How does mental health affect a divorce? There are many different ways; if someone is suffering from untreated depression, untreated bipolar disorder or another psychological disorder, they may be impacted in their ability to actively participate in their defense or the process of a divorce. In the case that allegations of mental health issues are made or a party is requesting psychiatric evaluation, a new set of procedures is put into play. If there are children between the divorcing parties and mental health is a factor, there are a variety of effects in this area, as well.
Mark Scroggins:
Hey folks, Mark Scroggins with Scroggins Law Group, you know, we get a lot of questions aside from the reclamation transformation podcast and so these are a number of questions that I’m going to go ahead and answer what I think are timely and need to be answered. Now, that being said, one thing that’s really important to know is that the answers to these questions does not create an attorney client relationship between me individually or Scroggins law group collectively, and anybody that is listening to this, this is not specific legal advice. These are just things that you need to go and talk to a lawyer about, if you’re facing these questions. So having said that, how does mental health affect a divorce? Well, it can affect it in a lot of different ways. If someone is suffering from untreated depression, or untreated bipolar disorder, that can come into play in a lot of different ways. So it might keep someone from being able to actively participate in you know, their their defense or prosecution of a divorce. But let’s say that somebody is suffering from bipolar disorder, or that’s what the allegation is, you might be asking for a psychological evaluation to be undertaken of that party or a psychiatric evaluation, or maybe both of those in tandem. So psychological is one thing psychiatric gets into what can be done from a medication management standpoint, right. So maybe you’ve got a psychiatric evaluation that comes out and says, This person suffers from bipolar disorder. And the recommendations are that they undergo this kind of medication management. So it would mean that a treating psychiatrist would be recommended that then based on what their interpretation of the particular problems and the aspects are of their bipolar disorder, then a determination would be made about what kind of medication is likely to have the best impact on them. And obviously, age plays into this as well. Right. So if you were doing this over a child in a child custody situation, you know, what affects an adolescent, one way is vastly different than how it affects you know, an adult, right, and you can run into problems with heightened risk of suicide based on certain medications, that would be taken by an adolescent where, you know, it’s vastly different than what a what an adult takes. So that’s one way that it that you would really see it being used, but where I talked about before, being unable to really participate if you’ve got somebody that’s really suffering from, you know, horrific depression. So situational depression, is something that is seen frequently in divorces. But you also have people that have always suffered from divorce, or suffered from divorce have always suffered from depression. And that can be very different in what medications are going to be utilized as compared to somebody where it’s just, you know, I’m going through a really shitty time and so I need some help in getting through that. Right now, if somebody has always been impacted by depression, the medication that they take take, might be completely different. So getting a court to be aware of that and understand that certain things need to be undertaken for that person to properly participate. That can be difficult, okay, because you have a judge that they’re interested in moving their docket. All right, they’re not really as interested in the well being of the party. They’re more interested in the well being of a child. Okay? So there are a whole lot of different issues that can come up in this particular area. So it’s important, first and foremost, hire a good lawyer that knows what the hell they’re doing in these situations, preferably somebody who’s board certified in family law and based on the particular circumstances of your case. They can help you get through that situation.
