Nervous breakdown and child contact.

[ImTheTammy]

NC and changed some details so i's unidentifiable

My DP has applied for child contact. He's seen the child 3 times when the child was 1 years old in a centre supervised with notes, this was ended due to the mother, we firmly believe she was telling the child to cry/making the child scared of DP before the child went in to these sessions (she didn't come into the sessions with the child she waited in another room) The court decided that contact shouldn't happen the child was distressed and the court said the child shouldn't been distressed this is the only time in 3 years. he's now applying for one supervised session per 4-6 weeks.

He is however currently suffering from a nervous breakdown, He's now been signed off work sick with anxiety and depression concluding to the breakdown.

What we're now worried about is how this will affect any reports i.e CAFCASS/Judges ect.

Can the mother request any medical test ect to make sure he's deemed 'fit' for contact? She's now saying she's worried about what he may/may not do to the DC and his mental well being when being around the child.

it's her fault hes having the breakdown as he cant see the child

What do his doctors say ?
If is asking for supervised it should be OK.

not seeing child might contribute but won't be only reason for poor mh.

I have experience of this and it did not count negatively against the father. He was proactive in terms of getting help - specifically psychotherapy to deal with the loss of his children. It's obviously not a death but is still a significant loss of relationship and has a similar impact.

Blaming the mother for the breakdown is not a good idea and as a PP said will only be part of the issue.

my exp had a breakdown while living with me and DC, which he blamed no stresses of family life and being around the DC and having a disabled child...i left with DC then later he had another severe mh episode breakdown which was blamed on not seeing the DC. the reality is he has MH problems which could be partly triggered by any circumstance or none. it is his mh to deal with; your p has to deal with his MH and not defer to anyone else as the "cause".

there have been times where exp has been actually totally unfit for any kind of contact; times when he has been ok supervised; times when he has been ok unsupervised. if you p is getting help, then he should pursue supervised contact with support of his medical professionals. dont focus on what his ex might say or do. if she wants a psych report, and judge agrees, then get one and cooperate - if the judge orders it. the issue will be - who pays for this report?

he blamed "on" stresses of being around DC... i've seen a diagnosis of depression, anxiety and "adjustment" disorder...

Do you mean DP saw the child 3 times before he was 1 year old in the contact centre. I don't believe a mother (or anyone else) can tell a 1 year old child to cry and make him scared before he went into contact - maybe with an older child but a baby of 1 year old would have no understanding of kind of pressure. It seems far more likely the baby was afraid of his dad, simply because he was an unfamiliar figure. Very young children need to have very frequent contact with people before they will remember them and see them as familiar people. A baby under 1 would need to see someone on at least a weekly basis in my view, so 3 contacts in 1 year is simply not enough for a baby to feel happy with his dad - he was a stranger and so any baby of this age will probably cry if left with a stranger.

The fact that you and DP "firmly believe" the mother put the baby up to this does I'm afraid demonstrate that you seem to have little understanding of child development and the child's ability for recall at differing ages.

When you say "this is the only time in 3 years" do you mean that DP has not seen the child for 3 years - so he would be around 4 years old now - is that right? If this is the case then DP will be a complete stranger to the child and the same thing is likely to happen for the same reason. Why is he wanting contact once every 4 - 6 weeks? This would be more understandable if this was an older child with whom he has lost contact and the child had a good memory of his dad, and the dad wanted to stay in the child's life, albeit on a fairly infrequent basis.

The other thing is that contact is meant to be in the best interests of the child - I can't seen how this can be the case if a 3 or 4 year old is having contact with someone he hasn't seen since he was a year old. Contact is the right of the child, not the parents.

I don't think the MH problem is the issue here to be honest. You are both in blaming mode - against the mother and the court would take a very dim view of this - Judges get very tired of parents blaming each other and trying to score points, when the real focus should be what is in the child's best interests.