To be saddened but unsurprised by Britney Spears' testimony?

[plodalong12]

Listening to this and hearing Britney talk about the control of her father reminded me of watching the documentary Amy and I feel the same sort of Mitch Winehouse/Amy Winehouse vibe and we all know how that ended.

Someone is either too mentally ill to be in control of their own life or they are deemed well enough to be a judge on The X Factor, do a four-year Vegas live show followed immediately by a world tour. It can't be both.

"I haven't done anything in the world to deserve this treatment. It's not okay to force me to do anything I don't want to do"

@Awalkintime

I think psychiatry is abusive and that all the labels - bipolar, PBD is all crap and they're all labels for women who have suffered trauma. They're doped up and the trauma never dealt with.

There is a new book by Dr Jessica Taylor called Sexy by Psycho which is all about how psychiatrists label women as mentally unwell when they are not.

BPD has a particularly dubious history in this regard.

But no, bipolar is a different kettle of fish. While BPD has been predominantly a diagnosis for women (is that changing, I wonder?) bipolar has been applied to many men as well as women. And more, it is strongly tied up with brain chemistry. Which is why the right medication can work wonders for many people diagnosed as bipolar.

I do think a lot of psychiatry is abusive, there are far too many value judgements (often unexamined ones) swilling around in it. It presents itself as a medical specialty in the same way that dermatology or cardiology are medical specialties. . . but psychiatry is not scientifically based so that claim is bogus.

I do agree that a lot of trauma and abuse (especially when women are the victims) is not dealt with properly at all by mental health services. There are a lot of patriarchal attitudes in there so it's hardly surprising that domestic violence and abuse are hugely underplayed.

But I think you damage your argument when you say that ALL the labels are crap.

The UK Court of Protection makes judgments to force unwanted treatments on people it deems not to have capacity to refuse/consent themselves on a regular basis. Some are reported in the press, most are not.

Recent examples I can recall being reported include forcing a man to proceed with amputations he did not want, forcing a woman to be taken from her home and held in hospital to give birth there against her wishes, allowing a man to refuse a colostomy & therefore die when his hospital wanted to carry out the surgery & force him to live with an unwanted stoma.

There have been cases about sterilisation etc.

If you have capacity you have the right to make decisions others may consider unwise. If you are assessed not to have that capacity you can lose all freedom not just over where you come and go but what is done to your body. You lose the right to say no, regardless of the trauma caused by forced treatment.

This is one high profile case in another jurisdiction but there are people in very similar positions in the UK every day that the public don't care about. It's odd that there is widespread acceptance of one but not the other.

@BarbarianMum

You think that all bipolar disorder is the result of abuse *@Awalkintime*? Is there any research to support that?

For a start....

d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/45558705/Beyond_genetics_Childhood_affective_trau20160511-18462-gpn0vm.pdf?1463027939=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DBeyond_genetics_childhood_affective_trau.pdf&Expires=1624538046&Signature=ccAyxMTM~qtsWsZ71psdwCXLVXTJFWuIIs4Qv3tarINYgHdcnc5g1pjS5MbApyE4ySZjI-hw-Ems7~lBhHdKXncBP6BcC0JraVs~LTpID6qktL7wS~2VmBJomb~fUoqieTujj8o07wllCJM4cqw2UyOlrCA69m5BNiq3wZ7TgLGVrErYNfJRrU75mjJGVUQa5Esa~PHG5Dtdax-H9kWbCgKLyWCy1EsqvnE0S26nnN-A4r255gwZxMsa8x0UXOVBEltUCnwZDCATJSe7O9gyMB1fJoGuvOee1VxL-xLth4Wf7x3bMV7jui8n7h6YWoe9FYjJ4vKe-m76WB3og2b-wg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4539529/

It’s really upsetting. The refusal to let her remove her IUD in particular is really horrific, she has no body autonomy.
From her testimony it seems her father views her more as a money making product rather than a human being and his daughter.
She’s been intensely performing since she was a child. She should be able to rest and live her own life with her children without needing permission for basic things.

All the labels are crap if they are given to women who are suffering trauma and given a label instead.

WildWestWanda That is fine, you can disagree.

Interesting, thank you. A close friend has bipolar and has always thought of it as something that runs in her family ie a genetic predisposition.

@BarbarianMum

You think that all bipolar disorder is the result of abuse *@Awalkintime*? Is there any research to support that?

Nope I don't at all, I think that trauma is mislabelled as bipolar and people are doped up to make their behaviour in society 'normal'.

@Member984815

She sounded so in control giving that testimony and not at all like her insta vids

She probably had to, she knew if she cried or showed emotion in any way she’d be labelled a batshit crazy woman.

No, all psychiatric diagnoses are not just mislabelled trauma. I could cry at reading this ill-informed opinion.

Yes. How has it been allowed to happen.
I hope when she does find freedom her mind/mh is capable of leaving behind her prison sentence and the bloody paparazzi leave her in peace.
She's paid a hefty price for fame.

It is horrific. I wonder how many people in the US are in this situation but aren't famous so can't try to fight the system?

She's literally living like she's in Gilead

Whether she has previous mental health / current mental health and what ever the condition is doesn’t mean she shouldn’t have an ounce of control over her life.
I mean she was able to work etc and make money during that time.
Even if things at the time were bad and needed to happen there should always be evaluation after treatment etc.
How anyone could think this is ok is beyond me.

