Britney Spears just wants her life back

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What should be done about Britney's conservatorship
She needs a conservator. 0%  0%  [ 0 ]
She needs a conservator but not her father. 9%  9%  [ 1 ]
If she doesn't want a conservator, she shouldn't be forced to have one. 55%  55%  [ 6 ]
Let her ruin her own life and burn through her fortune, she earned it. 36%  36%  [ 4 ]
Total votes : 11

BeaArthur
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24 Jun 2021, 9:37 am

https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/23/entertai ... index.html

It may be that her father is not the best person to be her conservator
It may be that she does need a conservator though
It may be that she doesn't need a conservator at all

Anyone who has even casually watched Britney Spears career knows she has had some serious mental illness problems.

Now she wants to marry and start a family, have kids ... and her father won't let her go to a doctor to remove her IUD (birth control worn internally). She is forced to take lithium and she doesn't agree with that.

I don't know. She doesn't come across as very together, even at her current age.

What do you think about this? It's relevant to some of the same issues some of our members have - though I don't think Britney is autistic.


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IsabellaLinton
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24 Jun 2021, 9:43 am

I don't follow her story at all but I remember she had a child (or two?) and she shaved her head during a breakdown.

Why has she needed a conservator? Was she irresponsible with money? Drugs or alcohol? Bad parenting?

I really don't know the background. It seems that to have a conservator she'd need to have psychiatric evaluations and be deemed intellectually incompetent, somehow. I assume that happened but do you know what the diagnosis was?



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24 Jun 2021, 9:46 am

I could not select more than one option.  My choices are:

(•) If she doesn't want a conservator, she shouldn't be forced to have one.
(•) Let her ruin her own life and burn through her fortune, she earned it.

She should be allowed to live her life as any other human being who is neither incarcerated nor institutionalized.

I suspect that she is being used as a source of income for her "conservator".


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BeaArthur
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24 Jun 2021, 9:49 am

IsabellaLinton wrote:
I don't follow her story at all but I remember she had a child (or two?) and she shaved her head during a breakdown.

Why has she needed a conservator? Was she irresponsible with money? Drugs or alcohol? Bad parenting?

I really don't know the background. It seems that to have a conservator she'd need to have psychiatric evaluations and be deemed intellectually incompetent, somehow. I assume that happened but do you know what the diagnosis was?

I don't, but I suspect bipolar, since she was on Lithium. She's had more than one psych hospitalization.


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Fnord
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24 Jun 2021, 10:03 am

BeaArthur wrote:
IsabellaLinton wrote:
I don't follow her story at all but I remember she had a child (or two?) and she shaved her head during a breakdown.  Why has she needed a conservator? Was she irresponsible with money? Drugs or alcohol? Bad parenting?  I really don't know the background. It seems that to have a conservator she'd need to have psychiatric evaluations and be deemed intellectually incompetent, somehow. I assume that happened but do you know what the diagnosis was?
I don't, but I suspect bipolar, since she was on Lithium. She's had more than one psych hospitalization.
Who had her put on lithium?  Who committed her to those psych hospitals?  Who fought the hardest to put her under conservatorship?  Who now has legal authority over her income and wealth?

:chin: Hmm ... curiouser and curiouser ...


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adoylelb90815
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24 Jun 2021, 10:28 am

While it's possible that without the conservatorship, she might have died from an overdose or suicide, but now I don't think she should be forced to have a conservator if she doesn't want one. The concerning thing is that they won't allow her to have the IUD removed or even get married. To me, that sounds like the reason her father had her get that form of birth control is that he couldn't force her to be sterilized, something he would have done if he could. Even the longest lasting copper IUD's have to be removed at some point, as they're not meant to be permanent. The hormonal IUD's are only to be there for 3-5 years, then they need to be removed as well.

The fact that this conservatorship has lasted as long as it has is that her father has been using her money to pay lawyers to keep it going so he can continue to use her money. That's what it is, since she's also forced to perform, but isn't allowed to keep what is earned from those concerts and music sales.



