This is actually not the case of ladies' losing custody of their kids due to the stigma of mental health episodes.

There ARE such cases - do not get me wrong and I am not disputing that there is stigma, but THIS CASE is NOT THAT.

This case, and mine, is about men who, as you said, threatened to use mental illness against the women and those threats were effective.

We can talk about stigma if a mentally ill mother has engaged an appropriately zealous lawyer who presented how well the mother can parent with appropriate support, and the judge overrode the best arguments by qualified counsel and ruled in favor of the man simply because of the mother's dx. That would be stigma at play in our family courthouses. And, once again, I am not saying that it does not happen - I am saying that in this case the man INTIMIDATED the woman into giving up custody without fighting because he threatened her very successfully and she believed him that the judge would rule in his favor.

I think, and may start a petition for this, that mentally ill parties to custody disputes should not be allowed to go in pro per in court and should be given free attorney if they cannot afford one, provided that the other party is using the mental illness as a way to get what they want. If they do not mention mental illness as a parenting weakness, it fine for the mentally ill to go unrepresented, but if mental illness is used as a negative factor to justify removal of custody, the mentally ill person ought to be represented. Otherwise it is just plain horrible - the disparity, injustice, despair...

And it is a systemic issue and I simply cannot see why the courts assign free counsel to criminal defendants who cannot afford hiring an attorney, but look the other way when mothers lose their custody and visitation rights without representation. Why is losing custody of one's children less important than fighting criminal charges? I have not seen my daughters for two years - not at all - between 2009 and 2012 I saw them sporadically and always in the presence of their dad, so I could not really be relaxed and my normal self with it. So basically 5 years of not parenting them. If I were offered to go back in time, spend half of those 5 years in jail, but after leaving the jail get my custody rights back, I would have opted for that kind of "trade".Oh well, sorry for the rant...