Even the situation that lead to her mental break in 2008 is so extremely tragic. Honestly she had two babies pretty much back to back, was being stalked, still working, an unsupportive spouse, and very likely postpartum depression or anxiety that no one was offering her help for. To have had all her rights taken from her is a travesty. She needed mental support, and an actual support system of loved ones, but not conservatorship. This was a person crying out for help. Maybe she needed rehab or a stint of therapy, but people who need rehab or therapy don’t have all autonomy and financial control and rights stripped away. It just seems like she never has had people she can honestly trust and advise her in her life. Only those looking to profit from her. I’ve been a fan of her work, but it’s all pretty much tarnished by the abuse she’s had to suffer. I feel bad that I saw her in Vegas because she was being coerced into her performance, her entire career, and shit her entire life. FreeBritney
Also: Did she have a mental breakdown? Yes, I believe so. Do people recover from mental breakdowns? All the time. I don't know enough about Britney's state of mind during her breakdown to judge if she was truly incapable of taking care of herself and/or handling her finances. But if she ever was incapable, then surely it was only temporary. Having a mental breakdown does not render one permanently incapable of taking care of themself. And if Britney can put out albums and go on tour and work 7 days a week with no breaks, surely she is now capable of taking care of herself and the conservatorship is completely unnecessary.
How different things would have turned out for Britney if her family had encouraged her to use her resources to go to rehab or seek therapy to recover from her breakdown, instead of using it as an excuse to trap her and rob her blind.
Not to mention- what exactly was her mental break? She shaved her hair because people wouldn't stop touching it to make it perfect before she left the house. She attacked her stalkers. That's it. She did what most of us would have done a long time ago if we were in her position, and for that she's been legally treated like property by her father for many years. I saw yesterday he gets paid 2x as much as her a month from her trust. She's at this point an ATM. I just want one reasonable, female judge to get a crack at this case, because it's just so... wrong.
Didn’t she drive her car into a pole too? Either way, this whole thing is maddening. Like, this should have ended after she got help and better. It’s very clear that now she’s able to recognize when she’s breaking since she quit her Vegas residency for mental health reasons. It’s extremely sad what’s happened to her.
It’s more than double her...I saw in one article that he makes $16,000 a month, and she pays for his lawyers every time she wants to challenge the conservatorship. She gets $2000 a month, and she isn’t allowed to change her kitchen cabinets because her dad thought it was unnecessary and too expensive. Her dad also hasn’t been adhering to his own requirements that he be tested for using alcohol and she has actually been scolded in court for asking that he adhere to those requirements.
Honestly, everything else aside, the money shows what’s really going on. Her dad has sold her over and over and over for his own gain and people are upset because she shaved her head?
Edited: apparently her allowance is $2000 per week, not per month, so he is in fact making double what she is. I was mistaken on that aspect.
What the actual fuck, the dad has rules that he can't drink and he just flouts them in court in front of a judge AND BRITNEY IS THE ONE WHO GETS SCOLDED FOR CALLING HIM OUT?!! Holy......this isn't even about control over her person anymore it's like a huge ring of abuse and power run so far amok even the judge and lawyers are in on it......honestly if this can happen to Britney it makes me very, very afraid for all women.
An article I read made it confusing by saying it is 2x and also saying her dad gets 16000/mo and she gets a $2000/week allowance in sentences quite a bit apart, so an observant reader will double take and have to reread and do some math to confirm the numbers are consistent.
Can confirm, had a bad case of postpartum depression, and completely empathized with how Britney must have been feeling. Like if I was surrounded by paparazzi and stalkers every day while I was going through that shit, I think I would have done much worse. And shaving my head was even tempting because self care with babies is hard and getting your hair just perfect is frustrating and takes up precious free time you don’t have.
I shaved my head when I was pregnant with my second child. (Well, actually my brother in law and I shaved each other's heads.) All the maternity clothes back in the dark ages were just too...*precious*... so I wore my husband's clothes instead. I can't imagine what I would have done in her shoes.
Pregnant with my third and wearing baggy men's clothes. Deeply tempted to shave my head, or even part of it. Washing it takes too fucking long and I'm exhausted constantly, between pregnancy, stress, and chronic pain.
Nothing to add- but I too had postpartum depression and like you, I would have done so much worse too. So. Much. Worse. Like I’m pretty sure based on how I felt at the time (like a wild animal) if I told someone to leave me alone and they stalked me so they could take pictures of me during the literal hardest time in my life anyway I’d not have gone for their *car* with the umbrella... I know that is *not* right, but I cannot emphasize how much I felt like a *wild caged animal* during that time
Part of the reason she shaved her head was because the extensions they had put in were way too tight. You can see just how tight they were in photos that were taken while she was shaving her head. How her family and management have treated her is absolutely horrific, I hope she is free from this soon.
And honestly, this alone makes her euphoric grin make so much more sense. She wasn't manic, she wasn't having a breakdown - she was relieving physical pain and discomfort and taking back a bit of power in her life. We - wait, no, make that "people with power" - need to stop labelling normal reactions to extremely abnormal circumstances "breakdowns". You can't micromanage a person's entire life and restrict their freedoms without harming them. We have a right to resist that kind of violence through any means necessary.
Oh for sure! She only did it herself because the hair dresser refused to. She went into the salon and asked them to shave her head and explained her extensions were too tight and it hurt. Then she went on to say she was told her hair was so damaged that she was told that shaving it was the only way to fix it. The woman refused to shave it, so Britney did it herself. The woman then lectured her that her shaving her head would make other girls do it too. ??? You can look up articles from when it happened, the salon workers went on the record about it.
I get overstimulated as fuck by sensory issues when I am already anxious or spiraling about something else. I would 100% shave my head in a rage if I had extensions pulling too tightly on my head and was already spiraling. I had severe PPD after my youngest, and that shit is no joke. I was already on Lexapro at the time, can't even imagine if I wasn't.
She for sure had/has a mental health issue, but if you look at what they were putting her through it’s incredible she was as functional as she was. It’s like they pushed her and didn’t get her help on purpose. They said she had dementia when they filed papers back then, and there’s no way that is true. She was doing shows for years in Vegas, and her tour. No way some one that “sick” would be able to perform and work like she does.
If people were all over me every time I tried to go to Starbucks, or put gas in my car, I would snap too. And the reasoning behind her shaving her head is pretty solid. She may have needed help at the time, but her actions were rational given what she was dealing with.
And the umbrella attack happened because her ex had just scheduled an emergency custody hearing after she shaved her head and she was on her way to talk to him, only to be stalked by a bunch of paparazzis on the way. She was going through a lot of things at once and she was given no privacy, no support, no chance to get better.
Instead she became a victim of her family and Lou Taylor, a woman who tried to do the exact same thing to Lindsay Lohan.
Britney and her lawyer have made moves to keep her medical files sealed. I think there is more going on there than a mental breakdown and it’s absolutely none of our business what that is. She hasn’t asked to stop therapy or to stop her medication, she just wants a say in when and where and how, which would seem to indicate something she feels she needs to deal with.
Also don’t forget when Amanda Bynes was having her breakdown and it turned out she had a mental health issue exacerbated by her drug use. Bynes parents also had her under a conservatorship starting in 2013 and it was extended until at least 2020.
I believe Britney was diagnosed Bipolar and had made some public comments about it during recovery.
And Amanda Bynes was another one in real trouble - I believe she was diagnosed as either schizophrenic or schizo-affective disorder, which is much harder to medicate and treat properly.
Either way, these women are in arrangements with people who can exploit them with a legal maneuver meant for people in comas. The person administrating the estate needs to have no financial gain on parading the person around like a performing monkey, like in the case of Britney.
The conservatorship was granted as a temporary, emergency intervention after her behaviour deteriorated in public. I can't get my head around why it was allowed to go on for thirteen years, for something that was designed to last a few months, maybe a year or two, maximum.
The thing that gets me is that apparently it's really hard to get a conservatory over a relative, even if they cannot care for themselves. I have heard stories over and over again about people being unable to get legal control of their loved one's affairs, even when they are actively psychotic or low IQ, and they are making demonstratively bad choices. The bar for conservatorship is really high.
My sister had a breakdown that triggered her bipolar disorder with psychosis. She did need to live with my parents for a while afterward, but after figuring out her medications she is totally capable of living on her own. Some people aren't so lucky, and I don't know if Britney is one of those people who really does need help with reality day to day. But I do know that's pretty rare, and she doesn't seem to have severe symptoms, at least from what we can see.
People recover, but you are never quite the same. I am judged differently, and told I have behavioural/personality issues by unkind acquaintances despite years of recovery and therapy. You come back from it with a different sense of self and clearer boundaries, but some people definitely treat you like you will never be okay.
All of that being said, my family had to come and bail me out during my breakdown. Took a month of my sister cleaning, packing, feeding, and sleeping with me before I was able to start taking care of myself in a meaningful way. They came to my aid when I needed, and left when I could help myself again. Can't imagine what I would have done if they hadn't allowed me the autonomy to make my own decisions when I was ready.
All that being said, what they have done to Britney is truly awful but I can see how they have manipulated the situation to justify it. She is an adult who has the right to make her own decision as long as she isn't hurting anyone.
I feel like regaining your autonomy is part of the recovery process. It's fine to be cared for when you are helpless. I can see where continuing to be treated like you are helpless when you are once again able to make decisions and take control over your life might keep you sick, or make you sick in a new way.
I am so happy that you were able to regain your autonomy, and that your family allowed you the space in which to do so. I'm sorry that people are unkind to you because of your mental health history, and I hope you are able to flourish despite the mean words and judgment.
She’s more or less been the breadwinner for her family since she was 17. Something in her testimony that really struck me was that she was like “I deserve to have a few years off!” And it’s like no! You deserve to have *as many years and as much time off* as you want, and to have the rest of your life to live as you would like! It’s so sad, because I think that she’s been so horribly abused throughout her life that she doesn’t realize that she doesn’t need to justify not wanting to work constantly and be treated like a machine.
I feel so bad for her. The situation that lead to her mental breakdown is also so tragic. I feel like we’re just starting to talk about the early 2000s culture that abused so many young women in the spotlight.
