome”, a term it is using to describe stress-related mental health problems faced by City workers as the credit crunch chews through the financial sector, leaving a trail of redundancies in its wake.

Capio Nightingale Hospital, a private clinic, says it has witnessed a 33% increase in the number of City workers seeking advice for anxiety, depression and stress since July, and a 30% rise in patients seeking help for drugs and alcohol addiction – often the result, says the clinic’s medical director, of recreational drug use tipping into full-blown dependence during times of stress. There has also been a 27% rise in inquiries about its eating disorders programmes.

“We’re seeing 25-year-old bankers waking up with acute anxiety and stress, and realising that the job they thought they had for life and the bonuses they had come to rely on had literally disappeared overnight,” says Capio Nightingale’s medical director, William Shanahan, who is quick to point out that “square mile syndrome” is not a medical or diagnostic definition.

“Hopefully, we can encourage more people to come and get help,” he says. “We can draw worrying comparisons with the Black Wednesday days of the 1990s, when we saw a sudden spike in the number of City workers who suffered mental health problems after the bottom fell out of the market. We want to try to avoid this happening again.”

Shanahan says there is still not enough recognition of the mental health problems faced by employees in high-pressure jobs. The clinic is offering a deal where patients who can produce a P45 issued after September 1 can pay for their treatment once they find work.

“Things have got better, but there can be a reluctance to admit you have a problem when you’re in a high-flying job where you are expected to deal with stress day after day,” Shanahan says. “If we don’t watch out, square mile syndrome could be a timebomb.”

 
On World Mental Health Day 2008 the latest research* we have commissioned reveals that a staggering 49.3% of us wouldn’t feel happy to disclose a mental health condition such as depression at work, rising to almost 54% amongst manual unskilled workers.
The research found that only 18.3% of people would reveal a mental health condition to their HR department, however, 34% of people would discuss their condition with their line manager. Younger workers (16 – 24 year olds) and older workers (over 55’s) were least likely to be happy to discuss their mental health conditions. With 57% of younger workers saying they would not discuss it at all and only 12% of over 55’s saying they would be happy to talk to their HR department.

Respondents from Edinburgh and Leeds were least happy to discuss their mental health at all (67% and 63% respectively). 39% of the respondents from Edinburgh cited shame and embarrassment as their main reason for not wanting to disclose a mental health condition, whereas, 26% of respondents from Leeds cited fears that their employers would not be sympathetic as the reason for not feeling happy to discuss their mental health.

“Despite the office of National Statistics estimate that one in six people may experience a mental health condition at any one time, our research illustrates that people are still very reluctant to reveal their conditions and show any signs of perceived weakness.

However, we know from our work that people with mental health conditions are perfectly capable of managing a job and their condition with the right support from their employers and therefore feel it is vital that such misconceptions are laid to rest”.

Tim Cooper, Managing Director, Shaw Trust

In fact 34.5% of respondents said that the reason that they wouldn’t want to reveal a mental ill health condition was because they would either feel ashamed or worried that they would be treated differently. With this percentage rising to 43.3% amongst 16 – 24 year olds.

The stigma attached to mental ill health was more of a concern than the fear of possibly hampering career progression among 25 – 44 year olds, with 37% of people in this age group citing shame as their main reason for not feeling happy to talk about a mental health condition.

Those respondents in graduate entry level jobs were the most confident that a mental health condition does not affect their ability to do their jobs, with 29% of the people in this group citing this as the main reason they wouldn’t discuss their mental health.

Respondents in professional sales, media and marketing were most concerned amongst all industry sectors about being treated differently if they were to disclose their mental health condition (31%) compared to just 4% of people within the professional finance industry who cited this as a concern.

Professional Finance also came out at the biggest industry group to cite that a mental health condition didn’t affect their ability to do their jobs as their main reason for not wishing to discuss it.

Overall 54% of people felt that they would receive more support at work for a physical disability than a mental health condition (rising to 58 % amongst the senior Manager / Professional group) compared to only 6.9% who believed they would receive more support for a mental health condition.

” People have become more comfortable talking about physical illnesses over the years, however, there is still a huge stigma associated with having a mental health condition. Dealing with such a problem often leaves people feeling awkward and a culture of secrecy seems to have emerged in which people are frightened to confide in others”.

Professor Cary L Cooper, CBE, Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University

“There is a clear need for more structure and education on how to support employees with mental health issues, businesses need to create an environment in which people not only feel confident enough to discuss a mental health condition with a line manager or member of the HR team but in which they can also receive the support they need to continue making a valuable contribution. We see the effect that being out of work and coping with a mental health condition can have on people’s lives and we are urging employers to use this website to find out how to make a difference in the workplace”.

Tim Cooper, Managing Director, Shaw Trust

*All figures unless otherwise stated are from a Tickbox survey. Total sample size was 1070 workers. Fieldwork was undertaken between 18th – 24th September 2008. The survey was carried out online.

Alasdair Campbell told Tony Blair that he suffered from repeated bouts of depression and had had a drink problem. Blair had responded “I’m not worried if you’re not worried”. Campbell had had a breakdown, had taken to drink and had suffered from severe depression. Yet the Prime Minister asked him to work for him. Regardless of whether you think Alasdair did a good job or not, it says a great deal about Blair that he is willing to encourage Campbell to take on the role that he did.

Or does it? It is highly likely that Blair already knew that a relatively high proportion of MPs suffer with mental health difficulties and he was simply accepting of the fact. According to research, published on the Stand to Reason website, One in Five MPs experience mental ill health and are forced to hide their problems…..http://www.standtoreason.org.uk/goals

The report published on 16 July 2008 by Stand to Reason in conjunction with the All Party Parliamentary Group on Mental Health, with support from the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Mind and Rethink has shown that one in five MPs surveyed has experience of a mental health problem but fears disclosing this because of the stigma and discrimination associated with mental health issues.

An anonymous questionnaire completed by 94 MPs, 100 Lords and 151 parliamentary staff has revealed that:

- 19% of MPs had personal experience of a mental health problem (17% of Peers, 45% of staff)
- 94% had family or friends who have experienced a mental health problem
- 86% of MPs said their job was stressful
- 1 in 3 said work-based stigma and the expectation of a hostile reaction from the media and public prevented them from being open about mental health issues.

The report shows that despite significant numbers of people working in Parliament experiencing mental distress, over half of MPs did not think they had sufficient understanding of the Disability Discrimination Act to make reasonable adjustments for a staff member with mental health problems and only 17% had received any mental health awareness training.

President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Dinesh Bhugra said: “Sadly, stigma is still widely prevalent. Mental illness comes in many forms across the age span, and is everyone’s business. Mental health and physical health cannot be parted. We applaud this effort to start talking more openly about mental illness. MPs occupy a privileged position in the public eye, and greater openness has the potential to lead to a better public understanding of mental health issues.”

I am strangely comforted by the high number of MPs who have or are suffering from mental health problems as it gives me hope that they may be prepared to challenge the legislation and case law governing custody issues where a parent suffers from a mental health problems as presumably, some of these MPs are parents themselves. If the legislation was handed over to them to change, where would they draw the line in terms of assessing someone’s ability to parent? If changes to legislation were handed over to those within Parliament and the legislature who had direct experience of mental health, I wonder how they would chose to re-draft or re-frame some of the legislation governing mental health issues. If their own parenting was being scrutinised with the threat of their own children being taken away from them due to their mental health problems, would they seek to re-draft the legislation?

My guess is that they probably would. My next piece of research is going to be to try and find out some more about who these MPs are and whether or not they have children. I wonder how many of these MPs may have been diagnosed with Bipolar rather than depression. I think I shall attempt to find out the same with the Judiciary. However, I know that people with mental health problems are not permitted to be magistrates, so I now need to determine whether Judges can be Judges if they have mental health problems. If MPs have to step down having been sectioned, I wonder if the Judiciary have to too? If there are MPs and Judges who have retained custody of their children and yet suffer with a mental health problem, it begs the question of the test that is being applied to determine who is a “fit” parent and who isn’t. I’m sure there must be some method in their madness…..I just need to establish what it is….

For the relevant articles, see the links below:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/one-in-five-mps-suffers-from-stressrelated-mental-illness-868708.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7508128.stm

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                 CONTACT:  SIDNEY B. CHESNIN
March 18, 2003                                  SR. TRIAL ATTORNEY
                                                (214) 655-3330

                                                HOLLY COLE
                                                SR. TRIAL ATTORNEY
                                                (405) 231-5853
                                          TTY:  (214) 655-3363

Worker with Bipolar Disorder to Receive $91,000

in Disability Discrimination Case Settled by EEOC

Employer’s Motion to Dismiss Lawsuit Rejected by Court in Rare EEOC Litigation on Issue of Psychiatric Disability

DALLAS – The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced today the settlement of a disability discrimination lawsuit against Lincoln, Nebraska-based Voss Electric Company (Voss) for $91,250 on behalf of a former worker with bipolar disorder. Voss is a distributor of commercial lighting products, with 12 branches and 16 sales locations located throughout the central United States.

In its lawsuit, case number CIV-02-92-C in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma in Oklahoma City, the EEOC charged Voss with violating the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) by terminating a long-time employee of its Oklahoma City facility who needed in-patient care due to bipolar disorder, a psychiatric disability. Rather than allow the employee the additional time off recommended by his physicians, Voss fired him by taping a termination letter to the front door of his home, the EEOC said in the suit.

Voss had filed a motion requesting the Court to dismiss the EEOC’s lawsuit, but the Court ordered that the case be tried. On February 28, 2003, the Court, in a detailed 17-page opinion, ruled against Voss on all arguments raised against the EEOC, and held that the EEOC’s claims should be submitted to a jury for trial.

