OMG I'm going to jail
I have a court hearing coming up on Feb 2nd, which is for the child support for my son that lives with my mom in ohio. I haven't made any payments in over a year and a half, partly because of jim being unemployed and then self-employed and not bringing in much money - we didnt have the money to pay our bills let alone child support for a long time... but also partly because since he has gotten work 4 months ago, he has been refusing to make payments - he says patrick is not his so why should he have to pay for it. nevermind that he considers all the other kids his and does things to take care of them, on this he won't budge. I've been telling him for over a year that this is a big deal, that it needs to be taken seriously and i could go to jail for it. he kept blowing me off and saying nothing bad would happen, it wasnt a big deal, that i was just blowing it out of proportion because of my anxiety issues - he would not listen to me. well, it turns out Im being charged with being in contempt of court for not paying my child support. sounds pretty serious to me!!!! At the hearing Im expected to prove that I was financially unable to pay for the entire time period, that i couldn't have borrowed the money or sold things to pay for it, and that i couldnt have gotten a job to pay it. This is a little something I found about it on a legal aid website: "Contempt of court is the strongest remedy for obtaining child support from a recalcitrant obligor. In short, if an obligor disobeys a court order to pay child support, the obligor can be fined, punished by a jail term and imprisoned until he does pay the child support - all at the same time. Usually, courts order obligors imprisoned until they pay. For this reason, it is often said that the obligor holds the keys to the jail in his own hands." The fact that Jim was unemployed is not going to matter to them, they will want to know why *I* couldn't have gotten a job to pay for it... and the only answer i have to that besides staying at home with the kids, is my ptsd, depression and social phobia and how that has handicapped me. I really have been in NO shape to work, but how the hell do I prove that to the court??? I asked my therapist for a letter saying that I couldn't work, but her agency doesn't let her do things like that, plus they usually need the word of a real doctor in cases like this, not a counselor. I haven't had a psychiatrist in months, I've been trying and trying to get in with someone and had one issue after another with it. So I have no doc to help out with that either, and short of a letter I can't think of anything else I could use as proof of disability. I mean I filed for SSI 6 months ago, and am having trouble enough proving it to them with how strict their rules are. Anyway, I'm scared out of my mind... I really CAN'T go to jail, not only would that be very triggering and damaging to me, it would mean there would be no one to watch my kids.
Scott said he would help pay the back amount that I owe, but I still disobeyed a court order and so still have to be punished - thats' not going to stop the hearing or the consequences. and even if it did, it would only be a temporary fix, since Jim won't make future payments, I'll just get behind again and this will happen all over again.
I am really desperate here and don't know what else to do.
EDITED TO ADD: I contacted Naighborhood Legal Services/Legal Aid (free legal help for those with low income) and they don't do child support cases... and I can't afford an attorney. I can't even find someone to talk to to answer my questions about what to do, let alone defend me.