BeaArthur
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24 Jun 2021, 10:44 am

adoylelb90815 wrote:
That's what it is, since she's also forced to perform, but isn't allowed to keep what is earned from those concerts and music sales.

I don't see how anyone can "force" her to perform.

Frankly, parts of her story sound deranged. Not saying I see it the father's way either but ...


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BeaArthur
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24 Jun 2021, 10:52 am

How about her ability to have more children? This is thorny. I don't believe in forced sterilization, but I also think she might not be a great parent.


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24 Jun 2021, 11:07 am

I don't get how someone's desire to have children or not is even a part of this discussion? Even if she seems mentally ill, we're talking about a grown adult not being allowed to make their own medical or financial choices. Her wanting more children isn't even a factor in whether she should be able to exercise financial and medical autonomy, unless it is being proposed that it should be perfectly acceptable to put mentally ill/mentally disabled people into one of these conservatorships, just so they can be effectively sterilized since they might be bad parents?



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24 Jun 2021, 11:12 am

But there are a number of members here who have had horrific parents. I don't know any details of Britney's parenting. But having your mom go in and out of mental hospitals is no fun.


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24 Jun 2021, 11:17 am

I had horrible, mentally ill parents too, but I wouldn't consider forcing someone into a conservatorship just so they can be made to stay on birth control. You need better reasons to rip away all of someone's autonomy than just that. There's people on here that I honestly would be horrified to see have kids, but I still don't think they should have all of their rights taken away from them for that one reason.



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24 Jun 2021, 11:37 am

BeaArthur wrote:
I don't see how anyone can "force" her to perform.
One can only speculate on the details; but maybe a more appropriate word is "coerce".

"If you want to see your kids on Sunday, then you WILL perform today!" might convince any mother who misses her children, for example.


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IsabellaLinton
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24 Jun 2021, 11:43 am

Regarding the IUD, do we know if she's ever been charged with child endangerment, child abuse, or neglect?

I recall her father was her agent or business manager when she was a minor. He always seemed very controlling, as if she was a cash cow for him. I can appreciate that she's likely mismanaged money and she likely has mental illness of some sort, but I bet a lot of it is CPTSD from the pressures she faced as a sexualised child. CPTSD presents a lot like bipolar. I hope they're treating her for the right conditions but in any event it's extremely unusual for a parent to retain conservatorship for someone her age. If she is really in such distress she needs a fulltime care program rather her father controlling every aspect of her life, including her uterus.



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24 Jun 2021, 11:48 am

I’m ok with the idea of conservatorship when a person really is unable to care for themselves and won’t survive on their own. If someone truly lacks the intellectual capacity for making decisions and taking responsibility for those actions, it’s best for both that person and the rest of society to remain under the control of a parent or guardian. I’m ok with that as long as the parent or guardian (conservator) himself is capable of reasonable intellect and behavior.

I recently moved to Southwest Mississippi near where Britney spent her childhood, and people here speak highly of her, her sister, and her family. Knowing their values and Britney’s values, which you don’t really get through the media, it’s obvious what happened with her. She was born in McComb, MS, where I live now, and lived in Kentwood, LA. She was active in a Southern Baptist church and, like probably most girls around here, was constantly busy with dance lessons and singing. She’s always been very talented, and her parents connected with her with various people in TV and recording industries—you can read all the details on Wikipedia, of course, but the main thing here is she was raised in a conservative evangelical home and openly identified as an evangelical Christian herself.

The problem for her was that it’s almost impossible to fit in with entertainment people in NYC and in West Coast, Hollywood circles where living in excess is more the norm. She assumed that it didn’t really matter who she loved or how she acted since she could be a free adult, that she could live out her principles and still be a part of that scene. I don’t doubt there are many lovely people in Hollywood, but it is difficult to mix and mingle when doing so among so many who don’t share your principles gives you so much pressure to abandon your own. The truth is Hollywood is dominated by actors and entertainers who make a living of helping people escape from reality; they don’t get paid to convey truth, only artistic expression that may only have a marginal relationship to reality, if any at all. For someone as immature as she was at the time, it might really be easier to believe what they write in tabloids and live out those fantasies since those people never seem to face consequences. Well, they don’t actually DO those things. Britney DID those things, and probably together with runaway drug abuse and other things, she lost herself.