The Court ruled that the EEOC had submitted evidence that the former employee’s mental illness, at the time of his termination, severely impaired a number of his major life activities, including thinking, interacting with others, communicating with others, and the ability to take care of himself. Voss then argued that, at the time of his termination, the former employee was unable to perform the essential functions of his job.

The Court, however, ruled that a jury should determine whether the employee was entitled to a reasonable medical leave to enable him to recover sufficiently to return to his former position. After the Court’s ruling, the parties reached an agreement embodied in a Consent Decree approved and signed by the Court.

“For years I did a good job for this company, but soon after I became ill they discarded me as I was trying to get well, which just compounded my struggles,” the fired employee said. “I am thankful to the EEOC for standing up for me and obtaining a fair settlement.”

Robert A. Canino, Regional Attorney of the EEOC’s Dallas District Office, said, “We should credit the sound legal analysis by the Court in this case. This is a difficult area of law to enforce due to interpretational issues challenging the courts, but the EEOC will not shrink from the task of educating the public about the ADA through the pursuit of civil actions when necessary. Decisions like this one which allow a jury to apply the law to specific facts can give victims of disability discrimination confidence that their voice will be heard.”

The EEOC filed suit after exhausting its conciliation efforts to reach a voluntary pre-litigation settlement. The Consent Decree settling the suit provides monetary and prospective non-monetary relief, including training of all Voss employees, officers, managers, and supervisors on the requirements of the ADA, and the posting of a notice informing employees of their rights under federal law at all of its locations.

“Mentally disabled employees are protected under the ADA just as those who are physically disabled,” said Sidney B. Chesnin, lead trial counsel for the EEOC. “Disabled employees are entitled to consideration of a reasonable accommodation for their disability. By simply giving a worker a reasonable period of leave to adjust to a medical condition related to a disability, the employer can often pave the way for the return of a productive employee.”

In addition to enforcing Title I of the ADA, which prohibits employment discrimination against people with disabilities in the private sector and state and local governments, the EEOC enforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex (including sexual harassment or pregnancy) or national origin and protects employees who complain about such offenses from retaliation; the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, which protects workers age 40 and older from discrimination based on age; the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which prohibits gender-based wage discrimination; the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits employment discrimination against people with disabilities in the federal sector; and sections of the Civil Rights Act of 1991. Further information about the Commission is available on the agency’s web site at www.eeoc.gov.

A quote from a mother not coping with her toddler: “I was so angry with my toddler son when he was tantrumming and refusing to eat, that I grabbed a tuft of hair on the back of his head and pushed his face into his bowl of spaghetti! His face was covered in spaghetti sauce! The look on his face was of total shock but I was still so angry that I did it a second time”!

A group of mothers who had young children got together over coffee one morning. One of them bravely started to confess her worst behaviour with her children and recounted the above situation with her toddler.

Another mother then said “I was so angry with my toddler who was screaming and screaming that I rammed his pushchair into a wall. I knew it wouldn’t hurt him because the front wheels would hit the wall first and I just wanted to give him such a shock that it would stop him from screaming. He wasn’t hurt but I was still raging so I slammed him into the wall again.”

One of the funniest mums then burst out laughing and said “It’s amazing what you will do to get your kids to stop them from their tantrums. My son was throwing a tantrum in the queue in Asda and everyone was staring at him and at me. He was really letting rip. He had done this so many times, and I had tried every parenting tip in the book and nothing I could say or do stopped him from throwing these tantrums. This time, something snapped inside me: I threw myself on the floor beside him and threw my own tantrum. I pounded the floors with my fists, I kicked and kicked my heels into the ground, I thrashed my head back and forth all the time screaming at the top of my voice. Everyone was stunned into silence including my young son who stopped his own tantrum and looked on dumbfounded at his mother throwing her own almighty tantrum! Eventually, he bent down and said in her ear “Mummy, can you get up, you’re embarrasing me!”. She said that he had not thrown a tantrum since! Her strategy worked!!

One of my ex husband’s friends (who is a trained criminal psychologist) related to me the time when one of her babies had been screaming for such a long time that she could no longer tolerate the sound. She went into the baby’s room and thumped the pillow a few inches from her child’s head with frustration. She said she thumped it several times til she had got her rage out of her. She said that she did this because she was so enraged with her baby’s screams that she had wanted to hit her child; this was the closest she came….

All these women are from very good, solid, middle-class homes, with educated, profesionally qualified mothers….They are not from impoverished, drug/alcohol addicted backgrounds and all of them live in comfort with the average amount of stress.

These are all true stories from friends I know in Kingston. None of them have Bipolar; in fact, none of them have been diagnosed with having any form of mental disturbance. None of them have had their children taken from them. During this coffee morning, all the mothers there were laughing at the stories and thanking each other for their honesty. Each mother there said that they had done simarly awful things when they have been at their wits end with their children.

I’m not conding these mothers’ behaviour, nor am I saying that their treatment of their children is acceptable or normal. I was shocked to hear these things yet, if I’m honest, also strangely comforted to hear that other mother’s lose it with their kids too at times.

I haven’t done any of these things and yet I’m the one who’s been told that, because I have Bipolar, I am more at risk of harming my children. None of these mum’s have been told that they have something wrong with them.

So what are the worst things I’ve done as a parent?  I’ll be honest here, painful as it is and you can all be judge and jury as to whether the things I’ve done are so unusual in parenting experiences that the children shouldn’t be with me.

When my eldest daughter was a baby, she screamed so much one night that I screamed back with all my might. I didn’t shake her or hit her, I just screamed too. Then I put her in her cot (gently) and left the room, slamming the door and phoned my mum sobbing with frustration feeling a total failure and feeling terrible for shouting at my baby who, after all, was only being a baby.

When she was a toddler and I had my second son who was only a few months old, all of us came down with a bad bug. Both she and my son were waking me several times a night; she with her illness, he to feed every hour and a half (breastfeeding) and me with my chest infection. I had just fallen pregnant with our third child and was exhausted from the first few weeks of pregnancy as well as from looking after a 2 year old, a 6 month old baby and my third on the way. I felt exhausted, ill, feverish, resentful, desperate…One morning, at around 6am she woke up and threw an almighty tantrum on the stairs. Her tantrums often lasted for an hour at a time. My son then woke up wanting to be fed. My husband wasn’t there to help and my mother was just about waking up in bed. I was trying to cope with all this on my own. I lost it with her. I picked her up roughly and put her in the “time out” place which was our downstairs loo, yelled at her to stay in there until she stopped tantrumming and slammed the door. I was so enraged that I thumped the door (I didn’t hit my daughter at all). Unfortunately, the bit of the door that I hit was glass and I lacerated the tendons in my hand and had to undergo plastic surgery to my hand. My daugher, understandably, was totally shaken by the experience of watching her mother put her hand through the door.

When I was taken to hospital for my hand, the admission nurse asked whether I was post natally depressed. I said I wasn’t sure. I was then assessed and my reading for post natal depression was high and a course of anti-depressants were prescribed.

Social services were informed and my daughter was placed on the child protection register. The health visitor said that I was considered to not be a cause for serious concern because I had chosen to hurt myself in anger rather than hurt my child. I was horrified that I had lost control of my temper in that way. It took my daughter a few weeks before she was back to her normal self.

That’s the worst thing I’ve done to my children.

Other things have included: being so angry with them all, that I shut the door to the house (didn’t lock it) and stormed outside to the end of our drive (about 3 metres in length) and sat in my car with a cup of coffee for 15 minutes to calm down. I could see the house from my car window so I could ensure that they didn’t come out and nobody went in. The children were 8, 6 and 5 at the time. This happened once in total – never again.

I’ve smacked my children when they were toddlers: my eldest daugter when she was a toddler got smacked around 4 times (a smack – not hard hitting), my son around 3 times and my youngest daughter around 2 times. I quickly learnt that smacking ( although highly endorsed by my parents generation and indeed our school system whilst I was still at school where they had the cane), doesn’t work. All it does is to encourage the children to hit each other and others. So I don’t smack. I now resort to shouting when I lose my cool, walking out of the room, slamming doors and being very grumpy.

I have been learning increasingly effective parenting strategies though and gradually I’ve been increasingly able to stop shouting (not 100% yet!) and to walk away when I feel the temperature rising.

According to my exhusband and the Judge, I have also hurt them emotionally by telling them too much about the Court case. Our children were living with my ex husband and I all through the 18 months of litigation and during the actual 10 day High Court hearing. Every day during that Court case, my exhusband and I left the house, caught the train and a taxi and went to the High Court and then came home again the same night. The children knew that we were going to court every day. They knew that the CAFCASS officer had come to see them because they were deciding who the children should live with. They knew that my exhusband was saying that I wasn’t well enough to look after them.

Unsurprisingly, they asked questions – intelligent, perceptive, direct, uncomrpomising questions and asked me to be honest with them in giving the answers. I tried not to give them too much unecessary and upsetting detail, but according to the Judge, I gave them too much information which has caused them distress. I’m not sure how she concluded this given that she hasn’t even met the children, nor was she present to hear the conversation, nor was it recorded…..My children still say that they want me to tell them honestly when they ask questions. I’ve talked with 3 psychologists about how to answer these questions without damaging them emotionally or psychologically, read numerous books on divorce for guidance but apparently I got it wrong.

In short, I have never broken any bones, stubbed out cigarettes, been drunk or on drugs whilst looking after them, left them in the house on their own (which both my ex husband and various nannies have done), not left them in a car on their own (apart from in the garage forecourt whilst paying for petrol), not lost them whilst taking them out, not starved them…….any other thing that I’ve overlooked?

