How Does Mental Health Impact the Trajectory of a Divorce?

We sit down with Family Law Attorney, Kimberly Brown, to discuss the role that mental health plays in the experience and trajectory of a divorce case, and what changes can be made within the legal system to help support individuals with chronic mental illnesses who are navigating difficult family law matters.

If you would like to speak with one of our attorneys, please call our office at (503) 227-0200, or visit our website at https://www.pacificcascadelegal.com.

Disclaimer: Nothing in this communication is intended to provide legal advice nor does it constitute a client-attorney relationship, therefore you should not interpret the contents as such.


How mental health impacts divorce cases with a family law attorney.

• Kimberly Brown highlights the importance of mental health in divorce cases.
• Brown highlights the grief and mental health impact of divorce, stressing it's distinct from other life events.

Understanding clients with mental health issues during divorce.

• Kimberly Brown describes a case where a client's trauma was exacerbated by the divorce process.
• Brown emphasizes the importance of understanding and believing clients, especially during difficult times.
• Clients with mental health issues may act out or be unresponsive during divorce proceedings, making it challenging for lawyers to represent them effectively.
• Lawyers must be aware of these behaviors and direct clients to appropriate resources to ensure their well-being and ability to make informed decisions during the divorce process.

Mental health challenges in family law cases.

• Kimberly Brown: Clients with mental health issues may struggle with objectivity in family law cases.
• Attorneys must work with clients to understand their interests and advocate for them in court.
• Kimberly Brown highlights the misuse of mental health diagnoses in court cases, emphasizing the importance of accuracy and diagnosis from a licensed professional.
• Brown notes that courts often do not take mental health issues into account when making decisions, and instead focus on the individual's fitness as a parent or spouse.

Mental health evaluations in custody cases.

• Examining mental health impact on parenting abilities in custody cases.
• Attorney Kimberly Brown discusses the potential for psychological testing in divorce cases.
• Attorney prepares client for courtroom experience, managing emotions to present case effectively.

Mental health and its impact on family law cases.

• Kimberly Brown highlights client's mental health issues and how they've addressed them in court.
• Kimberly Brown validates clients' fears about losing custody due to mental health issues, emphasizing the importance of educating judges about these issues.
• Brown prepares clients by gathering information from therapists or psychologists to present to the judge, highlighting their mental health issues and how they impact parenting.
• Kimberly Brown and Steve Altishin discuss the challenges of family law and provide legal advice.

Transcript

Intro:
Welcome to Modern Family Matters, a podcast devoted to exploring family law topics that matter most to you. Covering a wide range of legal, personal, and family law matters, with expert analysis from skilled attorneys and professional guests, we hope that our podcast provides answers, clarity, and guidance towards a better tomorrow for you and your family. Here's your host, Steve Altishin.

Steve Altishin  0:28  
Hi, everyone. I'm Steve Altishin, Director of Client Partnerships at Pacific Cascade Legal. And today I'm here with our Family Law and Estate Planning Attorney, Kimberly Brown, to talk about how mental health impacts a divorce case. So Kimberly, how are you doing?

Kimberly Brown  0:50  
You know, Steve, it's a brand new year. And so it just feels like an awesome way to just start with mental health and how how we can take better care of ourselves. It's great, it's a great day.

Steve Altishin  1:04  
I agree. I couldn't agree more. So before we kind of get into, you know, the hows and the whys of mental health. Let's talk about just why it's important to understand how mental health impacts divorce?

Kimberly Brown  1:22  
Well, I think, I think if you ask almost any family law attorney, they will make a comment something to the effect of, we see people not at their very best in family law. And until I would say relatively recently, I think that there was a belief that people were just being mean, or vindictive, or anything like that. And it's really, I think, becoming much more clear that it's actually often none of those things. It is they are stressed and their mental health has been affected by the divorce itself, or the process or the custody issue itself. It's not like something that happened before, that you had mental health issue before, necessarily, but something in the divorce or custody matter, affects the same part of your brain that has a reaction to grief. I think it's a very profound and deep grief that people are going through. And there are many situations where they talk about grief impacting your mental health, you lose your job, someone dies. You have to move, you know, there's all those stressors and you can get depressed or anxious. But they've not put divorce into that same kind of category of grief. And I think that it should be, it should be because it's its own thing.