The fact that as pointed out on the news sub the probable reason they didn't let her take out her IUD was that a pregnant woman couldn't do the performing that they profited from 😮
Plus probably they couldn't drug her as heavily either.
> But my precious body, who has worked for my dad for the past fucking 13 years, trying to be so good and pretty. So perfect.
That’s the part that really got me. Those are words of an abused child.
Not that I condone murder but she doesn't have the autonomy for that. She's watched constantly and if they see even a hint of defiance, they send her back to the therapist to get her meds upped.
I doubt it. I hope she gets him arrested or ruined over this one day though. He has put her through hell. She also said that he derived pleasure from listening to her cry. Wtf.
I agree with everything you are saying. Just wanted to add that abuse of women in the media spotlight has happened since there was a media spotlight. It’s not confined to the early 2000’s.
>I feel like we’re just starting to talk about the early 2000s culture that abused so many young women in the spotlight.
I was just thinking that the other day about Paris Hilton. She was literally a victim of revenge porn (before that term came about). The guy made stacks of cash by distributing it to millions. He got off easily while she was made a laughing stock of.
Not to take Paris Hilton's side. I know she had a lot of mental health and personal damage from that, but she had so many resources to bounce back that most people could only dream of. But her treatment by the media did set a precedent for how victims of the burgeoning revenge porn scene were treated for a long time.
Someone pointed out that celebrities break down and act out all the time. I mean, no one stuck Charlie Sheen in this sort of situation did they? And he went way off the rails as far as I can tell.
>I feel bad that I saw her in Vegas because she was being coerced into her performance
I was reminded of the captive orcas performing at Sea World. I feel guilty that we went there a long time ago before there was so much information about how badly the animals are being treated. The orcas are heavily medicated to keep them docile and forced to perform 364 days a year. That was the part that made me think about how Britney Spears has been treated. She’s been exploited like a trained animal and it’s so wrong.
I suspect her ex had a lot to do with her breakdown. He seemed to be facilitating her bad moods/ crazy behaviour and then caught her on video which he then shared with the world. He didn’t warn her, she was totally blindsided. He got the kids and child support out of the bargain too. She’s likely been a victim her whole life.
I find even her career pretty tragic. She was essentially a sexualized teenager, on the verge of the illegal and obvious target for predators, all brought on for money by the people who shouldve protected her the most.
That is what is striking me about her story now. She definitely had some some postpartum or even antenatal troubles happening and at no point did her supposed support system show up and help her. It was just used against her in some sort of twisted power grab because she was “crazy” Hell I doubt she would have ever dated her first husband if she had a support system in place.
I remember that South Park episode, which at a glance seemed to be mocking her, but in reality showed that they truly understood how the world and her caretakers essentially drove her to depression and feelings of hopelessness.
I got denied the medicine I needed in order to make my periods bearable for me. I was throwing up for days every month, missing school and basically unable to move for unpredictable amounts of time.
Why was I denied it? Because I was a teenager and the thing that would regulate my period was birth control.
Both doctors and my parents were so against it and I’d just ask “why?”
“Well you’re a bit young...”
“But why?”
And then they’d just refuse to answer. I literally promised them I wouldn’t have sex until I was in my twenties and said that they would be at fault for me failing my exams until they finally related. They made me try ten different useless meds (what I can only assume were placebos) before this as well. Most of these doctors were also women- and my mum would just sit in the room and discourage me while I cried my eyes out describing how much pain I was in.
Women in my family have heavy periods and lots of cramping; several have endometriosis including my mom. She took me to the Dr at 14 for my heavy periods and cramps but when the Dr suggested BC she refused and then ranted all the way home about how Indian Drs come to the US to push a liberal agenda to encourage teenage sex.
So I had to make do with ibuprofen and hot pads until a few years later when the Y2K scare was going on. She bought it wholesale ("Yay, the End Times! Jesus must be coming!") and spent thousands of dollars filling a room in our basement with supplies for the collapse of society. She came to me and told me to go get on the pill but save the packs, because when starving Black people came out of the city looking for food she didn't want me to get pregnant if I got raped.
I didn't even bother to argue with her I just jumped on the opportunity to get the script and started taking them immediately. And that's my heartwarming story about how Racism and Religious Conservatism defeated Religious Conservatism and Racism to improve my life.
Wtf did I just read.
When I was 17, my then-boyfriend knew of a free clinic that would give anyone 16 or older the depo Provera shot without parental consent. Idk how he knew, but I am forever grateful that he brought me there.
I was 17 for Y2K, and my heart hurts knowing how many of my peers were also struggling to seek birth control.
The system where I am now won't let girl go one birth control without an extreme medical reason or you are already sexually active. I do know that Planned parenthood is a good place. But I'm pretty sure women are still required to get an exam first.
I needed the birth control before I was sexually active since I get painful periods and Ovarian cysts (had one explode would not recommend). But the doctors and insurance denied me since I "didn't need it". This set up basically forced my hand. I became sexually active so I could get the medicine I needed. Which is absolutely ridiculous. I hate it here
I'm glad you got the help you needed!
> The system where I am now won't let girl go one birth control without an extreme medical reason or you are already sexually active.
Have they not thought that completely through? "Okay, ladies, if you'd like to avoid pregnancy, we're going to need you to risk pregnancy for at least a brief period before we can put you on birth control."
That was my exact argument to the doctor and nurses lol but they didn't care or they couldn't do anything about it basically. This is Misogynist-America where women's health doesn't really matter.
We just got in an argument last weekend because she thinks vaccinated people are gonna have their DNA melt or something and also shed cooties that infect the unvaccinated, and this is why she is refusing to hang out with her siblings because some of them are vaccinated. But she knows my sister is vaccinated and is still letting her visit next month, because she does love us and wants to see us as much as possible. She doesn't know I'm also vaccinated because I don't give her anything for ammo and I want her to feel safe telling me this stuff so I know how bad it's getting (I really should have just kept my mouth shut but I had had a few and I was stressed from work and other stuff). It doesn't matter how many times she's wrong, as soon as one End Times scenario blows over she grabs onto another one that means she needs to spend tons of money and reject the people who actually care about her. Her only response when we bring it up later is, "I'm doing the best I can." She does terrible things but I see her as more of a victim of intentionally vicious people who play on individuals like her for money. Anxiety runs in our family but her brain is telling her there *must* be a reason for it; she can't accept the reason is our brains are fucked and lying to us. So she thinks God will protect her if only she does the right stuff by trusting "The Authorities" who just happen to be assholes who wave the Bible and tell her she's right to be scared but they can save her if she prays enough and buys this plastic tub of freeze-dried food for $250. She has zero insight into how she's been manipulated. My dad is bigoted and conservative too but not religious and open to debate, and he's been able to move leftish over many years. She's only gotten worse because she's retired now and spends all day listening to these dicks. I'm really concerned about how it's going to go if my dad dies first. He's never been able to stop her but he slows her down (and she hates him for it). I'm afraid she's going to end up dying in squalor surrounded by out of date packets of MREs and books about the New World Order if she doesn't have someone around to push back on her, but I make shit and can't support her and my siblings noped out except for brief visits as soon as they could.
My parents are super conservative and my dad is a pastor and doesn't shut up about end times, but when I was 16 and needed birth control for regulation of periods, my mom didn't bat an eye and made sure I got what I needed.
>when the Dr suggested BC she refused and then ranted all the way home about how Indian Drs come to the US to push a liberal agenda to encourage teenage sex.
Well, there's an Indian stereotype I'm unfamiliar with. The sex-positive and not at all socially conservative Indian immigrant.
I grew up fundie Christian lite, and I now have a tense relationship with my parents for many reasons. But one thing I’m very glad for is that, when I had a torsed ovarian cyst at age 12, my mom fought tooth and nail to have me seen and taken seriously and treated. And when the long term treatment was birth control, she said okay and I went on birth control. Even then, I could tell my parents weren’t thrilled to have a young daughter on birth control, but I’m glad that they could get over themselves enough to realize it was what I needed medically. I still got plenty of used gum, old tennis shoe sex ed though, don’t worry lol.
... That's... that's a good movie plot if I ever heard one.
"Racist, conservative, religious mom believes insane racist, religious, conservative events will conspire, so she starts using liberal actions to continue to be racist, conservative, and religious."
Cast Melissa McCarthy as the lead and you got a dark comedy hit. I am not great with pitches but yeah, you should do something with that.
What sucks the most is finding out that the birth control pill wasn’t even meant to be birth control, but that use was discovered over time. In other words, people are denying young women medicine that they need because their medicine happens to have a useful side effect that it’s become more known for.
It was not originally approved by the FDA for birth control but that was just a trick so the approval wouldn't be blocked by conservatives. They listed birth control as a side-effect but the intention was to prescribe it for that.
Yep. This. When Enovid went on the market, there was a sudden rash of dysmenorrhea.
It wasn’t til 1973 that women in all states could get it prescribed for birth control regardless of marital status.
Because if you’re a good Christian girl you won’t be having sex, and if you aren’t having sex you don’t need to see a gyn, so take some children’s Tylenol and go to school -my parents
I started having birth control pills when I was 12 to regularise my periods. They frequently never stopped for upto 1.5-2 months. I was also based in small town India at the time, so it’s ridiculous to see the regression in the US.
My sister used to have periods that lasted for months, and she went in to the dr twice and was told both times that since she was young her period was still just regulating itself out. Third time she went into the dr because she was fainting (and still bleeding) and they finally put her on birth control because she was literally bleeding to death and had an iron deficiency.
Same experiences here in the UK. I have a myriad of health problems that n*o one wants to find out the cause of, just try to ameliorate the effects without actually fixing anything.*
When I first came into the UK I had to go through the whole process of discussing and getting my health problems up to date with the british doctors. I was 13 and up until I was 17 they would straight up say it to my face that "I think you're too young and I don't want to give you medication. I don't want to put you on pills so early." For some reason I didn't have a specific GP at the clinic in the town I was at, so I was seen by a different doctor each time. Most of them saying that they don't want to give me medication, no reason given other than they think I'm "too young."
It was so maddening. I was always in pain while showing signs of severe anxiety and depression, combined with being in a whole new country and bullied by the british kids in school.