Oh yes there is! I was so cross with them one day that I wrote a long letter describing how I hated their behaviour when they were being so naughty. I described that I felt like hitting them (but stressed that I didn’t do so), that I was such a bad mother, that I was a failure etc. In fact, writing out all the things I was feeling was following the advice of my psychologist who told me that one of the most effective ways to deal with anger is to write it all down on a piece of paper and then throw that piece of paper away. Unfortunately, I didn’t throw it away – my husband found it and used it in Court as evidence that I was an appalling parent.

Yet the two incidents I describe above – the hand through the window and going out to my car for a coffee were brought up in court as classic examples of why I shouldn’t be allowed to parent my children. The letter merely showed as concrete evidence that I was too psychologically disturbed to parent the children.

The fact that my ex husband repeatedly smacked the children when we were married and still does (regularly, I’m told by my children) doesn’t seem to matter. The fact that the CAFCASS report states that my youngest daughter is frightened of him because “he picks me up by my middle and throws me on the bed when he’s angry with me”, doesn’t seem to matter. The fact that he has often shouted at them, threatened them physically, shaken them, slammed the brakes on the car yelling at them that he will “put them out on the pavement” unless they stop screaming, doesn’t seem to matter. The other emotional/psychological things he says and does all don’t seem to matter either.

The fact that my children are scared of him doesn’t seem to matter. They are scared that he will hit them, they are scared that he won’t take their fears seriously and so don’t tell him when they are upset about something, they are scared that he will continue to hurt me. In fact, it was the children who told me that I should go to the Domestic Violence unit because they read the leaflet in the doctor’s surgery and said “Mummy, you should go and talk to these people, because that (the violence) is exactly what daddy’s doing to you.” The fact that the children have witnessed him hitting me and threatening to hit me and shaking me whilst swearing at me and shouting, doesn’t seem to matter. The fact that he hid a knife under his bed together with his porn magazines and videos, doesn’t seem to matter. The fact that, whilst the children are still living with him, he has gone out to lap dancing bars and come home very drunk, doesn’t seem to matter. The fact that he has left the children in the house on their own, doesn’t seem to matter.

Apparently, he’s the “well” one with no mental or psychological problems and is a ”fit” parent, but I’m not.  

Well, what do you all think? Are these things I’ve done appallingly bad? Am I misguided in thinking that I am a capable parent?

Let me know you’re honest thoughts and please do share your worst parenting stories or those of a friend – anonymously – and maybe a picture can emerge of what range of parenting misdemeanors are sufficient evidence of such bad parenting that the children should be taken away from a Bipolar parent…..

Phew! That was brave of me to share those things….

My children are telling me that their father is hitting/smacking them when they are with him. They tell me that this is happening around twice a week.

10 years ago, I crashed into a 50 foot scaffold which landed onto the top of my car, having swerved round a corner too fast just shortly after passing my driving test. I had got angry at a traffic warden, drove off in anger and put my foot on the accelerator instead of the brake by accident. The result: my car was written off, the ambulance people were astounded that I wasn’t hurt and I was thanking God that I hadn’t injured anyone in the blind moment….

This incident occurred prior to my diagnosis of Bipolar and prior to me being on a stable medication regime. It has not happened since.

What has happened to me however, is me being the victim of other people’s road rage: I have had 3 people drive into the back of me, one causing wiplash to me whilst I was 7 months pregnant. None of them had Bipolar.

I have also been in a car crash whilst not driving: my boyfriend many moons ago was driving our car when he went onto the wrong side of the road and caused a head on collision. We both suffered minor injuries. He didn’t have Bipolar.

My ex-husband reversed the wrong way up a motorway to get onto a slip road. He crashed into another car crossing a junction. He didn’t have Bipolar.

Yet there is somehow an attitude towards people with Bipolar that they are somehow “unsafe” to drive, “unpredictable” “risky” etc. I came across this very attitude on a site recently:

“My husband is bipolar and for almost all of our married life he has shown severe aggression whilst driving. The slightest irritation on the road would cause him to exhibit road rage. He would most often tailgate and show aggressive signs to other drivers. I have known him to get out of his vehicle to remonstrate with other motorists, without fear of his life or the safety of others, including my own or our young family. The slightest intake of breath on my part would make him angrier, and he would be even more reckless. I often felt as though a gun was being held to my head, except that the weapon was the motor vehicle. Other than not to travel with him for months on end, I felt trapped. I had thoughts of going to the Metro Police to report him, but feared repercussions. What steps I should have taken? Due to illness he no longer drives.”

This was my reply:

Anyone can experience “road rage” – its not just people with Bipolar. I have Bipolar and have only had one episode of “road rage” in 10 years and that was prior to my diagnosis and prior to being stable on my medication.

The DVLA (driving licence authority) in England does medical checks on all people with Bipolar with their treating psychiatrist to determine whether or not they are fit to drive. If they are, they have their driving licence renewed.

I drive around 360 miles a week. I come across countless of angry, rude, aggressive and downright unkind drivers daily. Are you saying that they are all Bipolar? Or are you saying that those with Bipolar also, at times, exhibit these kinds of characteristics along with the general population?

Blaming “normal” unhealthy human behaviour on Bipolar is not helpful to either you or the Bipolar sufferer. The person with Bipolar has to learn to recognise what makes them feel angry in the first place. If their spouse/employee/family always blames anger/frustration/rage/annoyance/irritation on “Bipolar” that is a sure fire way to make the Bipolar sufferer feel anger/frustration/rage/annyance/irritation. They, like everyone else on the planet, feel these normal emotions from time to time. To attribute it to Bipolar and to not to normal human feelings, is to undermine that person further and to invalidate their feelings thereby leading to further depression. In my view, this is a discriminatory and prejudiced attitude ie that Bipolar people are not “the norm” in terms of their feelings when it comes to driving.
Look at your own self and your own negative emotions and behaviour and see if you come up smelling of roses!

Meanwhile, I’ll just stick to driving safely and awake…..Seems to do the trick…

]]> http://bipolarised.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/fitness-to-work-how-is-this-determined-by-the-courts/ Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:59:51 +0000 Marie http://bipolarised.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/fitness-to-work-how-is-this-determined-by-the-courts/

For any of you going to Court over the finances of your divorce, consideration of your fitness to work as a Bipolar sufferer will be a top priority.

80% of people with mental health disabilities are unemployed. This doesn’t mean that 80% are unemployable; it means that:

• there are many employers (4 out of 10) who won’t employ someone with a mental health illness
• there are insufficient flexible working opportunities for those who suffer to enable them to work in a way that they can manage their condition effectively
• there are those who are so discouraged by their condition that they “self stigmatise” ie they believe so strongly that nobody will want them, that they don’t even apply for work
• there are those who are worried that, if they apply for work, they will lose their incapacity benefit
• there are many who worry that they will be subjected to hostile/negative/unpleasantness in the workplace if colleagues find out that they have a mental health illness.

If you are fighting with your exspouse/partner over finances, they are bound to argue that you (the Bipolar sufferer) could go out and get a job and support yourself and therefore you shouldn’t require ongoing support from your ex spouse/partner.

This is what my ex husband argued: because I am a qualified lawyer and used to work in a top 10 City law firm, I should be perfectly able to go back to such a highly paid environment and support myself and our three children and therefore he should not have to pay me any maintenance.

I argued that my “ability” to work and obtain highly paid employment, is an entirely separate issue to whether I will, in reality, be offered a job given my mental health background.

I argued that, given the 80% of unemployment amongst the mentally ill, it is unlikely that I will fall within the 20% who will get work at a high level. I might get low paid and low status work, but if I do, that is likely to be insufficient to enable me to support myself and my three children adequately in the lifestyle that they are used to (eg private schooling etc).

How can you determine these issues? Well, you need expert evidence ie an expert to write a report to the Court and then come to Court, if required, to give evidence and who is willing to be cross-examined on the evidence he/she gives.

Ideally, you have 2 experts: the first should be your treating psychiatrist/doctor who can give the Court his/her assessment of your ability to work. This will include:

• a description of your diagnosis eg Bipolar 1, Bipolar 2, rapid cycling Bipolar, cyclothymia, schizo – affective disorder etc
• an explanation of the effect that your diagnosis has on your ability to work eg levels of concentration, focus etc
• an explanation of which medication you are on and how this affects your ability to work eg does your medication make it difficult for you to wake up in the mornings? Does your medication make it harder for you to concentrate?
• an assessment of which types of work you might be able to undertake eg if stress is one of your triggers, would you be able to hold down a highly stressful job?
• What are your particular triggers? eg if noise is a trigger, how would commuting to and from work on a busy/noisy train/tube/motorway affect your ability to commute?
• your longer term ability to hold down a job
• your own ability to manage your illness eg do you recognise your triggers? Do you comply with your medication regime? Have you developed good coping strategies?

This expert report will be given to the Judge so that he/she can form a view of how your own particular illness affects you and how it will affect your ability to work.

This will help the Judge decide how likely it is that you will find work, maintain work and what level of work in terms of pay and status that you are likely to achieve.

The Judge can then base any capital distribution or maintenance levels with that knowledge in mind.

If the Judge is unaware of the discrimination issues that surround the employment of the mentally ill, then it is a good idea to submit to the Court some well researched papers on the subject. For these, Google “Professor Graham Thornicroft” and you will find some very good resources on how discrimination in the workplace affects the mentally ill.

A particularly good piece of information can be found in his book “Shunned”. You can obtain this from Amazon.

The Social exclusion part of the government’s website is also helpful. Here are some useful links:

www.library.nhs.uk/SpecialistLibrarySearch/Download.aspx?resID=213004

This above link is a paper called “Actions speak Louder” and you can download this using Acrobate.

