u/kaleirenay

Hey all, so I'm in a very interesting and quite stressful situation. My life has been off the rails since i live at my old Apartment for two years with no prior issues, no late payments, and a good tenant history. Before the new management took over, I had a full-time night-shift job, was in online school full-time for my bachelor’s in software engineering, and ran my own web-design studio. Now I have nothing.

Immediately after the new owner/management company took over, severe mismanagement began.

• The AC unit completely died in extreme heat. Maintenance visited once but never fixed it, and their system showed fake “completed” dates. I couldn’t work from home or run my server-based business and lost multiple invoices and clients.
• I renewed my lease for the next year. They signed and executed it, but then immediately issued a 5-day notice under the old lease anyway.
• In court, the manager (who had signed the new lease) denied the renewal existed. Under heat stress and pressure I signed a stipulation. They finally fixed the AC right after the first payment — proving they were withholding repairs on purpose.
• I made all three stipulation payments (they accepted every one, even the slightly late ones).
• I repeatedly told them (in writing and in person) that I had a valid new lease. They ignored it, filed for a writ under the expired old lease, and the sheriff evicted me without proper notice. The very next day they threw away all my belongings — no inventory, no storage, no supervision. I lost thousands in property, business equipment, and sentimental items.

I worked very hard to get prono bono lawyers got the eviction reversed, writ vacated and everything sealed, but the damage was done. A couple of months ago i got a new set of pro bono lawyers and we are now suing them.

Current Situation
I’ve been homeless ever since. I lost my job, got academically suspended, my business is gone, credit is tanking, and damages keep piling up daily. I’ve been pushing through every step of this nightmare — the heat, the lies, the illegal eviction, the loss of everything — on my own with no medical documentation. But I’ve now reached a complete breaking point. The stress, anxiety, no sleep, and constant survival mode (including minor back pain from sleeping in my car) have destroyed me mentally and physically.

I’m finally going to get a psychiatric provider-led psych eval because this has broken me.

My question:
What is the best way to use a basic psych eval to maximize emotional damages in court? The judge in my case is known to be very pro-tenant. I have no hard medical documentation from during the whole ordeal because I was trying to push through it on my own, but I’m at a breaking point and will be receiving care soon. How do I document the PTSD-like symptoms, no sleep, emotional collapse, and tie it all directly to the landlord’s misconduct so the judge can use common sense to connect the dots? Any tips on wording, timing, or what the evaluator should focus on to turn this into the strongest possible emotional-distress claim?

I want the full value of the case — not just the small documented pieces. Any real-world advice from people who have boosted emotional damages with medical evidence in a landlord-tenant case would be appreciated.