Question about children's right's in regard to BPD

[bravhart1]

So I've been doing some reading and there are like a hundred books out there for adult children of BPD parents. They all focus on protecting yourself against the abuse, recovery from the mental and emotional mind games etc.

So my question is this: If there are experts out there that know this is a living hell for kids to grow up in this environment, then why is it so VERY difficult to protect them legally while they are small?

Why is our court system so slow to act to provide these children with a stable and loving environment?

I'm not by any means suggesting that the BPD parent get the boot. But I am suggesting that the courts should look at these "high conflict" custody cases and go straight to the psych evaluation. Getting the child help early is the only way to keep them from suffering needlessly, and to keep the risk of PA down.

Putting majority time share and decision making in the hands of a nonBPD parent would certainly make things easier for the child.

But what if you don't have the ten's of thousands of dollars it takes to get a psych eval?

So your child is just meant to suffer through because of financial reasons?

We all know that it is nearly impossible to co-parent with a BPD if they are choosing to be difficult. Why must the nonBPD parent and the child have to suffer through this illness any longer than necessary? It is hard enough to get away from the BPD, and then the courts continue to ask you to co-parent with them for years before they act. If they(BPD) were reasonable there wouldn't be this problem to begin with.

[DreamGirl]

So my question is this: If there are experts out there that know this is a living hell for kids to grow up in this environment, then why is it so VERY difficult to protect them legally while they are small?

Why is our court system so slow to act to provide these children with a stable and loving environment?

I'm not by any means suggesting that the BPD parent get the boot. But I am suggesting that the courts should look at these "high conflict" custody cases and go straight to the psych evaluation. Getting the child help early is the only way to keep them from suffering needlessly, and to keep the risk of PA down.

Putting majority time share and decision making in the hands of a nonBPD parent would certainly make things easier for the child.

My short answer? It's more complicated then BPD = less custody/ nonBPD = more custody. I've worked in child advocacy before, and there is a lot being done to make sure the children are kept safe from suffering endlessly... . however, the bar is set pretty low as to what makes a parent fit. Mental illness is also not grounds for a loss of custody.

I read an article recently that discussed that the trend is that both parents tend to be part of these high-conflict situations. These kinds of cases fill up the courts' dockets when parents just can't agree to simple things (from vacation time to whether or not Junior can play soccer). So these judges are finding that by giving primary custody/decision making to only one parent - it reduces the conflict because without joint decision making, there is no room for arguing.

We all know that it is nearly impossible to co-parent with a BPD if they are choosing to be difficult. Why must the nonBPD parent and the child have to suffer through this illness any longer than necessary? It is hard enough to get away from the BPD, and then the courts continue to ask you to co-parent with them for years before they act. If they(BPD) were reasonable there wouldn't be this problem to begin with.

There are success stories and there are not-so-successful stories on these boards. Obtaining custody through the courts is a long process and there needs to be a significant level of value to transferring custody, and that goes beyond just having a parent who is suffering from BPD. It's not an absolute determination that a parent can't be a parent - even with the research that shows high risk factors for the children. The same goes for other kinds of parents who are say... . below the poverty line... . or a teenaged parent... . where studies show higher risk for the kids.  

It's not so black and white so to speak.  

I also absolutely agree that it can be extremely difficult to coparent with a pwBPD, because reason does tend to be a foreign concept.

Mine is a success story in that my husband has learned skills in dealing with her (and his frustration) with minimal court involvement, because he learned very early on that it was a pretty big gamble and the stakes were too high. The court system proved to be pretty biased towards their mom and he wasn't willing to fight the good fight.  

So he instead embraces a life where he continuously and without fail, takes the high road. It is not even relatively fair - not in any sense of the word. She also doesn't have a negative effect on him (for the most part) and he is really good at neutralizing situations. He knows when to take a time out and when to engage, he knows her triggers and he has learned some pretty keen communication skills. I call him the ex-wife whisperer.  

[Free One]

So I've been doing some reading and there are like a hundred books out there for adult children of BPD parents. They all focus on protecting yourself against the abuse, recovery from the mental and emotional mind games etc.

So my question is this: If there are experts out there that know this is a living hell for kids to grow up in this environment, then why is it so VERY difficult to protect them legally while they are small?

Why is our court system so slow to act to provide these children with a stable and loving environment?

I'm not by any means suggesting that the BPD parent get the boot. But I am suggesting that the courts should look at these "high conflict" custody cases and go straight to the psych evaluation. Getting the child help early is the only way to keep them from suffering needlessly, and to keep the risk of PA down.

Putting majority time share and decision making in the hands of a nonBPD parent would certainly make things easier for the child.

But what if you don't have the ten's of thousands of dollars it takes to get a psych eval?

So your child is just meant to suffer through because of financial reasons?

We all know that it is nearly impossible to co-parent with a BPD if they are choosing to be difficult. Why must the nonBPD parent and the child have to suffer through this illness any longer than necessary? It is hard enough to get away from the BPD, and then the courts continue to ask you to co-parent with them for years before they act. If they(BPD) were reasonable there wouldn't be this problem to begin with.

I wish I had the answers. I am struggling with this now and how to do what is best emotionally for my son without bankrupting myself.

[Nope]

I don't know why there isn't some kind of better answer in high conflict situations. When my DF went to mediation with the kid's BPD mom the mediator spoke to both parties seperately and, as far as I can tell, told each of them that if they didn't learn to work with each other the other parent was likely going to get full decision making if it went ti court. Then in the actual mediation she first tried taking BPD mom's side on the stupidest little things. Presumably to make her feel heard and validated. Then she tried to get BPD mom to work with DF on the real issues. It all ended up being a colossal waste of time as BPD mom refused to be reasonable at all. By the end of it DF told the mediator privately that there was no point in continuing meditation and he should just go to court and the mediator agreed with him.

In the state in question mediators have no power and can't even report back to the court. But I can't help but feel that if the mediator got to see all of this in action and got to be the final voice on custody and larger issues then we would have gotten resolution over a year ago. And that resolution would have favored the non BPD parent. Obviously, I think something like this would be the better model for high conflict situations.

[livednlearned]

Getting full custody of S12 has nearly brought me to the brink of financial disaster. I'm one of the lucky ones, though, because at least the judge ruled in my favor.

Having said that, I've sat in court many times while waiting for my case to be heard, and that gave me the opportunity to listen to a bunch of other cases.

It's really, really, really hard to tell what's going on when you listen to both sides. Even when expert witnesses are brought in. It's just as easy to do a "he said, she said" version of who is mentally ill when psych evals are involved. It's much more sophisticated and expensive, but it boils down to the same thing.

The courts are a blunt instrument, partly because it's hard to tell what's true and what isn't true, even for lawyers and judges. That's why documenting is better than anything else. I had 3 enormous 3-ring binders filled with emails that included N/BPDx's raging, threats, bullying, erratic behavior. He came to court with a handful of emails that he had written, as if to say, "See? I can write normal emails. Here's what I said about LnL in one of my emails."

In the end, it was the documentation that made the difference. That, and N/BPDx's behavior was severely disordered.

Honestly, I think the best thing would be for Bill Eddy to train as many judges and lawyers in mental health issues so that they could try and understand the patterns of behavior better. Instead of thinking that high-conflict divorces are about two squabbling, immature parents, learn to spot telltale signs of conflict. Sometimes it will be both parents, but a lot of times it is BPD in one parent, keeping the conflict going.