Steve Altishin  2:52  
Yeah. And for, like you say, someone who's not generally suffering from a mental health issue, the stress that can make this come on, like you're talking about, sort of a temporary thing. I mean, if you add that to the plate of someone who's already suffering from mental health, I mean, there can be, it's probably hard to tell how how that goes. I mean, how that can kind of, in what way that can just manifest.

Kimberly Brown  3:20  
Right? I've had several clients that have struggled with previous trauma issues that have affected their mental health. And I just recollect one case fairly early on in my career, where this woman came into my office, and she was rambling. And she was very hard to believe what she was telling me because it seemed extraordinary. And the way that she was presenting seemed to me like who I don't know if this woman has got a foot in reality. And when I sort of ended the consultation, she looked at me and she said, You don't believe me? I am telling you the truth, but you don't believe me. And I sat, I looked at her and I said, Okay. And in my brain, what happened was, I thought, this woman is acting like she is reliving a trauma like post traumatic stress disorder, people relive their trauma. And she's telling me the story from that kind of place. And so I thought, I'm gonna sit down, I'm going to again with her, and I'm going to ask her to start over. And I'm going to listen to her as someone who's suffering from a trauma and has a response this way. And she was telling the truth, it was a very dramatic child abuse case. It was very hard to believe, but I almost dismissed her because I didn't trust that she she was, it took me I had to rethink it, and reset myself to listen to her through her mental health. And we as attorneys need to understand that sometimes when people present in a way that is difficult for us to handle, that that may be solely as a result of have their own trauma that you're the client's trauma exacerbated by either the divorce or what happened in their relationship. And it's very important that we take a breath and say, Why is this response happening the way it is right now? And could it be that we just don't, we just need to listen to it as if we need to believe our clients, and then try to have the tools in our own tool bag that allows us to listen with information about why somebody might be behaving the way they are.

Steve Altishin  5:34  
It sounds like, again, then a big issue for someone suffering from mental health during a divorce is just being understood. I mean, the process of communication, even just between the attorney and the client, becomes difficult.

Kimberly Brown  5:56  
Yes, it does. Clients who are suffering with a mental health disorder, either before exacerbated by the family law case, or as a result of the family law case, they can call or be in our office in a manner that is really hard to, to handle, they can be screaming, they can be so grief stricken, that they can't tell you what's going on, they can be acting out outside of your office, and you're learning about this usually from the other counsel. And if we don't have our own tools, and we don't, aren't aware of why people might be acting the way they are, we might want to no longer represent the client because we can't quote unquote, control them. And we don't control our clients, but we try to control what the information is, it's getting to the other side or to the court. And so it's really important to have a moment where we just sit back and say, Why is this happening? Why is our client acting this way? And how can we help them and navigate through this divorce, we're not therapists are not trained to do any of that. But we can learn about symptoms or signs or behaviors that can help us direct our clients to the appropriate resources.

Steve Altishin  7:12  
You know, a lot of mental health, people with mental health issues can be on medication. And I'm imagined that this stress of the divorce can interrupt the use of medication that they really should be doing. And again, this sort of making it harder, because they'd be how do you deal with someone who you also have to make sure you have to stay on your meds? Because we have to make these decisions. And it's kind of that decision making process because no matter where they're at, you really can't make that decision for them, can you?

Kimberly Brown  7:52  
No, I mean, there are instances where if a client is either gone off their medication, because they don't think they need any more, or because they're so stressed out, they're just not taking care of themselves, or for whatever reason, that our clients are then not able to make decisions that are in their own best interest. They're, they're reactive to the situation rather than understanding or accepting or trying to take care of the divorce. And it's or the, or the family law case, in its own particular arena, it affects us all personally, but then the divorce law is not about all of the stuff you're feeling emotionally, it's usually about property and money and somebody else making a decision about custody and parenting time the judge if they're not able to settle the case. And so we need them to be able to have the capacity to think about, okay, I may want to be really take 100% of all of the property. But my attorney has told me that 50% is about all I'm gonna get, because that's fair 5050. So I need to decide what part of the 5050 I want, I have to be competent enough to say, I'd like to keep the house which means I might give up the retirement plan. And all that if you're not able to with the help of your attorney to object, its objective is the wrong word. We're never objective when we're grief stricken or struggling with our mental health, but to work with your attorney to decide what's best for you, then it makes it really, really hard for for your client and the attorney to work together to come up with a good outcome. 