Resources for investigating the issue of Social Exclusion of the mentally ill include:

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/503876.stm

BBC news article on Social Exclusion of the mentally ill.

www.literacytrust.org.uk/Database/Exclusion.html

www.ukcap.org/getheard/index.htm

www.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/33473

If you Google “Social Exclusion government taskforce for mentally ill” you will find a whole load of material which will inform you about the stigma of mental illness in the workplace.

Any questions about any of this stuff, please send in your comments.

Many partners/spouses/family members are critical of the fact that whoever in their family with Bipolar (or other mental illness) might not be working or is in and out of work “can’t hold a job down”. Often this is manifest by them saying “they’ve never worked”, “they’ve been unemployed for years”, “they don’t want to work” etc. Just read various entries in my blog and you’ll see these comments listed.

So, I’ve been researching work place discrimination. Is it true that all these people who are unemployed are “lazy”, “can’t be bothered” “unreliable” “don’t want to work” etc? Or is it that they can’t get work due to their history of mental illness?

Well, I’m posting some research for you all showing just how big a problem it is for people with mental health problems to work and to find work.  Here are some excerpts from Professor Thornicroft’s work “Actions Speak Louder than Word” report for the Mental Health Foundation.

20% of the general population are unemployed.

35% of physically disabled people are unemployed.

80% of people with mental health illnesses are unemployed.

This is the highest rate of unemployment amongst all categories of people and substantially higher than amongst physically disabled people (Nice to know I’m in a “category”).

It is clear that although the primary disability can affect a person’s ability to find and keep work, the flexibility of the employment environment also plays a large part in shaping how far people with diagnoses of mental illness are included in the workforce. The figures are formidable in England:

• 33% of people with mental health problems say that they have been dismissed or forced to resign from their jobs,
• 40% say that they were denied a job because of their history of psychiatric treatment
• 60% say that they have been put off applying for a job as they expect to be dealt with unfairly.Indeed for some people discrimination in the work place is far greater than in any other domain

But this unemployment rate is not due to people being “lazy”: One survey found that people with mental disorders had the highest ‘want to work’ rate i.e. 86% of people with mental illness wanted to find a job, compared to 52% of the disabled people interviewed wanted to find a job.

Why is finding and keeping a job so difficult for so many people with a diagnosis of
mental illness?
One explanation is that employers discriminate against applicants who declare a history of psychiatric treatment. In a study of 200 Human Resource Officers in UK companies, vignettes of job applicants were submitted which were identical except for the presence or absence of a diagnosis of depression. The mention of a mental illness significantly reduced the chances of employment, compared with a history of diabetes. This differential treatment was made based upon perceptions of potential poor work performance, rather than expectations of future absenteeism.

Similar results came from another national study of employers in Britain. Fewer that 40% said that they would
consider employing a person with a history of mental health problems, compared with 60% for people with
a physical disability, and about 80% for long-term unemployed people and lone parents 74;89;90. One possible check to such direct discrimination are the policies of Occupational Health departments, but fewer than half of employers in the UK, for example, have such staff.

A real dilemma faced by people with a history of psychiatric treatment is whether to disclose this when applying for a job. From what we have seen there are strong reasons to believe that disclosure will reduce the likelihood of success. On the other hand, failure to disclose may break an employment contract, and also mean that the person is not able to ask for modifications to the job to make it more manageable (usually called ‘reasonable adjustments’) under the Disability Discrimination Act.

So there is no easy solution to this dilemma, or how to describe gaps in the employment
history. One approach is to make a balance sheet of advantages and disadvantages of declaring a history of
mental illness, and to use this in making a decision.

The other is to become self employed where possible as this circumvents any need to disclose it at all!

Here is a definition of Stigma: “stigma projects the  fear and anxiety felt by members of the general population onto the person with the diagnosis. People with a diagnosis do not really carry a mark that sets them aside.”

So there is no mark on us and yet we are set aside. What are the reasons for this?

Do write in and let me know your employment experiences…..

Well here’s a helpful, intelligent, constructive and informed comment I received today:

“Quite frankly. I’m so sick of bipolar crap. Take your meds. Get help and quit ruining the life of people around you. You’re ill. Get help. Don’t be lazy and cruel. Bipolars suck!”

Just goes to show that I need to run a blog like this……

http://kidsneedmums.co.uk/2007/03/21/are-you-causing-significant-harm-to-your-children-if-you-have-bipolar/

If he/she had bothered to read about me, he/she would have known that:

1. I do take medication and always will, never have once come off them
2. I already know I’m ill which is why I’m writing a blog about it all
3. I’ve already had and continue to have help: 3 years of CBT and therapy, Psychiatric help and healers. Oh and fantastic family, a supportive partner and great friends. Any more help that I’ve missed out on?
4. Lazy? That’s an interesting one. So Lazy that I became an Army officer, rowed for my college, trekked across Canada’s Yukon, raced sailing boats for the Army and have my Royal Yachting Qualifications, qualified as a Mountain Expedition Leader, can run for an hour and a half at a time, exercise regularly, can water ski competently. Anything else I should be doing? Oh, I also write articles which are published, speak at conferences, study Law.
5. Or are you talking about “lazy” when I was suffering from depression and found it hard to get out of bed in the mornings, felt drained and fatigued all day, could hardly move, found it difficult to motivate myself. Do you mean that kind of lazy?
6. Or so lazy that I set up this blog and campaign against senseless discrimination and prejudice?
7. Cruel – wonder what he means by that? I don’t hit my children, nor do I sexually abuse them, nor do I neglect them, nor do I psychologically torment them. Those are the only ways I think I could be “cruel”. Oh and last time I looked, the dog was still alive and my family and friends still like me. Cruel to whom?
8. Bipolar sucks! Sure does. Lucky for you you don’t have it, or if you do, then please don’t assume the things you’ve assumed and certainly don’t tar all 750,000 of us with the phrase “Bipolar Sucks”. Just be grateful that you don’t have to live with the illness that I have to live with.

By the way, if anyone wants to comment to this, please do so – any debate is good debate!

The author of this intelligent and insightful comment, aptly naming itself ‘Sickossick’ also chose to leave a ‘ghost’ email address, no real surprise there really: sickossick@yahoo.com

And for what it’s worth, here is the IP details the comment was logged under:
(IP: 75.146.33.2 , 75-146-33-2-Minnesota.hfc.comcastbusiness.net)
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=75.146.33.2

]]> http://bipolarised.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/do-you-think-it%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98bad%e2%80%99-to-have-a-mental-health-problem-institute-of-psychiatry-research/ Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:14:17 +0000 Marie http://bipolarised.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/do-you-think-it%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98bad%e2%80%99-to-have-a-mental-health-problem-institute-of-psychiatry-research/

When nearly 500 secondary school
students were asked to describe people
with mental health problems, they came
up with 270 different words and phrases –
most of them derogatory. ‘Nutter’, ‘loony’,
‘mental’, ‘psycho’, ‘retard’ are used as
insults in the playground every day – and
perpetuate discrimination and prejudice
against the one in every four people who
has a mental health problem.
If your peers think it’s bad to be
a ‘loony’, then it’s much harder to
tell anyone or seek help if you’ve got
a problem. And the stigma of being
mentally ill can impact on everyday
life: research has shown that people
with mental health problems are
pre-judged, find it hard to get jobs
and be accepted as ‘normal’.
Research has also shown that
ignorance, fear and stereotypes
presented in the newspapers, on
the TV and at the cinema all help
shape attitudes towards mental
health. ‘People with mental health
problems are difficult to talk to’…
‘are likely to be violent’… ‘are weak’
… ‘are unpredictable’ are commonly
held – but incorrect – views.
So does finding out the facts
behind the sensational headlines
and talking to real people with
mental health problems help
change public perception?
The answer is yes, according
to Graham Thornicroft, Professor
of Community Psychiatry, who was
involved in research to find out if
telling groups of 14 and 15-yearolds
the facts about mental health
would shift their perspective. The
research project was carried out
jointly with Rethink, the national
charity previously known as the
National Schizophrenia Fellowship.
472 Year 10 pupils at five different
schools in Kent each went to two
50-minute workshops about mental
health problems presented within
their PSHE (Personal Social Health
and Education) classes. Researchers
tested their knowledge and attitudes
before and after by asking them to
fill in questionnaires.
The results indicate that
making education about mental
health a routine part of the PSHE
curriculum did make a difference:
the questionnaires completed after
the second workshop revealed positive
and significant changes in attitudes,
particularly amongst girls.
The sessions in schools were
presented by members of the Mid-Kent
Mental Health Awareness Group,
made up of people with mental
health problems and people working
in mental health services. They were
part of a Mental Health Awareness
in Action programme in Kent which
also included experimental sessions
with adults who work with users of
mental health services – housing
officers, Citizen Advice Bureaux
volunteers, school nurses, for example –
and the police. The team that analysed
the success of the programme included
IoP researchers, who were co-ordinated
by Dr Vanessa Pinfold.
Adults said the testimonies of
people with mental health problems
made a big impact on them – that
listening to personal stories helped
them challenge their preconceptions.
‘This supports one of the strongest
findings in all our research,’ says
Professor Thornicroft, ‘namely that
it is personal contact with people
with mental illness that has the most
potent impact in reducing stigma.’
Many of the
200-plus Kent
police officers who
joined two two-hour
workshops also said
that what they heard
helped them better
perform their duties
afterwards. As well as
trying to break down
the myths about
mental health, these
workshops set out to
give police officers the
confidence to support
people with mental
health problems, not
to assume that everyone is violent
and to treat people with respect.
‘We need to tackle the widespread
ignorance about mental illness,’ says
Professor Thornicroft, ‘rebut negative
attitudes and prejudice and make
discrimination towards people with
mental illness culturally and legally
unacceptable.’

Do you think it’s ‘bad’ to have
a mental health problem? If the answer’s “no” then why use any of these words?