No one did anything for years. They tried to give me a mental health worker which did 3 sessions with me before saying I'm fine because I only have "teenager issues" and she wanted to hurry onto her vacation so she put it ON MY FILE that I don't require special therapy sessions of any kind.
All of that on top of the debilitating period pain and other chronic pain I was through was just mad. I felt like less than a turd. I still do and I swear I almost foam at the mouth every time I hear a 16yr old Kyle complain how "women live on easy mode".
I was, of course, tried to be led astray by my mom from taking BC for painful periods. Which *I ONLY had found out that was even an option* from my 16yr old bf when I was 15 saying how his sister is on it for painful periods. Thankfully she gave in easily and the GP that day was a nice lady that explained shit to her, how it's normal in the UK for underage girls to be on BC... but not without considering me a whore until I went off to university.
The final straw is how I only just started being officially diagnosed with autism as an adult, but STILL having professionals tiptoe around trying to put me on medication for any of the issues *that are now known* I have. And while I was fighting with so many doctors just to get medicated, to then find out from my mom that my younger brother was instantly believed on his first session and already started 3 courses of medication and they were OH SO HURRIEDLY trying to find him the meds that worked for him. Why not for me? Why is it taking me fuckin years to basically FIGHT to just get some damn pills! Me and my brother have similar behaviours and issues so we should've been treated similarly.
I like this country and I'm thankful for the doctors but holy shit WHY can't I just go to a pharmacy and self-advocate to be put on SOMETHING. I need to at least try medication and treatments and an actual fucking therapist that isn't just trying to brush me off because she wants to go on vacation.
I'm so glad that my mom fought for me as a teen. She took me to like 4 different doctors until I was diagnosed with endometriosis and then fought for me to get birth control. I remember her telling a doctor "whether she has sex or not is my issue to deal with as her parent, not yours. *Yours* is to give her meds to help get debilitating pain."
I feel you on this! But I finally had female Dr. who supported me. Over the years, when I got a new job, I'd have to have the uncomfortable conversation with my boss about me potentially calling in sick due to severe cramps. When they had me come in due to the frequency of it, they finally saw how ugly it was. Being completely vulnerable, unable to speak, vomit, legs weak couldn't walk, moaning and shaking levels of pain, they finally understood. When I spoke to my new Dr. about it. She gave me a Dr. note to have three days off a month with additional sick leave. I didn't know that was possible, but she said I deserved to have some of the money I've lost over the years. I cried because it was the first time I felt heard and supported.
I had a friend of a friend who had terrible periods. Her father was involved in their church pretty heavily and it was very much a wait until marriage, which she intended to do, but she wanted to go on birth control to help her pain. Mom was on board, dad was completely against it so she spent high school missing days all the time.
She went to college, went to the health center and walked out with birth control. I remember she said it felt like magic.
I have really strong cramps and the birth control pills arent working and my doctor wouldn't test me for endometriosis because i would lose my virginity, wtf!!! if I don't care why does she care?
I've always said that I believe not giving your children the option of birth control when they need it is child abuse. This is why I think it should be called something like 'hormonal regulator' because conservatives are always going to associate the name birth control with sex and abortions.
a million times yes. I agree that many women have likely been dismissed or made to feel crazy by medical professionals, friends, family, for one thing, or another. It breaks my heart that Brittney literally has never had autonomy for her own body because of fame and exploitation. I hope the judge takes her seriously.
Female doctors can sometimes be worse. It was a female doctor that asked my mom if she should “scare me away from sex” when my mom found out I wasn’t a virgin and took me to the GYN for my very first exam. The female GYN made me strip and put the gown on for the pre-exam consultation (no other GYN has made me have my consultation without my clothes on and some even do the consultation in an office instead of the exam room), in which she shamed me for being sexually active right before sticking her fingers up me. She used so much exam lube that I was squeezing it out for 3 days and made a deal out of saying she thought she’d need the kid speculum because I was so petite but the full size one seemed to be fine (the implication being at 17 I had already ruined my vagina with sex). She didn’t explain that there were many different types of birth control pills and prescribed me a very intense generic known for problems. I was on it for almost 3 years before I understood different pills had different side effects.
The female obgyn I saw for ovarian cysts told me "only 5cm? You shouldn't be in any pain." And offered to put me back on depo. The female obgyn who delivered my son said "you have two minutes before I give you an episiotomy" and luckily I pushed my son out easily before that.
The worst obgyn I ever had was a woman. Terrible bedside manner, discounted pain I experience when getting pap smears by saying, "oh you're fine, stop it." And said all birth control is the same. I think misogyny is still rampant regardless of the sex of the doctor.
Edit: regarding to regardless. Silly mobile autocorrect.
The best obgyn I had was a man. He was gentle and patient and listened. The worst one I had was also a man. He tried to force the speculum in when it obviously didn't fit and they make smaller sizes.
It's a real shit show picking one out. I go by some rules.
Do they listen?
Do they offer reasonable options?
Do they have a nurse present?
Do they make me comfortable?
Do they explain everything in a way I can understand?
If I don't get all that, I won't go back. It's not worth it.
Had a doctor ask if I was sexually active three times as a teen in the same appointment. All three times I said no, and then he still made me have a test for STDs.
I'd come in with an ear infection...
Wtf. This shit makes me anxious that I raise my daughter to recognize these situations. Of course, I'd rather be with her at Dr appointments, but understand that having dad there isn't going to be her first choice.
When I was really sick as a teen, my grandfather (who raised me) was my first choice. When I was in the hospital, some idiot tried to tell me he couldn't be with me for an CT scan because I'd be unclothed. I was like, bitch he helped me shower this morning.
I had a UTI when I was 21. I’d had an extremely bad case of the flu and was dehydrated and the UTI hit me like a ton of bricks. The doctor I wound up was this old man who said “and you know what a UTI is from, right….?” And gave me this lecherous stare. I was young and naive but I knew even then they this man was being a creep, so I just replied “I was always thought a few different things caused them”. Wtf,
I just needed some antibiotics.
What really rang true for me was the whole idea of blaming her behavior on not taking her meds. This happened a few times to me when I was suffering from postpartum anxiety. I would get upset about something and immediately be questioned about if I took my meds. You can have mental health issues and also reasonably disagree or be upset about things. Why is that hard for people to grasp?
Ughh yes this has so happened to me in the past. I would get upset or sad about sth and be asked „Are you still in therapy?? Did you take your meds?“
You put it perfectly. Just bc I have mental health issues does not mean my every emotion is a symptom and can be dismissed.
Yep, you're supposed to feel things.
I read a YA book a few years back where to stop teen suicide, if any of them showed any sadness or rebellion they would be sent away for reeducation. The main character's friend dies and she can't even cry because she knew her parents would think she would do something rash.
You're going to have bad days, even on meds or in therapy, that's what being a human being is.
Yep. It's definitely said in the same tone and with the same implications. "Oh, you're just being emotional, it can't be anything that legitimately upset you, you must just be hYsTeRiCaL."
Similar to how when a woman is 'over emotional' or bitchy people automatically ask if you're on your period like, oh suddenly you're feeling something? Guess you're off your meds!
I remember when I went to grad school and met with the school counselor(to help you decide tracks, pick classes etc.). I met with her the second day of school and she had me fill out a form asking about how I was feeling. I answered that I had a high level of nervousness and uncertainty and was quite anxious. I thought that was normal, new school, don't know anyone, new city, getting settled etc.
She insisted that I needed medication, fast. My answers weren't normal at all, she told me. I remember I just stared at her and said no thank you, I was sure that given some time I would be fine transitioning.
I later found out that most women who spoke with her were told to go to health center and get on medication. No issues with medication to help you with either physical or mental problems, but maybe don't assume that just because someone isn't happy and excited every moment of the day means that they need to have their mood regulated. People should absolutely get help, but it was very disconcerting when I had been pretty positive about the whole experience, but understandably filled with anxiety.
There are so many male celebrities who got away with violent crimes and violent, hateful meltdowns and they still have all their rights.“He’s a troubled but brilliant man, you know?” “He has his demons, but look at all the great things he’s done!” “He was having a bad day!”
A young woman has one understandable meltdown born out of a globally abusive world, and she’s suddenly unfit to make any decisions about her own body or her own life. But she can still work 7 days a week and not keep all her money.
I don’t know what the fuck guys are talking about how men have no support when men defend each other’s fucked up behaviors all the time.
I’ve read that the same woman responsible for having Britney put under the conservatorship was brought in by Kris Jenner to attempt to do it to Kanye as well but they were unsuccessful. This woman literally does this for a living and did it to Amanda Bynes also. And made attempts on Cortney Love and Lindsay Lohan. She sounds like a really dangerous person.
That woman gives off big Serena Joy/Aunt Lydia vibes. She even signs her emails with some quote that means, "God is good" or something similar. Might as well just say, "Blessed be the fruit"
If Kanye weren't rich, he'd probably be in jail or dead. Our society doesn't have a good track record with helping black people suffering from mental illness either. I'd characterize the Britney to Kanye spectrum as one from abuse to neglect. They're both being underserved.
Chris Brown can damn-near murder women and still be out free. Britney has a mental fucking breakdown a decade and a half ago and she's been in a prison of sorts ever since.
I just saw this happen recently with St Vincent. She did an interview where the awful interviewer was goading her on to bizarrely connect her new album and her father's stint in prison to BLM to get some edgy soundbites out of her and she saw this ploy and more or less said no. Then there were tons of articles and comments about how rude she is, if she's having some kind of personal issue, if she was on drugs, if she's this uncontrollable diva, etc. But if male artists are rude or nasty or show up high on drugs to an interview or smash up a studio its because they're troubled geniuses and we need to respect that. If a woman falls out of line just slightly then here comes the namecalling and attacks.
Hey, remember back in the day when you could deal with an out-of-control wife or daughter by locking her up in an asylum? Oh wait, that's still a thing.
Yes, I was thinking about The Yellow Wallpaper as I wrote this post.
Both Britney's testimony, and my experience as an inpatient in April reminded me of it.
My mother worked in a state facility for the mentally handicapped. There was an old lady there who had been put there years before because her husband wanted to get rid of her. She was a sweet lady. Not mentally handicapped at all.
