****So I'm not sure if ethics rules prohibit me from blogging about unnamed psycho clients or not, so just to be safe, I'm changing some of the facts and keeping it as anonymous as possible. And the only reason its part I is not because I'll be leaving you hanging you on the edge of your chair or anything, but its kind of a long story and I have a limited amount of time. And what happens later is what I actually wanted to blog about, but it doesn't make a whole lot sense unless I give you some background, which makes for a lot of reading in one sitting.
Anyway, back in Dec., I had a lady come into work asking for help. She had a court hearing the following day regarding visitations of her young son. She and her ex had been divorced for some years now, and apparently she didn't get to visit her son. Like EVER. I asked her how come, and she said it was because her ex kept him from her. I asked her how long it had been, and she said 2 yrs. I felt a little bad, but was unable to attend the hearing because of a prior commitment (I don't understand why people wait until the absolute last minute before consulting an attorney. I happen to know how much notice people get of impending legal action and it sure as heck ain't one night). I advised that she find another attorney.
Two days later, she showed up back at the office. She had been unable to find an attorney and had represented herself at the hearing. Its actually not that big of a deal -- a lot of people in divorce cases do, and her ex didn't have an attorney either. But apparently, the judge had yelled at her. She was almost crying and asked again for help. Again, I felt a little bad, but couldn't think of that much to do for her. The judge's points had been pretty valid. He had placed the burden of visiting her son on her and reprimanded her for not taking advantage of her scheduled visitations. In two years, although her court order gave her the right to have her son every other weekend, she hadn't attempted to pick him up or arrange a visit once. The judge re-established the visitation schedule and ordered her to follow it.
I told her the same thing. She complained that her ex verbally abused her and prevented her from coming to pick him up. She claimed that the ex enrolled the child in soccer just so she wouldn't be able to take him on wknds. He scared her. He was difficult. And her son believed everything his father told him and didn't want to visit his mother. The kid lived in the east bay with his father, it was hard for her to get out there. And on and on and on. The best was when she said that she believed that her ex did all these things (i.e. made her life so difficult) because he wanted her back. Yes, of course! Such a logical conclusion, no? I'm guessing it was this kind of mindset that drew her to him in the first place and kept him walking all over her. As bad as I felt, I was more frustrated by her helpless.
Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to sound insensitive or anything but you should have heard her. Pretty much anything I suggested was shot down because she just couldn't do it. And I'm an attorney not a counselor. All I can do is explain her legal options, not give her balls. Anyway, I offered to write a letter for her to her ex to strictly explain his legal obligation regarding the visitation schedule. And I offered to call him to set him straight if he denied her the visitations. She wanted to file for custody then and there. But unless she develops some pattern of visitation, I told her she wouldn't get very far. The son is 11, wants to stay with his dad, and has been doing well with him. As of now, she's the parent that mostly abandoned him. Fair or not, that's how I was sure it would go down in court.
End of story, I thought. I made a few calls and wrote a few letters, and then I didn't hear any more from her so assumed the visits were going well. Well, fast forward to Mon of this week. She calls me, frantically explaning that the ex has moved to Mexico. I couldn't make any sense of what she was saying. But it turns out that he moved to Mexico and the kid was still here, living with his stepmother. Except that no one had picked him up at the end of the wknd visit so he was actually with his mom, my "client." She didn't know what to do, she wanted to file for custody again. And what should she do about her son's school -- she didn't know how to contact them to let them know he wouldn't be in today because she didn't know what school he went to! Dude, what am I, a life skills coach or something?
I called her back with a few questions -- how did she know her ex had moved to Mexico for good and what was her custody status anyway? Did they share legal custody or not? And a few other things about what she ought to do. No response.
Today, she called again complaining that I'd never called her back. Um, hello? Just cuz you don't like what I tell you, you can't pretend you never got the message. The stepmother had gotten the cops involved and came down to pick up the kid. She kept saying "kids" and I was SO confused until she finally explained there's a 19yo daughter in the picture also. So basically, she's managed to isolate 2 children to the point where neither want to visit her. And some how its not her fault but everyone else's. The cops recognized that the stepmother had no say but the kid is a few weeks from finishing school for the year, had testing, etc. So the kid was taken back to his dad's house (even though I guess his dad isn't living there anymore).
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