Abnormal Bananas
Barmy Basketcase
Bonkers Braindamaged
Brain-dead
Cabbage Cracked up
Crank Crazy Cripple
Dangerous Densse
Deranged Dim
Disruptive Disturbed
Div Do-Lally Dumb
Faggot Fierce Flid
Freak Fruitcake Funnyin-
the-head Handicapped
Hard-to-listen-to Hardto-
speak-to Hard-tounderstand
Headcase
Hollow-in-the-head
Insane Lights on but
no-one at home Loony
Lost their marbles
Mad Maniac Mental
Mong Mongrel Mute
Not all there Not right
upstairs Nut Nutcase
Nutter Nutty as a fruitcake
Odd Off-their-head
Off-their-rocker
Off-their-trolley
Out-of-your-head
Psycho Queer
Retard Sad Scary
Screw loose Screwed up
Simple Sick Slow
Social problems Spacka
Spanner Spastic Spas-o
Spoon Strange Stupid
Thick Uncapable
Unbalanced Unloved
Unpredictable
Unssttablle Veggies
Violent Wacko Wacky
Weird Wrong-inthe-
head

I am fortunate enough to have a great personal friend who is a psychologist. She has been living in another country since just before my diagnosis so wasn’t around when I was admitted to hospital and received my diagnosis. She has now returned to live in the UK and has been spending time with me again. She is horrified – and I use that word without exaggeration of her feelings  – about the diagnosis.

First off, she just doesn’t consider that I have the illness: after all, she has known me since my eldest daughter was 3,( so for 6 years in total) and through all those years when my children were very, very young. Our children are the same age so she knows how stressful and difficult it can be but she thought I was rearing them perfectly well. She’s a child psychologist so has a good idea about what constitutes “good parenting” and what doesn’t. During this time, I wasn’t medicated so she knew me when I was supposedly “ill” and not on medication. She says it never crossed her mind that I was suffering from Bipolar as she says I never exhibited any signs. She considered me then and now to be completely competent at looking after the children.

She thinks I ought to go and get another opinion, as does my consulting psychologist as do two other doctors who I met over the summer and who witnessed me every day with my children for 2 weeks on holiday (I took the kids away on my own for 2 weeks and these doctors were staying in the same resort: our children got on famously). None of these people consider that I am ill.

Secondly, she has asked me what good the label has done for me. In her view, it is utterly pointless to give someone the lable of “Bipolar” as it doesn’t do the sufferer nor anyone else any good at all; it just causes numerous problems. She argues that the treatment would remain the same regardless of the label: ie an anti-depressant and a mood stabiliser. She says that many people she knows are on mood stabilising drugs but they haven’t been given (or don’t disclose) an official label. As such, they don’t have to go through the inconvenience, anxiety, pain and humiliation of informing insurance companies, the DVLA, their employer, friends, family etc or have it used against them in Children’s Act proceedings.  

My own view, having suffered so badly from the consequences of having been given the label over the past 3 years since being given the diagnosis is NO IT ISN’T HELPFUL AT ALL!!!

It has ruined my life – and I’m not exaggerating. My relationships with my husband, with some of our friends, with my work, with the Court hearing, with neighbours, with the children’s schools, with my son’s medical team: all of these relationships have been tested and to what end? None of them needed to know – it hasn’t helped any of them, nor me. If I had simply gone to the psychiatrist, quietly took  the recommended medication and kept my mouth shut, nobody would be any the wiser and my life might have stayed intact.

As it is, I took the view that I had to tell people as a “responsible” thing to do as I was “ill” and therefore people ought to know in case I had some kind of breakdown and then people would be able to know what to do. NONSENSE!!! They still don’t have a clue what to do if I become ill. They still don’t understand the illness in any event, nor do most of them take the trouble to try and understand it. My true friends couldn’t give a stuff anyway: they have all told me that they don’t care whether I have the illness or not, they treasure my friendship and that’s all they care about. My family are all convinced that I am not ill and are behind me regardless of what any medical team say: they love and support me. My employer still doesn’t know because I don’t feel I can risk my job: no matter what the legislation regarding Disability Discrimination, it isn’t going to make a blind bit of difference to whether or not I would remain employed. Yes I could sue, but where would that get me? A few months loss of earnings if I’m lucky and after I’d spent even more months in highly stressful litigation and incurring more legal fees. Pointless.

No, the only way to live with an illness like Bipolar is to keep it from everyone (except probably your blood family) or be so famous like Stephen Fry that nobody gives a stuff, least of all Stephen as he is already a success and has no children to worry about……..Good on him (and I mean that – I think the guy is great!) But I’m not in that position so, from now on, I’m going to keep quiet about it and pray that I don’t ever have to tell anyone else………………and maybe I can gradually rebuild my life.

I want to know just who came up with the spectrum of “reason”, of “normal behaviour” of “normal thoughts”? Is it defined anywhere? And, if so, who evaluates it and to what benchmark? Does it change with society’s current “norms”?

Who says that my behaviour, thoughts and emotions are “normal” or not? And what gives any assessor of these the right/credentials to evaluate them and against what scale/spectrum? Who says that the mood swings experienced by someone with Bipolar are “abnormal”? Where’s their evidence?

I have just bought a book: “Mental Health Law policy and practice” by Peter Bartlett and Ralph Sandland, both Professors at Nottingham University. They open their book with this very subject i.e. who decides what the common language of “reason” is?:

“In the serene world of mental illness, modern man no longer communicates with the madman: on the one hand, the man of reason delegates the physician to madness, thereby authorizing a relation only through the abstract universality of disease; on the other, the man of madness communicates with society only by the intermediary of an equally abstract reason which is order, physical and moral constraint, the anonymous pressure of the group, the requirements of conformity.

As for a common language, there is no such thing; or rather, there is no such thing any longer; the constitution of madness as a mental illness, at the end of the eighteenth century, affords the evidence of a broken dialogue, posits the separation as already effected, and thrusts into oblivion all those stammered, imperfect words without fixed syntax in which the exchange between madness and reason was made.

The language of psychiatry, which is a monologue of reason about madness, has been established only on the basis of such a silence. “ Foucault, 1965: x – xi

Hear, hear Foucault. The fact that one person communicates (albeit imperfectly) their thoughts to another person (who “hears” what they are “able” to hear) who then perceives those thoughts to be markedly contrary to his/her own experience of the world, does not mean that the person communicating their thoughts has “lost their reason”.

Often people find it difficult to articulate what they are thinking, especially if they are not used to articulating their thoughts. They may describe feelings, thoughts, sensations, perceptions, observations in a clumsy, half – illuminating way such that the person receiving the information can’t decipher the exact meaning. This may then come across as lacking in reason. But are they right to then extrapolate from that incoherence the conclusion that the person has “lost their reason”, isn’t “normal”, has “lost their judgement”, isn’t perceiving the world as others perceive it.

The authors of the book state the following:

“If policy has developed through silencing the mad, if it is, as Foucault claims, a discourse of reason about unreason, it then tells us as much, or more, about the reasonable as the mad. For reason to articulate insanity, it must do it with reference to sanity, because this is the only way the border can be understood.

In this way, mental health law and policy can be seen as a mirror, in which we see our own values reflected.”

Therefore, the people making mental health law and policy are basing their policies and law on their own perceptions of reason and reality – how do they know that their view of “reason” is in fact acceptable and representative of “the norm”. Even if it is representative of “the norm”, is “the norm” acceptable?

On the basis of “the norm” being the reason of the majority of people, we would still have black people confined to slavery, women would not be able to vote and it would be acceptable for a husband to rape his wife (a crime which until the 1980’s was not considered to be a crime; or at least, it wasn’t recognised as a crime in any of the criminal law statutes or cases).

Sooner or later, these “norms” have to be challenged and any anomolies resolved. It is my intention to challenge the ideas that law makers and policy makers have about mental illness and I will start in relation to Family Law.

Michel Foucault  (October 15, 1926 – June 25, 1984) was a French philosopher, historian and socialogist. He held a chair at the College de France and taught at the University of California, Berkeley. 

Michel Foucault is best known for his critical studies of various social institutions, most notably psychiatry, medicine, the human sciences, and the prison system. Foucault’s work on power, and the relationships among power, knowledge, and discourse, has been widely discussed and applied.

As I have been forced to leave my home, I have had to inform the DVLA about my change of address. This in turn meant that I had to inform them about my Bipolar disorder. They have now written to me saying that they have to write to my doctors and psychiatrist to determine whether or not I am fit to drive. Mmmm: I have been driving for 9 years without any points on my licence for any misdeamenours. Given that I have had Bipolar since I was 22, how will the DVLA justify refusing my licence now (if they do)? The only reason they know that I have Bipolar is that I have told them. Maybe I shouldn’t have done………..

Is there anyone else out there who has had their licence refused due to their illness? If so, what justifications did the DVLA use and what consultation process did they go through? Is this a form of mental health discrimination or a necessary precaution to ensure drivers are safe to go out on the roads?

 One reader of this blog said:

“The DVLA stopped me from driving twice in the beginning as well even though my doctor’s said I should be fine to drive. Anyway that may be a bit difficult to judge with the medication they give you sometimes. Haven’t had an accident yet in 17 years of driving though.”

This reader’s experience begs the question: “On what grounds did the DVLA refuse the licence?” If the doctor says his patient is fit to drive, why is the DVLA refusing to renew the licence?

My psychiatrist said that the DVLA usually only refuse to renew someone’s licence if they are informed that someone has had a severe manic episode requiring hospitalisation within the last 6 months. Clearly, if someone is manic then their judgement is usually impaired and driving at 150mph down the motorway wouldn’t be a good idea. (Although many people who drive at these speeds aren’t manic – they’re just sports stars or celebraties or policemen…………..)