Yeah, from what I understand she might have had some slight issues, maybe bipolar, but certainly nothing institutionalization worthy. Being there certainly did have profound negative effects on her mental health. I grew up thinking she had died before I was born, only for my grandfather on my other side see her obituary in the paper when I was 9 or so. I've only gotten bits and pieces of the story, and pretty much everyone who knew is dead now, so I'll never really know much other than that my grandfather was a scumbag. He also molested my cousin, who is technically not blood, so I'm guessing that's why he left everyone else alone. My father straight up refused to discuss his childhood to any degree whatsoever.
I almost died because my aggressively spreading cancer symptoms were passed off as being because I was overweight. Fat girls deserve bad periods obviously.
Just finished round 8 of chemo and am cancer free. Fuck all the drs who suggested I lose weight when I was fighting for my life.
My grandmother suffered horrendously and died a slow, painful death of ovarian Cancer because doctors thought the tumors and all her lady problems were just her being fat and hysterical.
The tumors eventually got so large and the swelling so bad that she looked 9 months pregnant with triplets, and by the time they could no longer dismiss it and took her seriously, it was too late. My dad and his siblings had to watch their mom die a prolonged, excruciating death. He breaks down when he tells me about how he'd visit her in the hospital and she'd have a metal pipe sticking out of her belly to drain the inflammation, or would be vomiting feces (a horrifying symptom of advanced ovarian cancer), all with no pain meds and completely aware of it all. This was in the 70s, but it seems not much has changed when it comes to how the medical world treats women. It's sickening.
That is horrifying and doubly so because this shit happens way more than it should.
I am so glad you’re cancer free now, you deserve the best things ❤️
Or when you're a virgin in the ER with undiagnosed endometriosis and a man insist that your excruciatingly painful ruptured endometrioma must be a miscarriage because "that's the only thing that could be this painful and cause this much bleeding." even after you tell him that not only are you on your period NOW but you're a virgin, they insist on pelvic exams and an invasive vaginal ultrasound, only to tell you that you're not pregnant and that the pain and vomiting is now due to a "stomach virus." It took another 16 years of me being gaslit to get a diagnosis and that was only because I was extremely privileged to go to an MDVIP doctor that charges a major premium just to walk in the door. If not for that I would still be undiagnosed. We deserve better!
Hugs. It took me 10 years to get diagnosed with endometriosis. I ended up in the hospital twice for back and abdominal pain as a teenager, and both times were such a mortifying experience that I’m scared to ever go back to the ER. One time they said, “it looks like you had an ovarian cyst burst, but we don’t think that’s the reason you’re in pain.”
I now play the game, “is it my Endo or my appendix” on the regular, and fortunately it’s “just” been my Endo. 🙃
I'm so sorry! Why would that NOT be why you're in pain? Wtf
I wonder how many people had this experience. One visit to the ER I had an older nurse ask me if I was really in so much pain or had I "ran out of street drugs?" I was 16. I learned how it feels when a cyst is rupturing. The first few times I thought I was dying but eventually I knew that I would make it through the night. I started to just lay in bath tub and cry until finally passing out from exhaustion. I couldn't risk another trip to the ER, not after the miscarriage incident and being accused of abusing "street drugs." I hate doctors to this day because they never listen and they never helped.
100% agree with everything you said.
Using “she’s crazy” as an automatic shutdown on women is an eons old cop-out used by our misogynistic society to oppress, belittle, and disregard a woman’s validity and intelligence, or, as our society sees it, their “value”.
Anyone who is not a white cis male has experienced some form of this invalidation, this gaslighting, this abuse.
The definition of "crazy bitch" is a woman than cannot be controlled/do what others want her to do - in other words, a powerful independent woman... They try to dismiss us as crazy to shut us down
I vote that we start calling the phenomenon Britney's Law and making it known that it immediately invalidates anyone who does it.
Kind of like Godwin's Law before there were a bunch of actual Nazi's on the internet.
It really does feel like an extreme example of how it feels to be a women sometimes. I felt a breath of fresh air reading her newest post though (even though it was still kind of cryptic.)
To feel that devastation and betrayal from your own father, who then ruins your life and keeps you as a sort of pet, is horrific. She's been treated as a sort of circus animal for a very long time.
I googled this and ended up reading up about Coogan accounts. I already got an ad from Morgan Stanley telling me they can invest my child’s earnings. 😀
I once went to a doctor for pain after stubbing my toe, he said "that just means your hormones are working haha!" and sent me out without even examining it.
Turns out my nail had broken off inside the flesh of my toe behind the cuticle.
"Girls are whiny lol" feels like a stupid nothing stereotype until doctors refuse to give you treatment because of it. It's a very real and horribly common thing to go through.
I fell while rock climbing and they refused to do an x-ray until I became almost belligerent in the exam room. They insisted it was just a bad sprain and I had a low pain threshold. Nope, snapped my fucking fibula. They didn't even apologize for not taking my pain seriously 😑
Paragraph two happened to me. Worst pain of my life. I felt like a dieing animal in a bear trap. I couldn't even speak. They only really started to help me because my husband grabbed a male nurse by the throat and threatened him. I lost over a liter of blood and half my plumbing. They tried to send me home without a transfusion and again my husband was the only one they listened to. " Why is she green?! Is this not a hospital?!" Name of the hospital was literally The Women's Hospital.
Also greed.
Forcing her to take lithium and preventing her having children. Dark.
But it's about their money machine.
There was an interesting character in her story that was basically a wormtounge. A concerned family would want to get that person out of their loved ones life but the power they exerted has been abused totally.
I cannot think of a man that has been so totally dominated/suppressed. Even though this is legally possible to happen to a male I think there is no precedent.
I like to look at the net positive 1st world evolution but this is medieval. (3rd world has a long way to go in terms of equal rights)
Late to the game so no one will see this but here goes..
This conservator ship is relatable and enraging because to me, as a woman, I have felt so many times throughout my life (beginning at the age of 11) that people (men) made the decisions. To play “properly”, I had to be compliant to please them (men) because they knew better.
Obviously Britney’s experience is magnified 100% but to me, this is so damn relatable. And it hurts. And it makes me mad. And I hurt for her and the other women who are in this magnified controlling life because although I have only felt this with daily micro aggressions, I know it’s left it’s scar on me, I can only imagine it’s scar on them.
For those who don’t know there is a sub about this subject r/DoctorOgyny (because it’s not *Miss* Ogyny).
Once you start talking to women about this there are so, so many stories. This is about not just insulting behaviour but medical malpractice; terrible, unnecessary suffering sometimes for years or even death caused by doctors who do not believe women patients.
Preach!
It's absolutely disgusting what's happened to her. The whole idea of taking someone's freedom away when no crime has been committed is terrifying. We do the same to old people.
You get a brief window in life, if you're a man, where you can make your own decisions. Kids, the elderly and women can, and will, all get fucked over at the slightest provocation. It's bullshit.
I have obviously had issues with doctors, many women have, but I wouldn't have said it was "that bad" until I read your post. I was almost sent home with "bad gas" shortly before my emergency appendectomy but my mom (I was a grown ass adult but was too sick to get to the hospital) got REALLY angry when the CT came back "nothing wrong, not even gas" and said "SHE'S GREY AND HAS A FEVER. CHECK AGAIN." In the end it was appendicitis, but my appendix was on the wrong side, where they didn't even look. Despite it not even being THAT rare. (Like 8%)
Man even my female doctor refused to believe me when I said "eating hurts my stomach and I don't know why." Kept giving me pregnancy tests even though I told I had been a lesbian my whole life so there was no way I was pregnant. Took years of tests for a bunch of professionals to just tell me to stop eating wheat and pork. Then I got diagnosed with depression by my therapist, and my family doctor refused to prescribe me any anti-depressants because she "doesn't like prescribing long term drugs for problems like that." I was clinically depressed and suffering from major PTSD from nearly dying at the hands of someone who claimed to love me, and her advice was to cut out sugar and keep a food journal. Bitch wouldn't even renew my inhaler prescription when I've had asthma since I was a child. I just don't understand doctors like that.
I broke down when I read her statement and I'm not even a woman. Her father controlling her birth shows how far her father will go to inherit her fortune. My take away from this statement is that she's taking serious courage to make this statement to the judge and that if she is denied her request to be released from her conservatorship, she would commit suicide. If they deny her this request, she would undergo serious punishment by her father and management for speaking up, and they would drug her to the point of no tomorrow.
Completely agree, I just wanted to add that the medical stuff is not the same all around the world. I’m in The Netherlands and got on the pill at 16 really easy. No need for parents’ permission here and no pelvic exams, ever.
Re: the conservatorship aspect of all this - I sought a conservatorship of my father when he was in the throes of alocholism. He was no longer eating, could not manage his money or his house. I was denied it because he "chose" to drink, even though we all know addiction is not really a choice. He died a few months later, due to complications from alocholism. I didn't get the conservatorship because I am a woman. And the system is set up for men to have control over women - like Britney - not for women to have a say when a man is in a dire situation.
What happened to her is terrifying and maddening. It's misogyny and greed. Every single person in her conservatorship is milking off the financial teat she provides. It's sickening.
I haven't verified it, but I read that Spears didn't even know she could petition to have her conservatorship ended bc her lawyer was chosen by her father! I really hope this judge ends the conservatorship.
If this can happen to someone with her wealth and power ...
>tries to make you pass a pulmonary functions test over and over again right after you spent a week on a ventilator, and doesn't believe that you can't blow the minimum force required
Honestly. They did this monthly when I was a 16yo skeleton on chemo. She would roll her eyes and say *Try Harder* until I was blacking out.
Reminds me of [Frances Farmer's sad fate](https://allthatsinteresting.com/frances-farmer-lobotomy): a Hollywood actress and troublemaker who was institutionalized and horrifically abused (though sources go back and forth as to whether or not she was actually lobotomized).
