Mentally ill unstable dad

[ThatGirl]

Hello,
I am new here and this is my first post.
I am excited to find this site and desperate for help.
My STBXh is Bipolar and has Borderline Personality Disorder.
He has been VA/EA and PA to me and all but PA to my daughter and our son.
My daughter is from a previous marriage and my son is from him.
I have a restraining order on him now, and he is fighting it in court, with the trial coming in 10 days.
He has a lawyer and a seperate bank account where he keeps all his earnings and has not paid any child support. (I just applied through the county for that so it would start before the divorce is final at least)
I am afraid because I have no idea what to expect, and have no lawyer, or $$ to get one.
He has had an arrest for Felony Battery, without conviction on his exW, and I have all the documents from his arrest to her medical records to their entire divorce. I do not have his current medical records showing his diagnosis's, or current state of instability.
My questions are
How do I get his psychiatrist supeonaed?
What do I expect from the judge and keeping the restraining order in place at least until the divorce is final?
How do I get this psychological parent eval going??
Is this in every state in the US that they evaluate the parent?
Are the judges educated in mental illness and abuse through any formal training, or just through experience of "seeing it all"?

Any and all input and help is SO GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!
I am so tired of him hurting me and my children, and telling me I am the one hurting them by keeping HIM (his abuse) from them. He is in a constant rage and highly unstable, and I have called the police twice just to have them take him to the mental health unit at the hospital, where he was inpatient.
I am the petitioner in the divorce and still waiting to hear when the trial is, his lawyer does not return my phone calls.
Thank you all
ThatGirl

[Peanutsdad]

Ok if you have filed for divorce, that can sometimes be a seperate issues from custody fights,, other times, it can be lumped in.

You need to have custody evals done. Fair warning,, psychiatric evals WILL be expensive, and BOTH parties will have to submit to them.


Tips For Getting Started
http://www.deltabravo.net/news/10-19-2000.htm

How To Hire An Attorney
http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/hiring.htm

Hiring An Effective Attorney
http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/effective.htm

Success Factors In Obtaining Custody
http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/tips.htm

http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/missed-visit.htm


One of the first things you'll hear around here is "Document, document, document!". Having good records is *crucial*. Get yourself either the Parenting Time Tracker (PTT) at: http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/tracker.htm or the OPTIMAL Custody Tracking service at: http://www.parentingtime.net. The PTT is good, but the OPTIMAL service is definitely better.

[Dr.Stepmom]

Do whatever it takes to get a lawyer now.  I know that you think that you can't afford one, but I think you can't afford not to have one.

My husband and I sat in court 1 day (to learn what our judge was like) and watched everyone who came in without a lawyer lose big.

As you may guess from my name I am not a huge fan of lawyers, but this is too important to go into without help.

Perhaps someone out there can give some advice about how to get legal help cheap?

[Peanutsdad]

Cheap legal help is like cheap anything else,,,, you get what you pay for.