However, there are people who drink moderately and still only have their licence taken away if they get caught – not if their doctor writes to the DVLA and informs them that a patient of theirs is known to have an alcohol problem.

What about people who take medication which is known to make them drowsy such as sleeping tablets?

What about people who have serious heart conditions who may have a heart attack at any moment?

What about elderly people with poor eyesight or other medical conditions whose reactions are severely impaired because of their age?

It seems to me that the only people who should determine whether or not someone is fit to drive is the driver’s medical team: all the DVLA should be doing is checking police records for convictions and checking that someone has passed their test.

 All stories gratefully received…….

As my readers will know, I’m an English mother with Bipolar who also happens to be a lawyer, but I’m NOT a family or mental health lawyer. Nor am I an expert in American Family law or mental health law. However, I am continuing to research much of the law governing mental health in the context of parenting children whilst suffering from Bipolar.

As such, whenever I find some useful information, I shall post it on the site and hopefully, the site will become increasingly informative and useful as a source of knowledge sharing with other sufferers and their families.

So here goes: Wikepedia’s explanation of the Californian Welfare and Institutions Code:

5150 is a section of California’s Welfare and Institutions Code which allows a qualified officer or clinician to involuntarily confine a person deemed a danger to himself, herself, and/or others^[1] and/or gravely disabled. A qualified officer, which includes any California peace officer, as well as any specifically designated county clinician, can request the confinement after signing a written declaration. When used as a term, 5150 can informally refer to the person being confined or to the declaration itself.

//

 The process

Confinement under section 5150 lasts for up to 72 hours from the time the declaration is written. WIC 5151 requires an assessment prior to admission to the facility in order .. to determine the appropriateness of the involuntary detention. During the period of confinement a confined individual is evaluated by a mental health professional to determine if a psychiatric admission is warranted. Confinement and evaluation usually occurs in a county mental health hospital or in a designated Emergency Department. If the individual is then admitted to a psychiatric unit only a psychiatrist may rescind the 5150 and allow the client to either remain voluntarily or be discharged.

On or previous to the expiration of the 72 hours the psychiatrist must assess the client to see if they still meet criteria for hospitalization. If so the client may be offered a voluntary admission, if it is refused then another hold (the 5250) must be written to continue the involuntary confinement of the client. If the 72 hour timeframe has elapsed before the client is offered a voluntary admission or placed on the 5250 then the client must be immediately released.

A 5150 written by a peace officer is valid in any county in California, therefore a client could be moved from one county to another according to available resources. When written by a designated clinician the hold is only valid in that county. The designated clinician is also only able to write a 5150 while working in the facility they are employed at unless they work as part of a Psychiatric mobile response team.

Contesting the hold

The person under a 5150 hold has a limited ability to contest the legality of the hold. While the person has the right of demanding a writ of habeas corpus, it is up to the county public defender whether to file it or not. Since such a writ may take a day or two to file, the public defender usually chooses not to as the hold would expire before the anticipated court date.

 5150 criteria

The criteria for writing requires probable cause. This includes danger to self, danger to others together with some indication, prior to the administering of the hold, of symptoms of a mental disorder, and/or grave disability – as noted below. The conditions must exist under the context of a mental illness and the person must be refusing psychiatric treatment.

1. Danger to self – the person must be an immediate threat to themselves, usually by being suicidal. Someone who is severely depressed and wishes to die would fall under this category.
2. Danger to others – the person must be an immediate threat to someone else. A person hearing voices telling them to kill someone would fall under this category.
3. Gravely disabled
   1. Adult – the person (over 18 years old) is unable to provide for their food, clothing, and/or shelter – and there is no indication that anyone is willing or able to assist them in procuring these needs. This does not necessarily mean homeless, as a homeless person who is able to seek housing (even in a temporary shelter) when weather demands it would not fall under this category.
   2. Minor – the person (under 18 years old) is unable to provide for their food, clothing, and/or shelter – even if these are supplied directly.
4. Mental disorder Undefined by statute or regulation. On page 14 of the LA County LPS Designation Manual it is stated that The initiator must be able to articulate behavioral symptoms of a mental disorder either temporary or prolonged (People v. Triplett,(1983) 144 Cal. App. 3d 283.)

Required documentation

There are two legal documents, the 5150 application itself and the patient advisement form (5157(c)). The LA County LPS Designation Manual stipulates that, prior to the completion of the 5150 application, the initiator must conduct and document a face-to-face interview with the patient. On the 5150 application, the initiator is required to ..give sufficiently detailed information to support the belief that the person for whom the is in fact a danger to others, a danger to himself/herself and/or gravely disabled. The 5150 Application contains the words …as a result of a mental disorder.. but does not stipulate documentation of evidence of ..behavioral symptoms of a mental disorder….., defined in People v. Triplett (1983) as a necessary part of probable cause. The 5150 Application requests no explicit documentation of the required face-to-face interview.

 Patient rights while under section 5150

Patients admitted under section 5150 retain all rights under the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act. With the exception of being able to freely leave the facility they are placed in, patients have all rights accorded to a voluntarily admitted client. This includes the rights to:

• humane care
• religious freedom and practice
• participate in publicly supported education
• be free from abuse or neglect
• refuse medications except in emergency situations where danger to life is present; or by court order where the patient is found to lack the capacity to give or refuse informed consent via either a Riese hearing or via conservatorship.
• wear their own clothes
• visitors
• writing materials (including sending mail though they may be charged for postage)
• safe storage and access to their personal property
• have access to private phone conversations (though may be responsible for toll charges)
• speak with a Patient’s Rights Advocate
• go outside for exercise and leisure (usually in a fenced area)
• access their money in amounts for small purchases (vending machine, etc.)
• be free from discrimination

Good cause

Denying any of the patient’s rights requires good cause. Good cause being defined as the belief of the professional in charge of care for the client that the specific right would cause:

1. a danger to self or others; or
2. a serious infringement on the rights of others; or
3. serious damage to the facility;

and that there is no less restrictive measure that would protect against those occurrences.

Patient rights can not be denied as a condition of admission nor as part of a treatment plan such as being labeled a privilege or as punishment. Any time a right is denied under good cause it must be documented in the patient’s medical record and explained to the patient. The denial must be reviewed regularly and must be removed once good cause no longer exists.

References

1. ^ 5150 and You. Retrieved on October 3, 2006.Frequently asked questions about section 5150 at the Fresno County, California, Human Services System.

• (Revised April 2004) Rights for Individuals in Mental Health Facilities. California Department of Mental Health. 

External links

• California Welfare and Institutions Code, Sections 5150-5157
• contrast/compare with Rogers Law, concerning involuntary treatment/commitment in Massachusetts
• Los Angeles County LPS Designation Manual. This is a guide to procedures only. Accepted practice may vary significantly from these guidelines.

I will endeavour to comment on these pieces of legislation once I have researched them further. In the meantime, if any of you wish to add your own comments or experience relating to the Californian Code, please do so so that we can all share our knowledge.

 Thanks.

Stumble Me

As you know there is an application under way to get me out of my home by way of an Occupation Order. Amongst the measures of whether or not the Judge could grant an Occupation Order in favour of my husband, is the test of whether my staying at home with the children is likely to cause them “significant harm”.

Which immediately begs the question: “What constitutes significant harm?”. Under the legislation (Family Law Act 1996 – section 33 (7)

“If it appears to the court that the applicant (my husband) or any relevant child (my children) is likely to suffer significant harm attributable to conduct of the respondent if an order……..is not made, the court shall make the Order unless……” (I’ll go on to the “unless” bit later)

So where does the piece of legislation set out the definition of “significant harm” – what is the test?

(Maybe I should reiterate here that I am a lawyer so am trained to dig around in legislation and unearth the legal definitions and meanings – if they exist!)

In section 63 there are some definitions:

“harm”:

“ (a) in relation to an 18 year old plus, it means ill-treatment or the impairment of health

(b) in relation to a child, it means ill-treatment or the impairment of health or development”

“Development” means: physical, intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural development;

“Health” :includes physical or mental health

“Ill-treatment”: includes forms of ill-treatment which are not physical and, in relation to a child, includes sexual abuse

Section 63 (3) provides a little more guidance:

“Where the question of whether harm suffered by a child is significant turns on the child’s health or development, his health or development shall be compared with that which could reasonably be expected of a similar child.”

So, to sum up the above definitions then:

Harm would be ill-treatment of a child (including non-physical ill-treatment) which adversely affects their physical, intellectual, emotional, social or behavioural development or affects their physical or mental health.

This harm would considered significant if his/her health or development is compared with that of a similar child.

Ok, maybe we’re getting somewhere on the definitions to be applied. However, more questions arise in my mind:

Which children do you compare the child in question to? Is it :

• other children going through an acrimonious divorce whose parents are still living together one of whom has Bipolar I or
• other children of the same age, health, stage of intellectual development etc who are simply going through a divorce of any sort?
• Who is the test group??
• Who identifies these children?
• Who approaches and assesss them?

Ok, so suppose you identify a “similar child”, how do you assess them and then make comparisons? Do you:

• Ask the parent of that child if they can be assessed to determine the difference between them and the child in question?
• Do you guess why there is a difference?

Guess what? There is no guidance in the legislation as to how you go about establishing this! As usual, the legislature come up with these great ideas and then don’t follow through instead leaving it to the judges and the lawyers to try and come up with a way of dealing with it themselves. The judges then decide based on what they, totally subjectively, think about it.

I will put up a separate post on the results of my husband’s application to get me out of the home.

Any experiences of other people who have either applied or defended such an application would be gratefully received.

April 2006: My husband is seeking an Occupation Order to chuck me out of my home.