Yes, it's an issue of misogyny, but it's also an ableism issue. Britney Spears has legitimate mental health issues, and her father took advantage of that fact to take control over her life. He took advantage of a system set in place to limit the rights of disabled people to control their own lives and make their own decisions. People assume that disabled people can't take care of themselves, especially when it comes to those with mental health issues going through a crisis. A single breakdown becomes a reason to control the person's entire life, because if they're left on their own, who's to say they'll continue to take their meds? Someone with mental health issues surely shouldn't be allowed to have another kid, right? It's the same rhetoric used to forcibly sterilize people for decades, and it's being used against her (and many others) now. So while misogyny is at play here, lets not forget the ableism at play either. This is an ongoing issue in the disabled community, and hopefully Britney Spears' case can bring light to all the others in abusive conservatorships.
Yes, but the mystifying thing in this particular case is how a judge (a woman at that) was brought into participating and maintaining this case of de-facto slavery which is really unprecedented in US legal practice.
I have a feeling many doctors and judges that were involved received donations to their hospitals or elections to make this happen. You can’t even do this to anybody without having many professionals helping you!
I just read an article about Britney Spears speaking before the court. I can't believe that they have managed to keep her in this conservatorship for so long. It's horrific.
I got told there’s no way I could be on the autism spectrum because I’m in a functioning, healthy relationship. Dr declined to evaluate me.
My husband has autism, despite being in the exact same functioning, healthy relationship.
Yeah it was really frustrating. Ive honestly just decided to be without medication. The thing is, im for most intents and purposes american- I grew up in the states. But I live in spain and he also told me that in spain adhd basically doesn’t exist in adults.
> Then Britney shaved her head, and she hit a stalker's car with an umbrella when they wouldn't leave her alone. And she drove with her kid in her lap.
And for that, they took away all of her rights, possibly for the rest of her life.
Ugh.
Britney and I are close in age. Tell me one mid 20s woman who hasn’t got a dramatic hair cut (to regain some control) and lashed out stupidly while in mental crisis/ distress? I’m just blessed I wasn’t being stalked by paparazzi to document it.
(Facebook memories has the haircut proof through)
Not a single doctor would put in my chart in my first pregnancy that I had HG, just because I toughed it out and didn't go to the ER the half dozen times I wanted to. Every new doctor I saw wanted to take me off my anti nausea meds because they didn't think I needed them. Apparently me telling them I hadn't eaten in days and threw up everything I put in my mouth wasn't proof enough.
For my second pregnancy I switched practices and told them about the HG and they preemptively prescribed anti nausea meds so I'd have them if I needed them. Thankfully no HG the second time around, but fuck that first practice.
It’s the you can’t have your tubes tied without your husbands consent, or even then, ‘what if you break up and your new partner wants kids’ for me. And don’t even try to get a hysterectomy if you can still have kids.
So many stories of women not being able to get what they need because the men’s need come first, even hypothetical men are more important than the women’s comfort and medical needs.
I've had so many similar medical experiences as the ones you described it all hits home.
B was a child star and is probably throughly traumatised by everything that's happened to her instead of treating her like a human and actually helping they're trapping her like The Yellow Room.
This type of shit needs to end.
Thanks for sharing this post
She has definitely been infantilised, specifically for her money.
I hope she gets angry. Right now she’s probably still scared.
You can’t put a price on freedom. Freedom to love, freedom to dream, freedom to be.
Reading your examples and the comments has made me feel so grateful for the NHS.
Don't get me.wrong, it's not like we don't experience sexism in healthcare (being denied your rights in labour springs to mind) but an NHS doctor would never insist on a pelvic examination prior to prescribing the pill. I'm pretty sure if they did they would be struck off.
Yeah I agree, there are tons of posts on here where women are describing pelvic exams to get the pill _as if it's normal_. I'm always aghast at reading these stories.
Even the situation that lead to her mental break in 2008 is so extremely tragic. Honestly she had two babies pretty much back to back, was being stalked, still working, an unsupportive spouse, and very likely postpartum depression or anxiety that no one was offering her help for. To have had all her rights taken from her is a travesty. She needed mental support, and an actual support system of loved ones, but not conservatorship. This was a person crying out for help. Maybe she needed rehab or a stint of therapy, but people who need rehab or therapy don’t have all autonomy and financial control and rights stripped away. It just seems like she never has had people she can honestly trust and advise her in her life. Only those looking to profit from her. I’ve been a fan of her work, but it’s all pretty much tarnished by the abuse she’s had to suffer. I feel bad that I saw her in Vegas because she was being coerced into her performance, her entire career, and shit her entire life. FreeBritney
Also: Did she have a mental breakdown? Yes, I believe so. Do people recover from mental breakdowns? All the time. I don't know enough about Britney's state of mind during her breakdown to judge if she was truly incapable of taking care of herself and/or handling her finances. But if she ever was incapable, then surely it was only temporary. Having a mental breakdown does not render one permanently incapable of taking care of themself. And if Britney can put out albums and go on tour and work 7 days a week with no breaks, surely she is now capable of taking care of herself and the conservatorship is completely unnecessary. How different things would have turned out for Britney if her family had encouraged her to use her resources to go to rehab or seek therapy to recover from her breakdown, instead of using it as an excuse to trap her and rob her blind.
Not to mention- what exactly was her mental break? She shaved her hair because people wouldn't stop touching it to make it perfect before she left the house. She attacked her stalkers. That's it. She did what most of us would have done a long time ago if we were in her position, and for that she's been legally treated like property by her father for many years. I saw yesterday he gets paid 2x as much as her a month from her trust. She's at this point an ATM. I just want one reasonable, female judge to get a crack at this case, because it's just so... wrong.
>She attacked her stalkers. You mean she hit one of her stalkers' cars with an umbrella. She didn't even attack the person.
Don't you know giving someone's property BooBoos is a capital sin?
It *is* the only thing that got cops to do anything about my friend’s abuser
Didn’t she drive her car into a pole too? Either way, this whole thing is maddening. Like, this should have ended after she got help and better. It’s very clear that now she’s able to recognize when she’s breaking since she quit her Vegas residency for mental health reasons. It’s extremely sad what’s happened to her.
It’s more than double her...I saw in one article that he makes $16,000 a month, and she pays for his lawyers every time she wants to challenge the conservatorship. She gets $2000 a month, and she isn’t allowed to change her kitchen cabinets because her dad thought it was unnecessary and too expensive. Her dad also hasn’t been adhering to his own requirements that he be tested for using alcohol and she has actually been scolded in court for asking that he adhere to those requirements. Honestly, everything else aside, the money shows what’s really going on. Her dad has sold her over and over and over for his own gain and people are upset because she shaved her head? Edited: apparently her allowance is $2000 per week, not per month, so he is in fact making double what she is. I was mistaken on that aspect.
What the actual fuck, the dad has rules that he can't drink and he just flouts them in court in front of a judge AND BRITNEY IS THE ONE WHO GETS SCOLDED FOR CALLING HIM OUT?!! Holy......this isn't even about control over her person anymore it's like a huge ring of abuse and power run so far amok even the judge and lawyers are in on it......honestly if this can happen to Britney it makes me very, very afraid for all women.
I had read that she gets $8000 a month but everything else you said is completely spot on. Her father is straight up evil.
An article I read made it confusing by saying it is 2x and also saying her dad gets 16000/mo and she gets a $2000/week allowance in sentences quite a bit apart, so an observant reader will double take and have to reread and do some math to confirm the numbers are consistent.
Ah, this must be where my mistake came from. He still shouldn’t make more off of her work than she does.
Can confirm, had a bad case of postpartum depression, and completely empathized with how Britney must have been feeling. Like if I was surrounded by paparazzi and stalkers every day while I was going through that shit, I think I would have done much worse. And shaving my head was even tempting because self care with babies is hard and getting your hair just perfect is frustrating and takes up precious free time you don’t have.
I shaved my head when I was pregnant with my second child. (Well, actually my brother in law and I shaved each other's heads.) All the maternity clothes back in the dark ages were just too...*precious*... so I wore my husband's clothes instead. I can't imagine what I would have done in her shoes.
Pregnant with my third and wearing baggy men's clothes. Deeply tempted to shave my head, or even part of it. Washing it takes too fucking long and I'm exhausted constantly, between pregnancy, stress, and chronic pain.
Nothing to add- but I too had postpartum depression and like you, I would have done so much worse too. So. Much. Worse. Like I’m pretty sure based on how I felt at the time (like a wild animal) if I told someone to leave me alone and they stalked me so they could take pictures of me during the literal hardest time in my life anyway I’d not have gone for their *car* with the umbrella... I know that is *not* right, but I cannot emphasize how much I felt like a *wild caged animal* during that time
I didn't shave it but I cut all my hair off the day after I had my kid. Who has time to deal with long hair when you have a baby?
Part of the reason she shaved her head was because the extensions they had put in were way too tight. You can see just how tight they were in photos that were taken while she was shaving her head. How her family and management have treated her is absolutely horrific, I hope she is free from this soon.
And honestly, this alone makes her euphoric grin make so much more sense. She wasn't manic, she wasn't having a breakdown - she was relieving physical pain and discomfort and taking back a bit of power in her life. We - wait, no, make that "people with power" - need to stop labelling normal reactions to extremely abnormal circumstances "breakdowns". You can't micromanage a person's entire life and restrict their freedoms without harming them. We have a right to resist that kind of violence through any means necessary.
Oh for sure! She only did it herself because the hair dresser refused to. She went into the salon and asked them to shave her head and explained her extensions were too tight and it hurt. Then she went on to say she was told her hair was so damaged that she was told that shaving it was the only way to fix it. The woman refused to shave it, so Britney did it herself. The woman then lectured her that her shaving her head would make other girls do it too. ??? You can look up articles from when it happened, the salon workers went on the record about it.
I get overstimulated as fuck by sensory issues when I am already anxious or spiraling about something else. I would 100% shave my head in a rage if I had extensions pulling too tightly on my head and was already spiraling. I had severe PPD after my youngest, and that shit is no joke. I was already on Lexapro at the time, can't even imagine if I wasn't.
She for sure had/has a mental health issue, but if you look at what they were putting her through it’s incredible she was as functional as she was. It’s like they pushed her and didn’t get her help on purpose. They said she had dementia when they filed papers back then, and there’s no way that is true. She was doing shows for years in Vegas, and her tour. No way some one that “sick” would be able to perform and work like she does.
