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"

@Graphista

I’m sorry for your poor experience.

On the other hand my severe paediatric OCD was not triggered by trauma. Best guess is that it was triggered by a strep infection.

It’s good to acknowledge the role of trauma in mental illness but what is the point of trying to claim that it’s universal. You claiming my OCD is due to trauma is as oppressive as me claiming that yours is not.

Isn’t it normal that her testimony was rambling? She will have been bursting to say these things for 13 years, in which time she was a quasi prisoner.

I think it’s easy to forget how astoundingly famous she became at 16 and in some ways, she’s probably not aged emotionally since then, if not younger. She was such a phenomena and will have been swept up in the narrative of her (heavily criticised) image and global success and amongst all this, it would appear no one was looking after her best interest. Then at 26, having made some horrendous life mistakes over a 10 year period, she became strictly controlled and locked up, a performing seal.

It would be normal in this context for her to act in an inappropriate and erratic way, not normal for someone of her age, even if she didn’t have dementia or bipolar. And so easy for all around her to manipulate and judge her. Poor woman. In some ways, she’s an almost 40 year old teenager.

So messed up. I really hope she wins and can find people to care for her.

If you put a label on someone questioning their mental health, you deny them their voice. People cease to take them seriously.

But a label can also be empowering because it’s a means to understand your experience and relate it to others.

Denying people a label can deny them treatment, accommodations or adjustments and validation.

Again, imagine having diabetes and being denied the label.

@TakeYourFinalPosition

I’m really torn on this. I don’t think the public can have an opinion without access to her medical history; which understandably won’t be released.

My mother had bipolar. She had very bad meltdowns, would be stabilised in a psychiatric institution and then released on Lithium… and she’d tell anyone who would listen, competently and coherently; that she was being drugged by force and made to have therapy. It was what kept her stable. She’d take herself off the meds, and then end up having another psychotic episode. She wasn’t forced on birth control but it went to court a few times and as one of four kids; I wish she had of been.

I’m not saying that Britney has this - I have no idea - but it’s not uncommon behaviour amongst people with BPD.

Maybe her dad is an absolute arsehole, and maybe she should be totally released, but I don’t think we can make that call. I hope the judge can.

I agree with you to an extent: my mother is also bipolar and the cycles are exactly as you describe. However in there is no way on this earth she would have kept up a touring schedule and an American idol judging thing like Britney has. I don’t think that gels with what I know of bipolar. But you are right to be cautious and I know exactly what you mean. An independent doctor needs to assess her I would say.

Britney sounds a bit erratic in that phone call (very fast speaking), but I think that's more from frustration rather than anything else.

My mother also has bipolar and PTSD. She's awful in many ways, and lovely in many others, but she still gets full autonomy about her person, because if anyone has any capacity they shouldn't be treated like Britney is being treated. I feel so sorry for her and just want to be her friend. It's shitty and awful to treat a woman like this (and do we ever treat men like this, out of interest?).

Anecdotal but I used to work with people with bipolar and have yet to meet one who wasn't seriously abused in childhood.

I'll introduce you to my DH. No childhood abuse. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2005.

I agree with you to an extent: my mother is also bipolar and the cycles are exactly as you describe.
However in there is no way on this earth she would have kept up a touring schedule and an American idol judging thing like Britney has. I don’t think that gels with what I know of bipolar.
But you are right to be cautious and I know exactly what you mean. An independent doctor needs to assess her I would say.

Yes, I agree. My mum, for want of better words, is flaky. She wouldn't be able to take on a role like Britney does. In past 10+ years she can't hold down a job for more than a few months (and before that it was a year max per job). Britney may well have bipolar but the 'high functioning' capacity to put in years of work but also simultaneously unable to make her own decisions is poor and confusing. I have very personal knowledge of poor functioning bipolar sufferers and yet they still have autonomy. Britney seems high functioning yet is deserved nothing.

