Pete,

I want you to know that I am one woman who would like to throttel your ex, your 1st attorney, your friend that got made about you not being able to make the appointment, and yes, even your kids!

My husband suffered a severe TBI last year and I have seen how that has affected his ability to deal with stress, as well as stresses affects on his condition. I went into a new bout with a 14 yr. old, as yet undiagnosed, very debilitating neuro problem in Jan this year and can really see the difference in his ability to cope between this time and the last one 4 yrs. ago. That's why I hopped on this forum.

You ex wife sounds like a real succubus. It's too bad you don't have her on tape with that comment about how she can control things because of your disabilities! Let's try to prove her wrong!

First, you need to make sure your new attorney is aware of your problems and how they affect your ability to do what needs to be done. Print something off the net if you can and provide her/him with that. Perhaps they have a resource to get help for you to prepare. Also, MAKE SURE you tell them that statement your ex made!

Second, if your children live close enough, I think you should call and tell them that yes, you made a mistake with this woman (that's obvious), but if you don't get some help getting this together it will be worse! They also need to understand your conditions and get over the "I told you so" syndrome.

If they can't or won't help, do you have a neighbor or friend you can call on to help you get everything together?

And last, with or without someones help on the paperwork, you need to develop a skill to help you cope with all that is going on before it affects your health conditions even worse. As you have already seen, stress will aggravate your conditions. Since you can't make the situation go away, you'll have to take a different tact to cope with it until you get through.

There is a psychological trick to help with this. You are going to have to become an actor for a while. You need to trick your mind into believing that you are just a paralegal working on all this documentation as a job for someone else. The mind is very open to suggestion and will take anything you tell it! So tell yourself before you sit to do this task that it's not your possessions, not your ex-wife, not your paperwork. Take the emotions out of the equation while you are working on this. If you feel the personal connection start to creep in, tell yourself out loud that it's not your things you are looking at - it's just a job you're doing. If you hit a point where the emotions take over too much to focus, take a break to yell, scream, vent the feelings somehow and then get back to brainwashing yourself again. After you regain the control, you can get back into the paperwork.

My aunt was given this exercise after my uncle and young cousin were both killed it a car accident. It was just too much for her to handle losing both at once, so she was told to "pretend" that my uncle was away on business and only allow herself to grieve the loss of her daughter. Once she got through that process, she was allowed to grieve her husband.

When the mind has too much emotion the stress builds to a point where it will freeze you up. And you've seen the effects the stress has on your physical conditions. You have to take the emotion out of it, even if it's just for a couple of hours at a time, so you can focus on the task at hand. Tell yourself you'll only deal with the emotional aspects of this situation after you are finished with the paperwork.

I hope this helps you a little, at least.
I wish you the best of luck at beating this wench!