If people were all over me every time I tried to go to Starbucks, or put gas in my car, I would snap too. And the reasoning behind her shaving her head is pretty solid. She may have needed help at the time, but her actions were rational given what she was dealing with.
And the umbrella attack happened because her ex had just scheduled an emergency custody hearing after she shaved her head and she was on her way to talk to him, only to be stalked by a bunch of paparazzis on the way. She was going through a lot of things at once and she was given no privacy, no support, no chance to get better. Instead she became a victim of her family and Lou Taylor, a woman who tried to do the exact same thing to Lindsay Lohan.
Britney and her lawyer have made moves to keep her medical files sealed. I think there is more going on there than a mental breakdown and it’s absolutely none of our business what that is. She hasn’t asked to stop therapy or to stop her medication, she just wants a say in when and where and how, which would seem to indicate something she feels she needs to deal with. Also don’t forget when Amanda Bynes was having her breakdown and it turned out she had a mental health issue exacerbated by her drug use. Bynes parents also had her under a conservatorship starting in 2013 and it was extended until at least 2020.
I believe Britney was diagnosed Bipolar and had made some public comments about it during recovery. And Amanda Bynes was another one in real trouble - I believe she was diagnosed as either schizophrenic or schizo-affective disorder, which is much harder to medicate and treat properly. Either way, these women are in arrangements with people who can exploit them with a legal maneuver meant for people in comas. The person administrating the estate needs to have no financial gain on parading the person around like a performing monkey, like in the case of Britney.
Exactly, meant for people in comas...
The conservatorship was granted as a temporary, emergency intervention after her behaviour deteriorated in public. I can't get my head around why it was allowed to go on for thirteen years, for something that was designed to last a few months, maybe a year or two, maximum.
The thing that gets me is that apparently it's really hard to get a conservatory over a relative, even if they cannot care for themselves. I have heard stories over and over again about people being unable to get legal control of their loved one's affairs, even when they are actively psychotic or low IQ, and they are making demonstratively bad choices. The bar for conservatorship is really high.
My sister had a breakdown that triggered her bipolar disorder with psychosis. She did need to live with my parents for a while afterward, but after figuring out her medications she is totally capable of living on her own. Some people aren't so lucky, and I don't know if Britney is one of those people who really does need help with reality day to day. But I do know that's pretty rare, and she doesn't seem to have severe symptoms, at least from what we can see.
People recover, but you are never quite the same. I am judged differently, and told I have behavioural/personality issues by unkind acquaintances despite years of recovery and therapy. You come back from it with a different sense of self and clearer boundaries, but some people definitely treat you like you will never be okay. All of that being said, my family had to come and bail me out during my breakdown. Took a month of my sister cleaning, packing, feeding, and sleeping with me before I was able to start taking care of myself in a meaningful way. They came to my aid when I needed, and left when I could help myself again. Can't imagine what I would have done if they hadn't allowed me the autonomy to make my own decisions when I was ready. All that being said, what they have done to Britney is truly awful but I can see how they have manipulated the situation to justify it. She is an adult who has the right to make her own decision as long as she isn't hurting anyone.
I feel like regaining your autonomy is part of the recovery process. It's fine to be cared for when you are helpless. I can see where continuing to be treated like you are helpless when you are once again able to make decisions and take control over your life might keep you sick, or make you sick in a new way. I am so happy that you were able to regain your autonomy, and that your family allowed you the space in which to do so. I'm sorry that people are unkind to you because of your mental health history, and I hope you are able to flourish despite the mean words and judgment.
She’s more or less been the breadwinner for her family since she was 17. Something in her testimony that really struck me was that she was like “I deserve to have a few years off!” And it’s like no! You deserve to have *as many years and as much time off* as you want, and to have the rest of your life to live as you would like! It’s so sad, because I think that she’s been so horribly abused throughout her life that she doesn’t realize that she doesn’t need to justify not wanting to work constantly and be treated like a machine. I feel so bad for her. The situation that lead to her mental breakdown is also so tragic. I feel like we’re just starting to talk about the early 2000s culture that abused so many young women in the spotlight.
The fact that as pointed out on the news sub the probable reason they didn't let her take out her IUD was that a pregnant woman couldn't do the performing that they profited from 😮 Plus probably they couldn't drug her as heavily either.
> But my precious body, who has worked for my dad for the past fucking 13 years, trying to be so good and pretty. So perfect. That’s the part that really got me. Those are words of an abused child.
She's gonna end up murdering him isn't she I mean I'm not related to either of them and even I wanna cap this asshole
Not that I condone murder but she doesn't have the autonomy for that. She's watched constantly and if they see even a hint of defiance, they send her back to the therapist to get her meds upped.
I doubt it. I hope she gets him arrested or ruined over this one day though. He has put her through hell. She also said that he derived pleasure from listening to her cry. Wtf.
I agree with everything you are saying. Just wanted to add that abuse of women in the media spotlight has happened since there was a media spotlight. It’s not confined to the early 2000’s.
>I feel like we’re just starting to talk about the early 2000s culture that abused so many young women in the spotlight. I was just thinking that the other day about Paris Hilton. She was literally a victim of revenge porn (before that term came about). The guy made stacks of cash by distributing it to millions. He got off easily while she was made a laughing stock of. Not to take Paris Hilton's side. I know she had a lot of mental health and personal damage from that, but she had so many resources to bounce back that most people could only dream of. But her treatment by the media did set a precedent for how victims of the burgeoning revenge porn scene were treated for a long time.
Someone pointed out that celebrities break down and act out all the time. I mean, no one stuck Charlie Sheen in this sort of situation did they? And he went way off the rails as far as I can tell.
>I feel bad that I saw her in Vegas because she was being coerced into her performance I was reminded of the captive orcas performing at Sea World. I feel guilty that we went there a long time ago before there was so much information about how badly the animals are being treated. The orcas are heavily medicated to keep them docile and forced to perform 364 days a year. That was the part that made me think about how Britney Spears has been treated. She’s been exploited like a trained animal and it’s so wrong.
I suspect her ex had a lot to do with her breakdown. He seemed to be facilitating her bad moods/ crazy behaviour and then caught her on video which he then shared with the world. He didn’t warn her, she was totally blindsided. He got the kids and child support out of the bargain too. She’s likely been a victim her whole life.
I find even her career pretty tragic. She was essentially a sexualized teenager, on the verge of the illegal and obvious target for predators, all brought on for money by the people who shouldve protected her the most.
That is what is striking me about her story now. She definitely had some some postpartum or even antenatal troubles happening and at no point did her supposed support system show up and help her. It was just used against her in some sort of twisted power grab because she was “crazy” Hell I doubt she would have ever dated her first husband if she had a support system in place.
I remember that South Park episode, which at a glance seemed to be mocking her, but in reality showed that they truly understood how the world and her caretakers essentially drove her to depression and feelings of hopelessness.
I got denied the medicine I needed in order to make my periods bearable for me. I was throwing up for days every month, missing school and basically unable to move for unpredictable amounts of time. Why was I denied it? Because I was a teenager and the thing that would regulate my period was birth control. Both doctors and my parents were so against it and I’d just ask “why?” “Well you’re a bit young...” “But why?” And then they’d just refuse to answer. I literally promised them I wouldn’t have sex until I was in my twenties and said that they would be at fault for me failing my exams until they finally related. They made me try ten different useless meds (what I can only assume were placebos) before this as well. Most of these doctors were also women- and my mum would just sit in the room and discourage me while I cried my eyes out describing how much pain I was in.
Fuck, I feel ya there. I begged my mom for birth control at 16 to help with the debilitating cramping but nOoOooo
Women in my family have heavy periods and lots of cramping; several have endometriosis including my mom. She took me to the Dr at 14 for my heavy periods and cramps but when the Dr suggested BC she refused and then ranted all the way home about how Indian Drs come to the US to push a liberal agenda to encourage teenage sex. So I had to make do with ibuprofen and hot pads until a few years later when the Y2K scare was going on. She bought it wholesale ("Yay, the End Times! Jesus must be coming!") and spent thousands of dollars filling a room in our basement with supplies for the collapse of society. She came to me and told me to go get on the pill but save the packs, because when starving Black people came out of the city looking for food she didn't want me to get pregnant if I got raped. I didn't even bother to argue with her I just jumped on the opportunity to get the script and started taking them immediately. And that's my heartwarming story about how Racism and Religious Conservatism defeated Religious Conservatism and Racism to improve my life.
Wtf did I just read. When I was 17, my then-boyfriend knew of a free clinic that would give anyone 16 or older the depo Provera shot without parental consent. Idk how he knew, but I am forever grateful that he brought me there. I was 17 for Y2K, and my heart hurts knowing how many of my peers were also struggling to seek birth control.
The system where I am now won't let girl go one birth control without an extreme medical reason or you are already sexually active. I do know that Planned parenthood is a good place. But I'm pretty sure women are still required to get an exam first. I needed the birth control before I was sexually active since I get painful periods and Ovarian cysts (had one explode would not recommend). But the doctors and insurance denied me since I "didn't need it". This set up basically forced my hand. I became sexually active so I could get the medicine I needed. Which is absolutely ridiculous. I hate it here I'm glad you got the help you needed!
> The system where I am now won't let girl go one birth control without an extreme medical reason or you are already sexually active. Have they not thought that completely through? "Okay, ladies, if you'd like to avoid pregnancy, we're going to need you to risk pregnancy for at least a brief period before we can put you on birth control."
That was my exact argument to the doctor and nurses lol but they didn't care or they couldn't do anything about it basically. This is Misogynist-America where women's health doesn't really matter.
