Custody and Mental Disability

[VA_Mom]

What is the name of your state? VA

I no longer work directly in the legal field and when I did never dealt with such a case but now have a friend dealing with this issue which I would like to give her some advice about.

She has custody of her child but was recently diagnosed with major depression and they are also not ruling out bipolar. In the past couple of years, she has had difficulty maintaining a job with periods of unemployment (she is currently unemployed again). Finally, after her family and I along with some other friends urged her to seek help, her doctor now tells her that she needs to attend ongoing counseling and undergo a medication assessment. He also advised that since she is having difficulty working she may want to apply for disability benefits.

She is concerned that if her ex finds out that he will try to take custody of the child and has told me that she is considering not following through. If her ex did find out about her recieving benefits for mental illness, would he be able to seek a modification and gain custody of the child?

Other than the disability issue, the child is taken care of (clean clothing, fed, etc) and doing well in school. My friend just takes care of her child and then the remainder of the time keeps to herself which is totally different from how she was before. I would like to be able to tell her it is best if she seeks treatment but do not want her later on blaming me if she lost custody of her child.

 

[stealth2]

He's more likely to get custody if he finds out and she's NOT following through with treatment.

 

[VA_Mom]

Yeah, but what she is thinking is that if she does not apply for disability he would never know since dr. records are not public information but her being at home everyday while still being able to pay her rent from a disability check would be suspicious.

Like I said...I have no clue what to tell her other than GO GET HELP.

 

[stealth2]

And not being able to work due to her illness will help her... how?

 

[VA_Mom]

She thinks as long as she is able to get the bills paid with juggling multiple jobs that it is not as bad as having to admit to a court that she has a mental illness.

What she does is will go for about a couple of weeks without working, pull it together and then work for a couple of months, then back to the same cycle all over again. We have asked her why she does this and her answer is "it's so hard, I forget what I'm doing". Huh?? How are you going to have difficulty doing data entry when a couple of years ago you were an administrator for a well-known firm? That's when we said you need to seek help.

 

[Zephyr]

if she were on medication wouldn't she "even out" and then actually be able to hold a job? her being on medication does not automatically mean she is disabled

 

[VA_Mom]

Zephyr,

You made a good point along with Stealth. I will tell her to try the medication and counseling. Most likely she relayed the incorrect info because I think you have to exhaust all other interventions before applying for disability which clearly she has not at this point. Since she is able to work periodically, I think counseling and medication would probably get her back on track.