Crazy Making: 3 Signs Your Mental Health Status is "On the Line" in Your Domestic Violence Divorce

Domestic violence is hard enough to endure in and of itself. Then there’s the “getting out” part that is in some cases harder. The saddest, though, is the price the victim sometimes pays for her* peace, safety and freedom. For some survivors this is her sanity, for others it may be her contact with her children. And then, there are those whose price is leaving their lives to get their life back. Would you know if you were being subjected to losing your clean bill of mental health? Would you know if your psychological health was being set up to be compromised, so as to establish that you are an unfit parent…or as a maneuver to silence you and your victimization? nnHere are three tell-tale signs that your sanity is “on the line.” 1) You are in treatment with a psychologist who is required to have communications about you with your opposition’s therapist—a decision made without your knowledge, much less consent. 2) The court-appointed psychiatrist/psychologist, custody evaluator shows little interest in your relationship with your children, compared to his/her keen examination of your fears of abuse by your ex-partner-to-be and your concerns about his use of the system to control you and your contact with your children. 3) You have passed all of the court-appointed psychological evaluations with flying colors, but your ex or soon-to-be ex insists that you subject yourself to another psychiatric evaluation by a mental health provider of his choosing. And moreover, this is proposed as a condition for you to not lose full contact with your children.nn* Domestic abuse crosses gender, clearly. My reference to “she” in this article is because the re-victimization in domestic abuse appears to be far more prevalent for women who are abused. n