Steve Altishin  9:33  
Yeah, I mean, I imagine there are times where the person that you're working with, starts to, you know, project that you're on the other side, you're the enemy also and then they have nobody.

Kimberly Brown  9:45  
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's happened a lot with clients that are struggling and you know, whether they've had a mental health issue before they came in to see us it happened as a result of the grief they're experiencing through their family law case. They often do believe that the attorney Ernie is in cahoots with the other attorney. And I often start off my practice or my appointments with my client, especially before we go to any kind of court hearing and say, I'm a nice person, I try to stay a nice person, regardless of whether I'm sitting in my office with you or I'm in the courtroom, I work with this attorney, if I especially if I know this attorney really well, and I've worked a lot with him. We're not friends, but we're colleagues who have a lot of respect for one another. So if you see me talking to them smiling, it's like, it's not that I'm on their side, it's, we have a job to do. And this is my colleague, and in the courtroom, I will there's no I have, you will have no doubt that I'm advocating solely for your interest. And if the judge decides against what you're at what you want me to advocate doesn't mean that I was in cahoots with the other attorney, because I was nice to them just means the judge decided that there was the law, as it applied to your particular case was, was not how you wanted what not the outcome you wanted. But their mental health may may prohibit or inhibit their ability to understand that.

Steve Altishin  11:09  
Yeah. And now that, at least to me, it seems to lead to a real pitfall in that they become very vulnerable to the other side to use that mental health issue against them. Yeah, I mean, that's got to happen, it seems like.

Kimberly Brown  11:30  
you know, I started practicing law, the, the thing that was most excuse me, the thing that you could accuse the other side of, to kind of get the upper hand was meth, you know, somebody would come in and say, I think they're using meth, then then the thing that happened was, I noticed everybody had a spouse that was a sex abuser of the children. And, and so, so people, people, I don't think they intentionally want to necessarily intentionally want to, like, make the other person and negative ogre. Some people do but but they, you know, but but I think more what it's about is that they're trying to find language, to protect themselves. And so they will throw out things like, oh, that person nowadays, what you hear, I think, almost, I would say, 80% of my clients come in and tell me the spouse is narcissistic. Yeah, because they've looked up the they've looked up the thing on on Google, and they've got all the symptoms, and their spouse has all of those characteristics. And, you know, the other side, maybe narcissistic, I don't know. But without a diagnosis, I'm not going to use it. But people have used it as a way to try to get the upper hand. And so it's important that we talk to our clients about throwing out words that might, in fact, not be true, and how it affects their own credibility by making broad statements about somebody else's mental health without a formal diagnosis. Because if a court reads is a pleading of which been signed by our client, where we're labeling them all these things, and there's no diagnosis to it, how the court views them, maybe sort of with a little bit of a jaundiced eye, because they're wanting to smear the other side. And so I really work, I work with my clients in those situations to say, look, this is not about how bad of a parent or spouse this other person has been. What this is about is how much better you are as the parent, and how you are in the relationship. So we're going to talk of you. And we're going to leave, for the most part, some of this mud, that we're slinging that you want to sling out of the whole case. And

Steve Altishin  13:50  
It seems like that's really necessary to get a fair judgement. It's not just the issue of the person, your client and you as about the other attorney, the other respondent, the even the judge, you know, not making these diagnoses, but actually knowing what they mean, right.