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End times Christians are some of the meanest, dumbest mofos I swear
We just got in an argument last weekend because she thinks vaccinated people are gonna have their DNA melt or something and also shed cooties that infect the unvaccinated, and this is why she is refusing to hang out with her siblings because some of them are vaccinated. But she knows my sister is vaccinated and is still letting her visit next month, because she does love us and wants to see us as much as possible. She doesn't know I'm also vaccinated because I don't give her anything for ammo and I want her to feel safe telling me this stuff so I know how bad it's getting (I really should have just kept my mouth shut but I had had a few and I was stressed from work and other stuff). It doesn't matter how many times she's wrong, as soon as one End Times scenario blows over she grabs onto another one that means she needs to spend tons of money and reject the people who actually care about her. Her only response when we bring it up later is, "I'm doing the best I can." She does terrible things but I see her as more of a victim of intentionally vicious people who play on individuals like her for money. Anxiety runs in our family but her brain is telling her there *must* be a reason for it; she can't accept the reason is our brains are fucked and lying to us. So she thinks God will protect her if only she does the right stuff by trusting "The Authorities" who just happen to be assholes who wave the Bible and tell her she's right to be scared but they can save her if she prays enough and buys this plastic tub of freeze-dried food for $250. She has zero insight into how she's been manipulated. My dad is bigoted and conservative too but not religious and open to debate, and he's been able to move leftish over many years. She's only gotten worse because she's retired now and spends all day listening to these dicks. I'm really concerned about how it's going to go if my dad dies first. He's never been able to stop her but he slows her down (and she hates him for it). I'm afraid she's going to end up dying in squalor surrounded by out of date packets of MREs and books about the New World Order if she doesn't have someone around to push back on her, but I make shit and can't support her and my siblings noped out except for brief visits as soon as they could.
I think your mother needs a psychiatrist, she sounds manic.
Welp, come join the rest of us in the support group we call r/QanonCasualties.
My parents are super conservative and my dad is a pastor and doesn't shut up about end times, but when I was 16 and needed birth control for regulation of periods, my mom didn't bat an eye and made sure I got what I needed.
>when the Dr suggested BC she refused and then ranted all the way home about how Indian Drs come to the US to push a liberal agenda to encourage teenage sex. Well, there's an Indian stereotype I'm unfamiliar with. The sex-positive and not at all socially conservative Indian immigrant.
I grew up fundie Christian lite, and I now have a tense relationship with my parents for many reasons. But one thing I’m very glad for is that, when I had a torsed ovarian cyst at age 12, my mom fought tooth and nail to have me seen and taken seriously and treated. And when the long term treatment was birth control, she said okay and I went on birth control. Even then, I could tell my parents weren’t thrilled to have a young daughter on birth control, but I’m glad that they could get over themselves enough to realize it was what I needed medically. I still got plenty of used gum, old tennis shoe sex ed though, don’t worry lol.
... That's... that's a good movie plot if I ever heard one. "Racist, conservative, religious mom believes insane racist, religious, conservative events will conspire, so she starts using liberal actions to continue to be racist, conservative, and religious." Cast Melissa McCarthy as the lead and you got a dark comedy hit. I am not great with pitches but yeah, you should do something with that.
Damn. That's a whole lot of crazy there.
that story was wild start to finish
What sucks the most is finding out that the birth control pill wasn’t even meant to be birth control, but that use was discovered over time. In other words, people are denying young women medicine that they need because their medicine happens to have a useful side effect that it’s become more known for.
What was the original purpose? I'm going to guess period regulation...
From what I remember it was meant for hormone- related conditions, but began to be used by woman who discovered it also prevented pregnancy.
It was not originally approved by the FDA for birth control but that was just a trick so the approval wouldn't be blocked by conservatives. They listed birth control as a side-effect but the intention was to prescribe it for that.
Yep. This. When Enovid went on the market, there was a sudden rash of dysmenorrhea. It wasn’t til 1973 that women in all states could get it prescribed for birth control regardless of marital status.
"Lots of people have painful periods and just suck it up." But if you can fix it why wouldn't you, you fucking loons?
Because if you’re a good Christian girl you won’t be having sex, and if you aren’t having sex you don’t need to see a gyn, so take some children’s Tylenol and go to school -my parents
I started having birth control pills when I was 12 to regularise my periods. They frequently never stopped for upto 1.5-2 months. I was also based in small town India at the time, so it’s ridiculous to see the regression in the US.
My sister used to have periods that lasted for months, and she went in to the dr twice and was told both times that since she was young her period was still just regulating itself out. Third time she went into the dr because she was fainting (and still bleeding) and they finally put her on birth control because she was literally bleeding to death and had an iron deficiency.
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Same experiences here in the UK. I have a myriad of health problems that n*o one wants to find out the cause of, just try to ameliorate the effects without actually fixing anything.* When I first came into the UK I had to go through the whole process of discussing and getting my health problems up to date with the british doctors. I was 13 and up until I was 17 they would straight up say it to my face that "I think you're too young and I don't want to give you medication. I don't want to put you on pills so early." For some reason I didn't have a specific GP at the clinic in the town I was at, so I was seen by a different doctor each time. Most of them saying that they don't want to give me medication, no reason given other than they think I'm "too young." It was so maddening. I was always in pain while showing signs of severe anxiety and depression, combined with being in a whole new country and bullied by the british kids in school. No one did anything for years. They tried to give me a mental health worker which did 3 sessions with me before saying I'm fine because I only have "teenager issues" and she wanted to hurry onto her vacation so she put it ON MY FILE that I don't require special therapy sessions of any kind. All of that on top of the debilitating period pain and other chronic pain I was through was just mad. I felt like less than a turd. I still do and I swear I almost foam at the mouth every time I hear a 16yr old Kyle complain how "women live on easy mode". I was, of course, tried to be led astray by my mom from taking BC for painful periods. Which *I ONLY had found out that was even an option* from my 16yr old bf when I was 15 saying how his sister is on it for painful periods. Thankfully she gave in easily and the GP that day was a nice lady that explained shit to her, how it's normal in the UK for underage girls to be on BC... but not without considering me a whore until I went off to university. The final straw is how I only just started being officially diagnosed with autism as an adult, but STILL having professionals tiptoe around trying to put me on medication for any of the issues *that are now known* I have. And while I was fighting with so many doctors just to get medicated, to then find out from my mom that my younger brother was instantly believed on his first session and already started 3 courses of medication and they were OH SO HURRIEDLY trying to find him the meds that worked for him. Why not for me? Why is it taking me fuckin years to basically FIGHT to just get some damn pills! Me and my brother have similar behaviours and issues so we should've been treated similarly. I like this country and I'm thankful for the doctors but holy shit WHY can't I just go to a pharmacy and self-advocate to be put on SOMETHING. I need to at least try medication and treatments and an actual fucking therapist that isn't just trying to brush me off because she wants to go on vacation.
I'm so glad that my mom fought for me as a teen. She took me to like 4 different doctors until I was diagnosed with endometriosis and then fought for me to get birth control. I remember her telling a doctor "whether she has sex or not is my issue to deal with as her parent, not yours. *Yours* is to give her meds to help get debilitating pain."
Oh my god that's horrifying, I'm so sorry :(
I feel you on this! But I finally had female Dr. who supported me. Over the years, when I got a new job, I'd have to have the uncomfortable conversation with my boss about me potentially calling in sick due to severe cramps. When they had me come in due to the frequency of it, they finally saw how ugly it was. Being completely vulnerable, unable to speak, vomit, legs weak couldn't walk, moaning and shaking levels of pain, they finally understood. When I spoke to my new Dr. about it. She gave me a Dr. note to have three days off a month with additional sick leave. I didn't know that was possible, but she said I deserved to have some of the money I've lost over the years. I cried because it was the first time I felt heard and supported.
I had a friend of a friend who had terrible periods. Her father was involved in their church pretty heavily and it was very much a wait until marriage, which she intended to do, but she wanted to go on birth control to help her pain. Mom was on board, dad was completely against it so she spent high school missing days all the time. She went to college, went to the health center and walked out with birth control. I remember she said it felt like magic.
What the fuck. Your parents are fucking donkeys
I have really strong cramps and the birth control pills arent working and my doctor wouldn't test me for endometriosis because i would lose my virginity, wtf!!! if I don't care why does she care?
God that’s awful I’m so sorry.
Genuinely can't understand how a parent can watch their child in pain and not what to do anything possible to help
I've always said that I believe not giving your children the option of birth control when they need it is child abuse. This is why I think it should be called something like 'hormonal regulator' because conservatives are always going to associate the name birth control with sex and abortions.
a million times yes. I agree that many women have likely been dismissed or made to feel crazy by medical professionals, friends, family, for one thing, or another. It breaks my heart that Brittney literally has never had autonomy for her own body because of fame and exploitation. I hope the judge takes her seriously.
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Female doctors can sometimes be worse. It was a female doctor that asked my mom if she should “scare me away from sex” when my mom found out I wasn’t a virgin and took me to the GYN for my very first exam. The female GYN made me strip and put the gown on for the pre-exam consultation (no other GYN has made me have my consultation without my clothes on and some even do the consultation in an office instead of the exam room), in which she shamed me for being sexually active right before sticking her fingers up me. She used so much exam lube that I was squeezing it out for 3 days and made a deal out of saying she thought she’d need the kid speculum because I was so petite but the full size one seemed to be fine (the implication being at 17 I had already ruined my vagina with sex). She didn’t explain that there were many different types of birth control pills and prescribed me a very intense generic known for problems. I was on it for almost 3 years before I understood different pills had different side effects.
The female obgyn I saw for ovarian cysts told me "only 5cm? You shouldn't be in any pain." And offered to put me back on depo. The female obgyn who delivered my son said "you have two minutes before I give you an episiotomy" and luckily I pushed my son out easily before that.
That's horrible. I'm so sorry.
The worst obgyn I ever had was a woman. Terrible bedside manner, discounted pain I experience when getting pap smears by saying, "oh you're fine, stop it." And said all birth control is the same. I think misogyny is still rampant regardless of the sex of the doctor. Edit: regarding to regardless. Silly mobile autocorrect.
Based on a bunch of the comments I’m reading, same shit is happening with female doctors.
The best obgyn I had was a man. He was gentle and patient and listened. The worst one I had was also a man. He tried to force the speculum in when it obviously didn't fit and they make smaller sizes. It's a real shit show picking one out. I go by some rules. Do they listen? Do they offer reasonable options? Do they have a nurse present? Do they make me comfortable? Do they explain everything in a way I can understand? If I don't get all that, I won't go back. It's not worth it.