@ATieLikeRichardGere

No, all psychiatric diagnoses are not just mislabelled trauma. I could cry at reading this ill-informed opinion.

Same. It’s frightening how little people understand about psychiatric disorders and overall mental health.

I suspect the people who hold these opinions don’t have close loved ones with these diagnoses.

@Concerned2021

Whether she has previous mental health / current mental health and what ever the condition is doesn’t mean she shouldn’t have an ounce of control over her life. I mean she was able to work etc and make money during that time. Even if things at the time were bad and needed to happen there should always be evaluation after treatment etc. How anyone could think this is ok is beyond me.

I agree completely with this.

Maybe there are good reasons why she might need support in place at times. It does not justify the length or breadth of this conservatorship. And even if it did, she should have some say over who manages it.

@TotorosCatBus

It is horrific. I wonder how many people in the US are in this situation but aren't famous so can't try to fight the system?

She's literally living like she's in Gilead

This is what concerns me! Brittany's case has huge publicity because of who she is. How many more people are in her situation in the US or even here in the UK

It's awful she has no autonomy over her life AND she has to pay for it. The New York Times is reporting she has to cover the legal fees for both sides – including a $890k bill that the Conservatorship's lawyers ran up for "media strategy" to defend the Conservatorship to the public when the #FreeBritney campaign began to have an impact. In short, Britney has to pay for her dad's lawyers to tell newspapers that she should continue to be treated like a captive. Horrendous.

I don't think the Winehouse comparison is fair. Her father was involved in her life more than one might normally expect, but it seemed like he was doing it for the right reasons.
I totally disagree. I vividly remember that bit in the doc when she had essentially retreated to the Caribbean, the only place she felt left alone, and he was talking with undisguised glee about how he was going over there because they had 'business' to talk about. Not 'because I need to support my daughter.'
He was also complicit in things like bundling her onto planes when she was passed out so she could make her performance dates.

ATieLikeRichardGere
Ill-informed or just reading different things? Given the Royal College of Psychiatrics only 2 days ago said they wondered if depression was patients just being stubborn and that someone suffered from child prostitution (no such thing).

What I have read might be different but my God it has shown me how awful psychiatry is. Yes I have had people labelled and doped up. My friend was labelled as bipolar after being beaten by her husband and arrested for hitting him back, losing her house and her job and was given medication that did so much damage to her. She was suffering trauma and needed support with that not a label that was bullshit and meant she will now spend her life on medication and the trauma is swept under the carpet.

Also I have seen children diagnosed when they have been abused and doped up to make them conform in the classroom, children who have been sexually abused and not given any support for this yet labelled as their responses being 'their personality' to blame. I have fought tooth and nail for one child to get a trauma informed support not a psychiatrist as she will be dead by the time she is 16 if she is labelled and her trauma is ignored as she is suffering that badly.

Instead of saying you have suffered X and Y and your behaviour is normal given the abnormal situations you have experienced, we tell them, you are to blame, there is something wrong with you (we'll just ignore your history and fill you full of drugs). Horrific.

I think the IUD bit is bloody terrible more so than the money issues tbh

@AWalkintime

No we are not just reading different things.

Trauma can play a role in different conditions, sure. Many conditions are also completely unrelated to trauma.

Psychiatry can be misused or it can be truly life saving. Psychiatry can be practiced in a trauma informed way. It sounds like your issue is with the standard of care.

But consider how damaging what you are saying is to people living with psychiatric conditions whose treatment is helping them, whose labels provide them the support and understanding they need, whose conditions run in families.

They can’t just say, oh what do you know, it was all trauma. My illness has evaporated!

If only though. I would love it if I could do that.

It's horrific. I'm appalled by her family, psychiatrists and managers.

For those saying we don't have access to her medical records - her conservators have previously filed claims that she has dementia. Does she look or sound like a woman 13 years into early onset dementia, and if that's the case then why would she be treated with lithium, which is not for dementia? They have also petitioned the court in available transcripts to continue the conservatorship based on the justification of it being a 'successful hybrid business model' - no mention of Britney's health or welfare whatsoever. One of the justifications used was that Britney is incapable of managing her fortune, and yet she's supposedly only worth 50 million dollars despite having earned an estimated 500 million in her career. Where has her money gone? Lastly, if Britney's medical records genuinely say that she is so ill that she needs to be completely totally controlled in all aspects of her life, what the hell have they been doing subjecting her to the stress of being a global popstar for 13 years instead of letting her retire in peace?

@ATieLikeRichardGere

No, all psychiatric diagnoses are not just mislabelled trauma. I could cry at reading this ill-informed opinion.

No, but environmental factors play a part in the development of mental health problems.

It is not just a “genetic predisposition”, it is much more complex than that.

@ATieLikeRichardGere

Ignore my last post, just seen your most recent one!

I admit I don't understand this situation at all. We don't know her diagnosis (nor should we) but she is clearly quite with it. Meanwhile people that are very severely mentally ill, and/or alcohol and drug addicted are free to go about their lives, maybe with a 72 hour psychiatric hold every now and then. (And so they should, but I don't understand the difference in Spears' case).