Kimberly Brown  14:12  
I think a lot of parties don't realize how much I mean, there's still some progress. There's lots of progress we need to make, not just in the court systems, but in our society in general about how we address and deal with mental health issues. But what I have learned, or what I've seen, I would say is that courts do not do not necessarily take somebody's mental health issues. And just beside because you're struggling with depression or you're struggling with another mental health trauma, post traumatic stress disorder, anything like that, and say, Oh, you're not a fit parent. But you know, they don't do that. What they want is they want to see is that parent addressing their mental health issues? And have they addressed it in such a way that it does not impact at how they care for their children, are they able to care with care for their children. So when I have a client who has a diagnosed mental health condition, the first thing we sit down and talk about is tell me what it's like, how do you parent your children right now, who takes them to school, who gets him up for school, who feeds them, who bakes them, who takes him to the doctor and stuff like that. And using those tools that we use with every client, we're able though with people that have mental health issues to maybe tease out, they're not the best about getting the kids up morning for school, because their medications may make them very sleepy, and hard to wake up. So the other spouse has been getting them up in the morning, to take their the other parent and taking them, getting them ready for school. And then the person with the mental health is the one that is at home or takes care of all of the after school stuff or, or volunteers at school or those things. So we try to filter out where the strengths and weaknesses are, and how that might impact their being the if the child is going to live with them primarily, are they ever going to be able to do the things that need to be done to best parents, their children?

Steve Altishin  16:06  
Wow, that made me think of that, in cases. Not every case. But you know, it happens where one parent wants the other parent to undergo a mental health evaluation. And, you know, Austin II parenting time, that whole thing. And it raises my question is the mental health evaluation, but someone who you pretty much knows has some mental health, you know, issue? Is that a good thing? I mean, can the evaluator differ between the actual diagnosis and what the person's mental health is, and their ability to be a good parent? Or is that generally something that can just cause more problems to have?

Kimberly Brown  16:52  
I think the first place is, if you are just throwing that out there, because you're angry at the other parent, because the relationship is ending, or there's been a history of some sort of abuse towards you, maybe not towards the children. And you're just throwing out those terms, and you want an evaluation done, just kind of put the the bug in the judges here that this person might have some problems. And it comes back that none of that is true, because the evaluator has done, the psychological testing has shown that this parent, all of us have some struggles and everything like that. So our tests never come back at that I've seen anyway, never come back with everybody being, you know, absolutely 100% no issues whatsoever. You know, one of the most common things that illogical tests will show is that the party that this person has a comes in as defensive, you know, that sort of, you know, they've answered the questions from a defensive posture. I see that a lot in some of the tests. But I don't, I don't think it's ethical for just one person to have to undergo a psychological test. So if the court is going to order psychological tests, they generally will order a psychological test for both parents. And sometimes the results of the the psychological test may not be what our client wants, you know, especially if they if they are so angry that they're that they're trying to just hurt the other party, rather than resolve the differences. That's usually indicative that there's some some struggle with how they hold the stress and how they're able to hold stress, not just in this particular situation, but across the board, are they able to manage high stress, high conflict things? And how does that impact their ability to parent their children? Yeah.

Steve Altishin  18:35  
Well, and we've been doing this a lot of time. And do you read to prepare or? Or do your hearing or the trial that actually goes to that differently? If someone has mental health issues in data? Is there is there some sort of approach that you take, like, I There are triggers here that we know that may occur, and so I'm going to do this differently, to prevent, help prevent them from occurring?

Kimberly Brown  19:10  
Right, I would say I try very hard to prepare my client for the experience of being in a courtroom, it particularly if I'm the respondent, and my client is the as a party who's going to have to sit and listen to the petitioners case, because the petitioner always goes first. So they get put on their case, and they're throwing mud, let's say that they're the kind of client and attorney that throw mud. And my client has to sit there for whatever period of time for them to put on their case, to say all these negative things about this person, and if a party has trouble regulating their emotions in any kind of way, they may act out in the courtroom, they may behave in a way that's that's negatively impacts how the judge perceives them. Because I always tell my clients remember the judge is sitting on the bench up here, and you're sitting here and all they see is you I mean they see your facial expressions, they see all of your behavior. So I tried to have my client, I really tried to prepare my client, listen, it's going to sound like terrible stuff, because that's the way you're filtering it. It may be terrible, but it may not be, I just need you to trust me that I'm going to, I'm going to come back over it as like, and I'm gonna object as possible, as much as possible if I can, but then we get to go. And the last thing that Judge hears is your story. And so, so I tried to do that. And then the other thing I do is I talk to my client a lot about their mental health condition. And I make sure that in my hearing memorandum, my trial memorandum I lead with that I lead with my clients, mental health issues, and what they are doing to address them also often, you know, the when, when people get separated, this drives me nuts, Steve, I feel myself just rising a little frustration. Here, I have had clients where the party has been either an alcoholic or has severe mental health issues or whatever. And they are the primary caregivers of the children, they're the ones that get him up in the morning that wants to get him to school, the other party may go away for a weekend, the children stay with the mentally ill parent. But all of a sudden, when we get to court, or we get to custody provision, they are not competent enough to handle the care and custody of their children. And I find that very frustrating. So I just leave with all of those factors in my trial memo, because while that is not evidence, to the judge, it is at least setting it's giving the judge the information that this person has these issues, has addressed these issues is continuing to address these issues, and has never had an issue with any if you know, depending on the facts of the case, but has never had an issue acting as the primary parent or when there has been problems, a deep depression may overcome somebody and they're not able to parent you. They've reached out, you know, their mom has come from Montana to stay with them during that difficult period, they're able to see when they're struggling, and reach out and ask for help. Because all those things impact the court's decision, not just what you have, not just the label that somebody might give you, but how you live with that real illness and how you address that, you know, and so it's important to do that. Yeah.

