IN RE PINE

ALAN JAROSLOVSKY, Bankruptcy Judge

Pursuant to § 109(h)(1) of the Bankruptcy Code, a person is not eligible to be a debtor unless he or she completed credit counseling within 180 days before the filing. The only exceptions are contained in § 109(h)(4), among them being mental illness such that the debtor is "incapable of realizing and making rational decisions with respect to financial responsibilities."

In this case, the debtor says that she is suffering from a bipolar disorder. She has no medical evidence that her disability makes her incapable of making rational decisions with respect to her financial responsibilities, nor any evidence of her condition at all beyond papers showing she was hospitalized in 1991. The debtor having failed to produce current evidence, and appearing to the court to be lucid and rational and capable of making rational decisions with respect to her financial responsibilities notwithstanding her condition, her application to be excused from the requirements of § 109(h)(1) must be denied.