The law permits a person to apply for an Occupation Order under the Children’s Act where the Judge considers that the children would suffer if a parent stays in the home with the children. This an example of how the Courts and the legislation haven’t addressed the issue of mental health in family law proceedings. On the one hand, my mental health condition has been given by the judge as the main reason as to why I can’t see my children often as she recognised that I am vulnerable to stress as it can trigger an episode of my depression and anxiety and looking after children is deemed to be stressful.

BUT on the other hand, my condition has been completely disregarded by the judge when it comes to chucking me out of my home; the fact that I am inevitably going to suffer great emotional and psychological stress from being forced to leave my children and my home is irrelevant. The court considers the welfare of the children as paramount: fair enough as a general rule. But how is the welfare of a parent with a mental health condition going to be weighed against the welfare of the children and the welfare of the other parent?

Is this mental health discrimination and prejudice or just simply a total lack of thought/ignorance on the part of the legislature or of the individual judges applying the legislation?

My husband is applying to the Court for an Occupation Order to get me, a Bipolar sufferer, out of our matrimonial home. He wants me out immediately. I don’t have a regular job or income (because I have been looking after our 3 children, so I am self employed and don’t have regular work). I have no money to buy another house or even rent one until our matrimonial home is sold. He is refusing to give me any money to pay the rent or support myself: he just wants me out and doesn’t care where I go. (Even though he earns £450,000 he claims that he cannot afford to pay for me to rent somewhere else so we are now having to go to court over that too!).

I legally own half of the matrimonial home and have lived there for 10 years and have spent around 8 of those years renovating it, putting huge amounts of energy, time and love into building it. Accoring to Matrimonial law however, the fact that you own your home makes no difference; the courts can still make you leave it. Any property law rights are overriden by the Matrimonial Law as the matrimonial finances are considered to override property law. (As an ex Property lawyer, I am still appalled by this notion………On the one hand you think you legally own it, only to find that actually you don’t any longer…………)

In case you are wondering what an “Occupation Order” is the following definition may help:

If you want the right to return to, stay in or exclude someone else from the home, you may be able to use an occupation order. Occupation orders can also enforce rights, as well as giving or ending rights to occupy a property. They can also be used to restrict someone’s use of a property, for example, if you and your partner have to live in different parts of the same home.

Occupation orders usually last a specific length of time and are supposed to be a short-term measure and only used in cases where the child would suffer significant harm should the parent remain in the house.

In England, the law on Occupation Orders in Family Law is set out in The Family Law Act 1996, section 33. If you want to check out the legislation for yourselves go to the government website setting out the Family Law Act 1996 as an original piece of legislation and read it for yourself.{http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1996/e1996027.htm#33.}

I go through what section 33 says in more detail in another post. But for the purposes of my own particular immediate case, my husband is threatening to apply for an Occupation Order to get me out of our home on the basis that I am causing the children “significant harm” by remaining in the house.

Now, because my husband has been deemed to be the children’s primary carer in the custody battle we have just had, he and the children will continue to live in the house for a while. In the meantime, he is not prepared to countenance me continuing to live there and so is applying to the Court to get me out of the house. I want to remain in the house until it is sold so that I can continue to look after the children and they don’t have to move into rented accommodation with me but can go from their home into two separate homes, both of which will be permanent instead of rented.

I don’t have any money; I don’t have a job and my legal bill is circa £300k with credit card debts and loans amounting to around £50k. All my money is tied up in the house so I can’t just “up and leave” and buy or rent a new home.

I have taken legal advice on whether he can just obtain this Order from a Court and chuck me out. In the judgment in our custody battle the Judge said that I should leave the house within 28 days. She didn’t take into account any fact regarding my lack of finances or the reality of trying to find a new home to go to. According to the Barrister who is now advising me, the Judge should not have even begun to deal with such an Order without listening to all the facts relevant to making an Order to exclude me from my home.

When the Judge had the request to make an Occupation order to exclude me from the home, by law she is required to have regard to the following issues as set out in the Family Law Act:

1. The housing needs and housing resources of each of the parties and of any relevant child
2. The financial resources of each of the parties
3. The likely effect of any order, or of any decision by the court not to exercise its powers under this section on the HEALTH, SAFETY or well-being of the parties and of any relevant child.

If the court thinks that the applicant or any of the children are likely to suffer significant harm attributable to the conduct of the respondent if an order is not made, the court shall make the order unless it appears that:

1. The respondent or any relevant child is likely to suffer significant harm if the order is made; and
2. The harm likely to be suffered by the respondent or child in that event is as great as or greater than the harm attributable to conduct of the respondent which is likely to be suffered by the applicant or child if the order is not made.

The Court may exercise its powers under this section if it considers it just and reasonable to do so.

Now you know the law, lets see how it applies in my case:

I have Bipolar 2, a fact known by the Judge and one she determined made me, in her words “not a very well woman”. Not well enough to look after my 3 children apparently. The Judge dismissed the reports from 3 expert witness Consultant Psychiatrists who made it very clear that I pose no danger to myself nor to the children nor to anyone else and that I manage and cope with my ‘mild’ Bipolar extremely well. They all advised the Judge that I am capable of looking after my children as my illness is properly medicated and under control.

Now, given that I have Bipolar 2, presumably putting me out on the street with no home to go to would be pretty damn stressful for me which could set off a Bipolar episode. It may also cause disruptions to my sleep, not knowing where I was going to be living as well as screw up my carefully adhered to daily routine (necessary to keep my moods as stable as possible). Not to mention now needing to find a job.

So should I be ordered to leave despite the harm that I (the Respondant) may suffer? Well, I guess that depends on whether the Judge decides that there will be “significant harm” to the children if I stay or to my husband (the applicant).

What does “significant harm” mean?

Looking at the facts: I don’t hit the children, I don’t neglect them – quite the opposite. I adore and love my children very deeply. I look after them emotionally and physically, meeting their day-to-day needs: I cook proper meals for them, I wash their clothes and dress them, I do their homework with them, take them to the doctors, administer my son’s insulin injections, take them to their sports matches, take them to and from school. I don’t have a drink or drug problem nor have I ever. I don’t even smoke.

No reports by the school to social services, no criminal charges or actions and the children all have had excellent school reports. Moreover, my husband has continued to go out to work full time leaving me in charge of looking after the children without nanny help since last September. Presumably then he thinks I can look after them otherwise he would have given up his job or insisted on having a nanny.

WHAT IS SIGNIFICANT HARM?

Will my husband (the applicant) suffer “significant harm” if I stay? What would this be? Upset because we may argue ocasionally?

Aaaah, but here comes the “harm”: my husband and I argue – badly and often in front of the children. Does this constitue “significant harm” to the extent that I should be removed from the house because of the “significant harm” the children are suffering when they hear their parents rowing? Of course the children of any marriage suffer when parents argue which is horrendous for them. But, lets face it, parents who remain married and living together often argue horrifically – does the court think they should be forced to live separately because of the harm being done to the children. Of course not. So why is this case different?

How is the effect of our co-habitation in an acrimonious marriage to be measured on the children?

So far, it is my husband saying that the children are “suffering” due to our co-habitation. How does he prove that or doesn’t he need to? The judge who will be hearing this is the same judge who believed everything my husband said so far. I think she will probably just accept that he thinks the kids are suffering from my presence and so that will be enough to exclude me. The fact that it takes 2 to argue and that he is often the one who provokes the arguments seems to be irrelevant; it is my presence apparently, not his, that is causing the problem according to him.

Which brings me to the next question then: how will she determine the effect of chucking me out of my home on me? She is obliged to consider this under the provisions of the Act.

If the Judge decides that the children will suffer significant harm if I stay, she has fulfilled the first test. She then has to look at the second test:

 If the harm likely to be suffered by me or the children  is as great as, or greater than, the harm to my husband caused by my conduct if I have to leave, then the order shouldn’t be made.

So, if the judge considers that my remaining in the home will cause my husband or the children greater harm than the harm it will cause me to leave, then she can order me to go.

Given that the children have made it abundantly clear that they don’t want me to leave, it seems to me that the person most likely to suffer “significant harm” in this situation is me as I have Bipolar and this needs careful consideration. If  I thought the children would be suffering, I would go. But I don’t believe they are and they tell me that they want me to stay with them.

I know that my husband is suffering from the stress of our marriage but he is adding to this by bringing these court proceedings and refusing to give me money to rent somewhere. He continues to berate me and to bully me thereby continuing the stress. What effect does this stress have on him? He says he cannot sleep and that he has a patch of exzma on his leg. I know then that he is stressed. However, given that he does not have an illness to manage and I do, surely the effect of the stress on him is less than it is on me?  I also cannot sleep and it is well known that stress and lack of sleep is a major problem for sufferers of Bipolar as it can trigger either a depressive episode or a manic episode. Exzma or Bipolar? Mmmm…….

But maybe I’m misguided and selfish?

Will she even think of me in all this?

How do I prove that chucking me out on the street with no money to go to a new home will cause me “significant harm”?
Any comments gratefully received. Anyone of you readers ever experienced this or know of someone who has?

I need to put together a defence against being chucked out of my home and I have to do it this week – ANY ADVICE, HELP gratefully received.

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DIGG This
So in the summing up. The Judge referred to moments, whilst I was being cross examined, of “wobbling” using her words. She used this in her summing up as an example of my emotional instability. I cried momentarily twice during the 10 day proceedings, 3 of which was me being cross-examined by an extremely, and unnecessarily, aggressive barrister. During the first week of the trial, I had to sit through 5 days of other people giving their views on me – only on me, not anyone else. 5 days of being scrutinised, criticised, analysed, mostly by people who barely knew me. Yet these people felt they were in a position to tell the Judge what I thought about things, how I felt about things, how I reacted, what motivated me to do certain things.