Steve Altishin  22:27  
And you talk a little bit about how you think it's getting better, over over time that more people are understanding it. But it's still going to be hard on on a person who is getting a divorce, and even again, maybe they know their issues, and and they know what their issues are this, this makes them just wonder, and you know, and I commend you, and I'd say, you know, I have these three things, and how can I possibly not have my kids taken away from me or not being able to see them? I'm afraid of if I go through a divorce, or I'm afraid to fight, go to the trial, I've just, I have no chance to win. But what would you say to that person?

Kimberly Brown  23:13  
I like validate their feelings. First of all, that, you know, it depends on what Judge we draw how much understanding of mental health issues the judge has, in my experience, you know, if I've appeared before that judge with a particular mental health issue, but also then it's my responsibility as their attorney, to make sure I know as much about whatever their individual mental illnesses, and how they have been dealing with it over the period of time, I'll often ask for their to be able to talk to their therapist, if they're seeing a therapist or psychologist, I'll often bring in that party, the therapist or the psychologist, as a witness, I try not to do that because I don't want to interfere with the patient therapeutic relationship in terms of having them give evidence, but sometimes it's necessary, but I just prepare my client from the very beginning, this is what we're gonna do. This is how we're going to address your mental health stuff. This is what I need to do to educate and make sure the judge is educated about what your mental health issues are. And how do you manifest that in your behavior? And how are you taking care of yourself? And how does that impact your ability to parent your children? And so it's I think it's really on on us as lawyers, to assure our clients, we're going to do our best to talk to them about what we do, but also to be educated enough that we can give the information to the judge regardless of how they deal with mental health generally, but just give them as much information as we can so that the judge is better educated about that person's mental health and how it may impact children. 

Steve Altishin  24:47  
That's got to be a tough job. And you do it really well. Thank you. We are unfortunately out of time we just sped through 30 minutes.

Kimberly Brown  24:56  
We did, with you I usually do, Steve.

Steve Altishin  25:00  
Yes we do, yes we do. And it was another just great, great one. I mean, it's the concept, it's really hard. And there's a lot of things that can go wrong. And there's a lot of, you know, just tough stuff to understand, but I love it when you just make it understandable. And it helps everybody, you know, even watching to kind of go well I can do this, or I can help someone do this, you know, one or the other. So thank you so much for being here today. Thank you. Yeah, it's wonderful. And everyone else thank you for joining us. Anyone with questions, you can contact us and we can get you connected with Kimberly or even another one of our attorneys. But until next time, stay safe. Stay happy, be well.

Outro:
This has been Modern Family Matters, a legal podcast focusing on providing real answers and direction for individuals and families. Our podcast is sponsored by Pacific Cascade Legal, serving families in Oregon and Washington. If you are in need of legal counsel or have additional questions about a family law matter important to you, please visit our websites at pacificcascadelegal.com or pacificcascadefamilylaw.com. You can also call our headquarters at (503) 227-0200 to schedule a case evaluation with one of our seasoned attorneys. Modern Family Matters, advocating for your better tomorrow and offering legal solutions important to the modern family.