Lindsey Lohan is another example. And I think they do the things they do because they feel trapped and reach for anything that will make them as unattractive as possible to their handlers, or pretty much anyone they have contracts with or other obligations to. The best thing that could happen to Britney is she could take all her money and move back to Kentwood. She could find her a nice megachurch, and there’s no shortage of them between Texas and Louisiana, and start slap over as a worship leader. Start her own Christian label, and see what relationships turn up over time. Sadly, though, I’m not sure she’s going to find it so easy to look past all the money she’s earned. She wants control over her own business and her life to continue on the path she’s on. I think her dad should ease up. But I suppose we’ll see.

It’s fascinating to see people post on wrong planet sometimes who don’t seem to have much decision-making power over their own lives, like those whose parents get the disability checks or restrict who they can date or how many hours they can work at what job. I’ve advised WPers to break up with gfs over their parents’ behavior, tried to talk WP members into just running away from home and starting over in a new town, to just go for walks in the park and strike up conversations with strangers—over time, of course. I’ve tried suggesting ways of creatively but honestly building resumés, volunteering, and all kinds of ways of asserting independence. I did succeed in convincing one guy to let his ex-gf go as the parental situation was bad and the relationship reeked of toxicity besides, but I’ve never gotten any serious takers on the rest of my advice. I’m ok with that, it’s your life. But it did highlight for me just how tenuous independence is for many among us and how total freedom in life may not be in the best interest of some select few individuals. Britney was just an innocent, respectable, girl-next-door who got caught like a deer in the corporate poachers’ spotlights (I’ve had friends taken down by the game warden and had their gear confiscated. That’s a thing in this part of the country), and she flat cannot handle the responsibility without letting go of one part of her life or the other. As the Eagles sing about Hollywood: You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.



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24 Jun 2021, 12:05 pm

BeaArthur wrote:
How about her ability to have more children? This is thorny. I don't believe in forced sterilization, but I also think she might not be a great parent.

She has a bad, bad, BAD parenting record. I remember seeing a video of her with a baby riding in her lap while she was driving.

I’m not that much older than her, but MOST OF US my age didn’t ride in baby seats/booster seats or wear seatbelts. Many of us remember sitting in mom or dad’s lap to the the grocery store or where ever. Seatbelts? That was mom or dad’s arm when someone cut them off, and that hit with a lot more force than any air bag ever did. Many of us even grew up with parents who didn’t bother putting on clothes while at home and kids ran around buck naked. In the front yard. When Britney had her OWN kids, she just figured everyone else grew up the way we did, and she missed that big city types are always 30-50 years ahead of country folks and tend to be much more sensitive about child restraints and “being decent” when you “have company.” What passes for the norm in backwoods Louisiana and Mississippi appears abusive to everyone else. So I think trying to raise her kids in a familiar environment when everyone around her thinks they own her may have caught up with her. Because when you are in entertainment and you have all that money, you’re never REALLY free. Plain fact is you cannot act like Britney did in front of all those lights and cameras with no privacy and expect everyone to think that you are “okay.” What’s ok in the trailer park will not fly when the whole world is watching your every move.

Britney probably could have been a great mom, but her time is past. Honestly, she has much more freedom the way things ARE than she would if she made a go of it on her own. If I were her, I’d quit everything and live the trailer park existence for a while. People like that really can do whatever they want and nobody will ever notice.



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24 Jun 2021, 12:18 pm

Even if she's a bad parent, I don't understand how her father is given that control of her uterus.

Do men who are bad parents have forced vasectomies by their mothers?

Do they get castrated by the court?

I just don't understand the legality. Maybe it's more common than I realise, but it sounds sexist and draconian even if it's truly in Britney's best interest.