@ATieLikeRichardGere but our experiences and causes differ - and that's not accounted for

It's assumed that the treatment that works for ALL ocd sufferers is the same

As said upthread those of us saying that mental illness often is and can be caused by trauma are not saying it always is - but we are saying that when it is, this is often dismissed/ignored

Personally I'm sick to the back teeth of being told I must do cbt as it's the "gold standard" treatment for ocd when there's been little to no research into other possible treatments particularly when the cause or trigger has been traumatic.

Cbt is cheap and easy to provide, it's used for many mental illnesses not just ocd but ime many of those hcps supposedly implementing it:

Haven't been properly trained in it

Don't know how to adjust it for different patients

Refuse to accept it doesn't and may not work for everyone - no treatment does

In addition the actual "gold standard" treatment for ocd based on what research has been conducted is that a trifecta of factors need to be in place and operating concurrently

1 medication that is effective and has been given enough time to kick in

2 cbt that is correctly implemented by an experienced practitioner

3 a talking therapy taking place regularly and well implemented

At NO point have I been in receipt of all 3 simultaneously

The cbt I have received from doing my own research and from discussion with current psychologist was poorly/inexpertly implemented and very likely did more harm than good. As things stand pretty much any mh team key worker - which includes those without medical training - can implement a programme of cbt with as little as 6 weeks "training" which can be as poor as 6 x one evening of watching a recorded lecture - and it was like pulling teeth getting that info they certainly don't advertise the fact

It is very very simple - if her mental health is so severe that she cannot be trusted to manage her own money, life, children etc in any way whatsoever, then there is no way she should have been working/performing at the level she has been for the last decade or more.

I agree with this.

VeryLongBeeeeep

What rot.

I’ve read that her Instagram is controlled by others and staged she does as she’s told. Where as if you look at her boyfriends she’s 100% different.

@Zandathepanda

I think partly the rambling may be because she was so excited to finally get everything out and have ‘her say’. She needs to sit down with independent people and write it down clearly.

That’s the impression I got too, kind of excited anxiety, to finally get her chance to speak.

@Graphista

Well I agree with you on a lot there. The treatment is not good enough, in availability, in quality and in implementation. Often health services don’t even seem to follow their own guidance in what they provide.

OCD is actually a good example of an illness that can clearly arise from
different origins, from head trauma to emotional trauma. Regardless its origins it is awful to live with.

For me, I think the answer is to see mental illness more as an equivalent of a physical illness though, not less. When my husband got his cancer treatment this year, it wasn’t a case of a little bit of this and that and let’s see what’s available if we think you are really committed to it. It was a very specific treatment for a very specific illness delivered in a very specific manner.

I want the same for mental illness but for me I suspect that the fact that it’s always linked, often erroneously, to “emotional” stuff is why we don’t get that same level treatment. That means using the correct label for stuff and acknowledging that it is real.

I remember when she first became famous, the media made big thing out of her being a virgin and no sex before marriage, trying to keep her a little girl, I thought that was a recipe for disaster. The media wouldn’t have given that image to a boy.

Yes @plodalong12 this with bells on!

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.

Does anyone know what would happen if she said sod it I'm not working?

I think that is more or less what she has done to arrive at this point.

How many posters whose parents had bipolar were the grandparents were in full control of the parents' life?

@Baileysforchristmas

I remember when she first became famous, the media made big thing out of her being a virgin and no sex before marriage, trying to keep her a little girl, I thought that was a recipe for disaster. The media wouldn’t have given that image to a boy.

It was appalling- the schoolgirl outfit in her music video, the questions about her virginity, attention on whether she'd had a boob job- just complete obsession and hyper-sexualisation of a teenage girl. So much scrutiny, judgement and pressure on her. And what the hell did her family do at that point as well?

No wonder she has had struggles with her mental health. I truly hope she gets some peace and happiness soon.

I saw a clip (it might've been on that recent documentary) where say was maybe 20 at a push at an event and the reporter asked her a couple of inane questions then asked something about 'collar and cuffs' matching.

She brushed it off and made out she didn't understand but can you actually imagine that happening now? A young woman being asked repeatedly if she'd had sex too? It's vile!

