I'm with Steve on this. You have a tendency to hyper-fixate on the problems with out any fixed sight on things that are going right and what your next logical step is.

You will get an interim order. She was the bread winner. That's how this works. This is a good thing. You need this to fix a budget and move forward. 2 weeks is a great time line. In one month's time this will be settled you won't be biting your nails over finances. Things may still be a bit tight, but at least you'll have roof and you won't starve.

Next if the barrister situation is a take what you can get because you have a hearing in 2 weeks kind of situation so be it. Is there some law against you switching barristers later? If this one doesn't work out long term. Oh well. But you need some one now. There's some one available. This is also a good thing. You aren't being left in the wind to dangle. It's not ideal but it's not a bad thing either.

No mediation will not work right now. She's 100% correct on that. There's a good chance mediation won't work once the court orders it either. If you can't come to an agreement on anything just the two of you mediation has a snowball's chance in hell of working. In my personal opinion mediation is best suited for two parties who aren't particularly contentious but aren't really solid on how all this work or what the division of assets and liabilities should look like. Based on everything your saying it sounds like stbxw is going to drag this out and fight tooth and nail for literally everything. You will like have to resolve almost everything through a hearing. Which is expensive and unfortunate but it's likely the reality here. In most states if the more monied spouse drags things out like that they are required to pay a portion if not all of the less monied spouse's legal fees. Is that a thing over there for you guys?

Last, smilie, everyone's hearings are by video now. There are 18 months worth of jury trial back ups in most states for civil and criminal proceedings. Some are still not hearing jury trials over here. We have literally thrown out speedy trial Constitutional law because we had to. A lot of people have been working by video, teaching by video, going to school by video, doing interview, taking meetings, having happy hours by video, seeing their family members by video. People are buying homes by video at this point. I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to invalidate your feelings here. But we've all been doing this well over a year. It looks like in the US it'll likely be like 2 years in some places. Most places if we keep going the way we're going. This isn't a people have it worse conversation. This is a you're not special smilie conversation. I understand that it's hard. And I'm sure it's lending to your anxiety. But if you have the internet situation worked out you're not going to be alone. Everyone who is normally at that hearing will be there. There are breakout room options if necessary for clients and their lawyers. Most however like to communicate in real time via text. I'm sorry if you feel lonely, but this is what is happening every where to everyone. It don't know that you get to feel sorry for yourself when literally everyone is subjected to the same exact thing. I'm the one born with American exceptionalism and it's really very clear to me, my hardships with this pandemic are minimal at best. Every minor inconvenience I have to deal with every single other person in a 1st world country is dealing with too.

You have to stop tunneling in on what's wrong with a situation and try to take a 30,000 ft (9000 m) view on things in your life. Everything is dark and light. And somethings in there are just neutral. You need to find the neutral space and try to see the light. Existing in the darkness will only pull you down further. And this isn't toxic positivity. This is a person with chronic depression on several hundred mgs of antidepressants daily telling you this is a cycle, a thought pattern. And you can keep feeding the beast. Or you can try to claw your way out.