As my psychologist repeatedly told me during my sessions with him: “The only person who knows what you are thinking and feeling is YOU, not anyone else. All anyone else can do is guess.”

Yet this is what these witnesses were doing – guessing. Statements such as “The reason she behaved in that way was because she felt that…….” “It was clear that she thought………..” “I know that she felt [x] because she thought that………”

It was extraordinary to sit and listen to it all. Some of these people had only met me on a handful of ocasions, some of them only for a few hours. Yet they were all allowed to pontificate on how I am as a person. Extraordinary…. 

Firstly there were my husband’s 7 witnesses (2 of whom were neighbours whose sum total of experience of me amounted to around a week at most, but whose views were still sought and given consideration). One was a 17 year old babysitter, 2 were girls in their mid twenties who had no children of their own. These girls have no concept of what it is like to be a mother, yet they were permitted to give their views on my abilities as a mother! Two of them had no child care training yet they were permitted to give their view on how I was raising my children!

These witnesses were saying that I was unstable, selfish, inconsiderate, untidy, a bad housewife, a bad cook, screwed up, hysterical etc, etc. I was the worst possible wife and mother that you could possibly think of. J.K.Rowling couldn’t have come up with a nastier character if Harry’s life depended on it………..Dementors/Death Eaters/Me – we’re all in the same category……!

Then there were 2 psychiatrists and 1 psychologist. They went through my entire medical notes including all my psychology sessions where I had revealed my innermost thoughts and fears thinking, at the time, that these notes were wholly confidential and that I could say anything in those sessions without the fear of anyone else ever seeing them. Wrong: the entire court heard them, read them, scrutinised them and twisted them. I had to sit and listen to all this for 5 days being unable to defend myself, explain myself or to put any of these accusations, assertions or interpretations of my thoughts into context. Indeed, the pyschologist who took these notes wasn’t even there to be questioned on the sessions!

The only two people who knew what was said in those psychology sessions were me and my psychologist – and yet, we were the only two people who weren’t being asked to analyse and explain these notes. Everyone else had a field day! Woody Allen could have some great material in there for a hysterically funny/sad movie……I’m on the couch but everyone else is putting words into my mouth and taking thoughts out of my head…….

And, guess what: I cried – momentarily. This was evidence, according to the Judge, that I was “not a well woman”. How many people could have gone through that kind of scrutiny, criticism and blame without crying?

Most people would suffer greatly under cross examination in the High Court in these circumstances; a mother’s children are the centre of  her world and therefore the thought of having them taken away would be distressing. Did the Judge really expect me not to show any emotion? If I hadn’t, would that then have been interpreted as me being “out of touch with reality”? Or how about “unable to comprehend the enormity of the allegations?” etc, etc.

My ex husband also cried, yet this was not a fact which was then used as evidence of him “wobbling” or being unstable. Quite the contrary: it caused the Judge to feel sorry for him and to consider that he had “done all that he could to keep his marriage together….”. How can one person’s tears be construed in a negative way whilst construing the other person’s tears in a postive way??

I personally think it is evident that the Judge was attributing various pieces of evidence to confirm that I had a serious mental illness and any sign whatsoever of weakness or unstability was due to being ill and not to normal human reactions to stress.

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DIGG this

Should emails, personal web history on your own private laptop, text messages and phone conversations, be private even to your partner, or should it be ‘public domain’ for your spouse to look at his/her leisure – then use against you in court?

[See the following link for advice on protecting your privacy: http://www.womensaid.org.uk/page.asp?section=00010001000800010001]

Clearly, one should be careful about storing such important and sensitive information in the first place. This was not a family PC, this was my laptop that was always password protected, and set-up to log out after 5 mins of being idle. Anyone getting access would either have to know my password or know how to hack into my computer.

He also quoted various text messages that I had sent people and kept copies of them to produce to the Court. All my email correspondence was likewise copied to the court, as were my private letters and cards.

This kind of controlling behaviour is recognised by the Government, the police and domestic violence organisations as a form of domestic abuse, yet he was allowed to produce the things that he found out about me through his invasion of my privacy as evidence in court.

What I find equally disturbing is that this was accepted, in the Court by the judge and the barristers, as being normal behaviour for a husband to produce this kind of evidence. This was not recent activity on his behalf either as he had information that he could only have found months prior to the hearing, leading me to believe he was doing this on a frequent basis and over a time frame that would indicate he was doing this well before he issued legal proceedings. Indeed, even whilst we were still married and prior to any separation, I recall him being furious when he picked up my phone to check my messages (without my permission) and he found that I had password-protected my phone. He insisted that I tell him my PIN and, when I refused, he tried all kinds of tactics to persuade me that I was being unreasonable in agreeing to the invasion of my privacy. He insisted on opening most of my private post too and even cut up credit cards sent to me and threw away letters of mine before I had even read them.

Mind you, I should have known really, given that I had discovered that he used a private detective to follow my movements too as well as asking the nanny to report to him where I had been, what time I’d left the house and when I returned, what I had been doing etc etc. He even asked a relative to come and stay at our house for a number of weeks so that she could keep a diary of my movements, my housework, my activities with the kids, my arguments with him, anything I said etc, etc. I know this because I found her notes………..

Oppressive behavior? Compulsive Obsessive? Or just a competent litigator who does this for a living and is an ex-barrister himself?

He also phoned all my and family members friends in turn, pleading with them for information on where I was, how I was doing, asking for information on things I had said and done. He then quoted some of the things that they had said, taking their comments out of context and trying to prove that even my friends and family disapproved of me and my “behaviour”. I subsequently showed some of his witness statements to these people to check with them about whether they had, in fact, said the various things that he had alleged they had. Apart from two comments from my closest friends, the other statements were untrue and had been fabricated, yet they were believed.

Either way, the Court found all of this acceptable behaviour on his part. I simply don’t understand why this kind of hearsay evidence is allowed with no burden of proof on my husband’s part. It seems that a person is allowed to obtain ”evidence” at any price and with extreme invasions of privacy without condemnation. The fact that hearsay evidence is then given the kind of weight that his evidence was given defies the usual rules of evidence and yet is permitted and highly damaging.

Now I know this, I would advise anyone to lock their phone, be extra vigilant about their computer and coach your friends and family into not saying anything to the accuser, destroy all former letters and re-direct any post to a friend or family or a PO Box.

For further advice on how to ensure that you minimise the risk of this kind of invasion of privacy, see the following website from the Women’s National Domestic Violence organisation Womens Aid:   http://www.womensaid.org.uk/page.asp?section=00010001000800010001

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DIGG This.
Well. So far, legal fee’s are £300,000 and climbing. And what has it achieved?

Peace of mind I guess to a degree. Knowing that I HAVE done everything I possibly can for my children. They will grow up knowing how far I went to protect them and to want to give them what I thought was a good life ie living with their mother rather than with a nanny.

I’m not looking for a medal, hell, I need a home now. Actually, a place to live would be good, a home means belonging, and right now I don’t feel I belong… period.

I don’t think I even have peace of mind: I defended my husband’s application for full custody for the children to live with him because I felt it was wrong for them to be without their mother. But I have ended up with only seeing them twice a month. I have lost my home and am hugely in debt. Not to mention additional costs incurred by additional ongoing counseling whilst this whole sorry state of affairs started.

I was blinded by the thought that justice would win through. Clearly my idea of justice was different to the Judge’s.

Anywho, if anyone wants some questions or thoughts answered, good chance I know the answer. Hell, I spent enough on the advice. And that’s all it ever was. Advice. Not certainty, not the solution.

BUT: My biggest word of advice would still be to hire a good family lawyer. I am not a family lawyer but have spent an absolute fortune on legal advice.

If anyone really does want some guidance on what the whole process of going through a custody battle is, where to find the relevant legislation, where to get some recommendations for a good lawyer, then do drop me a line on this blog. I didn’t win my case, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t learnt a whole lot about the process in the meantime.

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DIGG this

Another hypothetical scenario.

I like this one. Just supposing, that my ex husband starts dating a new woman. Someone who somehow makes him feel ‘loved’ again, someone that he feels close to. Unbeknown to him, and maybe even her, she suffers from Bipolar, or another mental illness. After all, he married me not knowing I had Bipolar because I didn’t even know I had it. Presumably, if it was that bad, we would have picked up on it. He certainly wouldn’t have still wanted to marry me – would he?

One way or the other, the news breaks. By this time my ex husband is in love, she with him… the children are fond of her as she is of them. But the earth shattering news that she is Bipolar suddenly hits them.

So what now?

He believes that he should look after the children because I have Bipolar. Does that follow then that his new partner would also be chucked out? Should we assume that he either tells her to sling her hook, or she refuses and he takes her to court as well? Maybe she has moved in by this time?  Will he risk unsettling the children ‘again’ because of his attitude and prejudice with mental health? Or will he let it go?

Statistically, this is not an improbable; 500,000 in the UK suffer from Bipolar. Many more are undiagnosed. Even more people suffer from clinical depression: in fact, 1 in 4 people in the UK suffer from clinical depression.

sSo what happens if she becomes depressed?

Even more worrying, supposing one of our children develops Bipolar? Again, statistically this is probable as it is a genetic condition which runs in the family. My psychiatrist thinks my grandfather probably had it. What will my ex husband do then? How will he know how to manage a condition which he clearly thinks is such a terrible condition to have. If he has been capable of treating me so cruelly about my illness, how will he treat one of our children should they develop it?

If he decides, as I suspect he will, that our child with Bipolar is a different kettle of fish to his wife having Bipolar, then the conclusion must be that the whole sorry story is not about my Bipolar; it is about a husband using Bipolar as a reason to get his wife out of his life.

Incidentally, his sister, who is a single mother, has suffered from clinical depression. He doesn’t tell her that she is incapable of looking after her child………….

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