There were so many incidences of horrible, truly awful jnterviews. The one where the lady basically told her some prominent person wanted to shoot her dead and then berated her for breaking Justin's heart to name another.

No wonder the poor womans got issues. And that's before you even get into the family stuff and her marriage/s divorces and having two babies within a year.

Often health services don’t even seem to follow their own guidance in what they provide

Absolutely

Yes sadly mental illness is still seen as - and treated as - being due to weakness of character! Ha!

Many people - if they'd been through what I have - wouldn't still be here! And I believe the same applies to many mental illness sufferers - we HAVE Been and continue to be strong in the face of appalling treatment by others - and Britney is an excellent public example of this. Would surely have been much easier for her to just give in? Not fight this?

I think she's incredibly strong and brave

@Baileysforchristmas - absolutely! That whole shtick made me very suspicious long before her mental illness troubles

@Cowbells

You can meet me, no childhood trauma, I have bipolar, also severe anxiety and OCD.

Best guess is that it runs in my family (both sides) and I got the short straw.

Does anyone know what would happen if she said sod it I'm not working?
She has done, she stopped performing while he is in control.

@ATieLikeRichardGere some mental illnesses have a genetic element such as schitzophrenia but with recent neurological research and commentary it is looking more and more likely that many mental health illnesses which were formerly seen as only controllable by life long meds in fact could have been caused by trauma to the brain, and with the right help are recoverable from, without meds. Professor Kolk was one of the psychiatrists who formed the diagnosis borderline personality disorder many decades ago, and in recent years he has been reviewing his earlier work and researching how trauma could be the root cause of BPD in many/all cases... totally changing the outlook for BPD patients. I think in the coming years links will be made with many disorders and how if treated differently there would be different outcomes.

I watched a Yale lecture back in 2013 by Kolk which explained his thinking about this which you may be able to find on youtube. Other leading psychiatrists and neuroscientists provide similar analysis and commentary. Giving credence to this is the well understood day to day links between "feelings" and how the brain operates- both how well the thinking part of the brain operates ("stress makes you act stupid" ) and how high levels of cortisol can throw other hormones out of whack, and the affect of all this on how well the brain communicates with itself/functions. And there is growing evidence about how specific therapeutic work can calm the nervous system and have a hugely positive affect on the functioning of the brain,. Dan Siegel is a psychiatrist who has communciated really well to help families over the years, and he talks a lot about how the brain goes "offline", and about how there is a lot of research about how and why this happens and what can be done to reverse symptoms.

You mention a strep infection - it is possible that this caused trauma to your brain - ie using "trauma" in the psych sense rather than in the common parlance sense.

@Awalkintime Dorothy Rowe has always had interesting things to say about depression - I remember reading one of her books years ago about how if you reframe how you see life and your received narratives about things like "shoulds" and learn to tolerate uncertainties and understand and live within your limits you are unlikely to get depressed - that good MH health is often not an accident, it is a learned ability. I would have to say that since reading that I have suffered not a single day with depression- but at the same time I wouldn't minimise the impact of depression for some people

I think that MH meds might form a significant part of the economy in the US and this is likely to be relevant. Insurance and how "ACE"s are considered might also be relevant.

Changes as a result of all the research really could make a huge difference to how we see MH in the future and help people in a different way.

@TatianaBis

How many posters whose parents had bipolar were the grandparents were in full control of the parents' life?

My mum was our (me and my brother) main and only legal carer through childhood, even when she had episodes of mania, psychosis, paranoia etc etc. Our grandparents were amazing and did all they could, but had absolutely no legal control over her or us.

I can easily see why conservatorship could be necessary for someone with Bipolar and I don’t know exactly how it all works, but I can’t image that there are many people with it that would need to be under one for 13 years and especially not when they can work to the extent she has.

At the very least, if she is unwell (I think she most likely is) and there is no doubt that she needs one in place, her father should absolutely be removed from it at her request. It’s terrifying that he has gotten away with this for so long and she’s powerless to it. I feel so sad and angry for her.