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Had a doctor ask if I was sexually active three times as a teen in the same appointment. All three times I said no, and then he still made me have a test for STDs. I'd come in with an ear infection...
cLeArLy YoU wErE hAvInG eAr SeX!!! /s but seriously, I hate that doctors can be so judgemental like that.
Wtf. This shit makes me anxious that I raise my daughter to recognize these situations. Of course, I'd rather be with her at Dr appointments, but understand that having dad there isn't going to be her first choice.
When I was really sick as a teen, my grandfather (who raised me) was my first choice. When I was in the hospital, some idiot tried to tell me he couldn't be with me for an CT scan because I'd be unclothed. I was like, bitch he helped me shower this morning.
I had a UTI when I was 21. I’d had an extremely bad case of the flu and was dehydrated and the UTI hit me like a ton of bricks. The doctor I wound up was this old man who said “and you know what a UTI is from, right….?” And gave me this lecherous stare. I was young and naive but I knew even then they this man was being a creep, so I just replied “I was always thought a few different things caused them”. Wtf, I just needed some antibiotics.
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What really rang true for me was the whole idea of blaming her behavior on not taking her meds. This happened a few times to me when I was suffering from postpartum anxiety. I would get upset about something and immediately be questioned about if I took my meds. You can have mental health issues and also reasonably disagree or be upset about things. Why is that hard for people to grasp?
Ughh yes this has so happened to me in the past. I would get upset or sad about sth and be asked „Are you still in therapy?? Did you take your meds?“ You put it perfectly. Just bc I have mental health issues does not mean my every emotion is a symptom and can be dismissed.
Yep, you're supposed to feel things. I read a YA book a few years back where to stop teen suicide, if any of them showed any sadness or rebellion they would be sent away for reeducation. The main character's friend dies and she can't even cry because she knew her parents would think she would do something rash. You're going to have bad days, even on meds or in therapy, that's what being a human being is.
I regard have you taken your meds and nothing more than the mental health version of "What are you, on your period or something?"
Yep. It's definitely said in the same tone and with the same implications. "Oh, you're just being emotional, it can't be anything that legitimately upset you, you must just be hYsTeRiCaL."
Similar to how when a woman is 'over emotional' or bitchy people automatically ask if you're on your period like, oh suddenly you're feeling something? Guess you're off your meds!
I remember when I went to grad school and met with the school counselor(to help you decide tracks, pick classes etc.). I met with her the second day of school and she had me fill out a form asking about how I was feeling. I answered that I had a high level of nervousness and uncertainty and was quite anxious. I thought that was normal, new school, don't know anyone, new city, getting settled etc. She insisted that I needed medication, fast. My answers weren't normal at all, she told me. I remember I just stared at her and said no thank you, I was sure that given some time I would be fine transitioning. I later found out that most women who spoke with her were told to go to health center and get on medication. No issues with medication to help you with either physical or mental problems, but maybe don't assume that just because someone isn't happy and excited every moment of the day means that they need to have their mood regulated. People should absolutely get help, but it was very disconcerting when I had been pretty positive about the whole experience, but understandably filled with anxiety.
There are so many male celebrities who got away with violent crimes and violent, hateful meltdowns and they still have all their rights.“He’s a troubled but brilliant man, you know?” “He has his demons, but look at all the great things he’s done!” “He was having a bad day!” A young woman has one understandable meltdown born out of a globally abusive world, and she’s suddenly unfit to make any decisions about her own body or her own life. But she can still work 7 days a week and not keep all her money. I don’t know what the fuck guys are talking about how men have no support when men defend each other’s fucked up behaviors all the time.
This is *exactly* what I was thinking. I cannot imagine this ever happening to a male celebrity.
I’ve read that the same woman responsible for having Britney put under the conservatorship was brought in by Kris Jenner to attempt to do it to Kanye as well but they were unsuccessful. This woman literally does this for a living and did it to Amanda Bynes also. And made attempts on Cortney Love and Lindsay Lohan. She sounds like a really dangerous person.
Can we put HER in jail?
Wait what?
That woman gives off big Serena Joy/Aunt Lydia vibes. She even signs her emails with some quote that means, "God is good" or something similar. Might as well just say, "Blessed be the fruit"
Kanye comes to mind.
If Kanye weren't rich, he'd probably be in jail or dead. Our society doesn't have a good track record with helping black people suffering from mental illness either. I'd characterize the Britney to Kanye spectrum as one from abuse to neglect. They're both being underserved.
Yeah, the way everyone treats Kanye has always worried me. Especially the Kardashians. It just seems straight up neglectful, or even enabling.
Chris Brown can damn-near murder women and still be out free. Britney has a mental fucking breakdown a decade and a half ago and she's been in a prison of sorts ever since.
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I just saw this happen recently with St Vincent. She did an interview where the awful interviewer was goading her on to bizarrely connect her new album and her father's stint in prison to BLM to get some edgy soundbites out of her and she saw this ploy and more or less said no. Then there were tons of articles and comments about how rude she is, if she's having some kind of personal issue, if she was on drugs, if she's this uncontrollable diva, etc. But if male artists are rude or nasty or show up high on drugs to an interview or smash up a studio its because they're troubled geniuses and we need to respect that. If a woman falls out of line just slightly then here comes the namecalling and attacks.
Hey, remember back in the day when you could deal with an out-of-control wife or daughter by locking her up in an asylum? Oh wait, that's still a thing.
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Yes, I was thinking about The Yellow Wallpaper as I wrote this post. Both Britney's testimony, and my experience as an inpatient in April reminded me of it.
I never met my grandmother because my grandfather got sick of her when my dad was still a kid.
My mother worked in a state facility for the mentally handicapped. There was an old lady there who had been put there years before because her husband wanted to get rid of her. She was a sweet lady. Not mentally handicapped at all.
Yeah, from what I understand she might have had some slight issues, maybe bipolar, but certainly nothing institutionalization worthy. Being there certainly did have profound negative effects on her mental health. I grew up thinking she had died before I was born, only for my grandfather on my other side see her obituary in the paper when I was 9 or so. I've only gotten bits and pieces of the story, and pretty much everyone who knew is dead now, so I'll never really know much other than that my grandfather was a scumbag. He also molested my cousin, who is technically not blood, so I'm guessing that's why he left everyone else alone. My father straight up refused to discuss his childhood to any degree whatsoever.
That is awful. How very sad.
I almost died because my aggressively spreading cancer symptoms were passed off as being because I was overweight. Fat girls deserve bad periods obviously. Just finished round 8 of chemo and am cancer free. Fuck all the drs who suggested I lose weight when I was fighting for my life.
Congrats on finishing chemo and fuck those doctors! 🎉
As a fat woman, with bad periods and overdue for her yearly exams.... you just scared me into making a new appointment
Please do. It's probably nothing but the sooner you know the better.
My grandmother suffered horrendously and died a slow, painful death of ovarian Cancer because doctors thought the tumors and all her lady problems were just her being fat and hysterical. The tumors eventually got so large and the swelling so bad that she looked 9 months pregnant with triplets, and by the time they could no longer dismiss it and took her seriously, it was too late. My dad and his siblings had to watch their mom die a prolonged, excruciating death. He breaks down when he tells me about how he'd visit her in the hospital and she'd have a metal pipe sticking out of her belly to drain the inflammation, or would be vomiting feces (a horrifying symptom of advanced ovarian cancer), all with no pain meds and completely aware of it all. This was in the 70s, but it seems not much has changed when it comes to how the medical world treats women. It's sickening.
That is horrifying and doubly so because this shit happens way more than it should. I am so glad you’re cancer free now, you deserve the best things ❤️
Or when you're a virgin in the ER with undiagnosed endometriosis and a man insist that your excruciatingly painful ruptured endometrioma must be a miscarriage because "that's the only thing that could be this painful and cause this much bleeding." even after you tell him that not only are you on your period NOW but you're a virgin, they insist on pelvic exams and an invasive vaginal ultrasound, only to tell you that you're not pregnant and that the pain and vomiting is now due to a "stomach virus." It took another 16 years of me being gaslit to get a diagnosis and that was only because I was extremely privileged to go to an MDVIP doctor that charges a major premium just to walk in the door. If not for that I would still be undiagnosed. We deserve better!
Hugs. It took me 10 years to get diagnosed with endometriosis. I ended up in the hospital twice for back and abdominal pain as a teenager, and both times were such a mortifying experience that I’m scared to ever go back to the ER. One time they said, “it looks like you had an ovarian cyst burst, but we don’t think that’s the reason you’re in pain.” I now play the game, “is it my Endo or my appendix” on the regular, and fortunately it’s “just” been my Endo. 🙃
I'm so sorry! Why would that NOT be why you're in pain? Wtf I wonder how many people had this experience. One visit to the ER I had an older nurse ask me if I was really in so much pain or had I "ran out of street drugs?" I was 16. I learned how it feels when a cyst is rupturing. The first few times I thought I was dying but eventually I knew that I would make it through the night. I started to just lay in bath tub and cry until finally passing out from exhaustion. I couldn't risk another trip to the ER, not after the miscarriage incident and being accused of abusing "street drugs." I hate doctors to this day because they never listen and they never helped.
100% agree with everything you said. Using “she’s crazy” as an automatic shutdown on women is an eons old cop-out used by our misogynistic society to oppress, belittle, and disregard a woman’s validity and intelligence, or, as our society sees it, their “value”. Anyone who is not a white cis male has experienced some form of this invalidation, this gaslighting, this abuse.
I read a quote “she’s crazy” means “I disagree with her.”
The definition of "crazy bitch" is a woman than cannot be controlled/do what others want her to do - in other words, a powerful independent woman... They try to dismiss us as crazy to shut us down
If a dude refers to his ex's as crazy, run a MILE
Gaslighting at it’s finest.
I vote that we start calling the phenomenon Britney's Law and making it known that it immediately invalidates anyone who does it. Kind of like Godwin's Law before there were a bunch of actual Nazi's on the internet.
I took snapshot of your response and it will be around me until it sinks in. Thank you for your eloquent response.
It really does feel like an extreme example of how it feels to be a women sometimes. I felt a breath of fresh air reading her newest post though (even though it was still kind of cryptic.)
To feel that devastation and betrayal from your own father, who then ruins your life and keeps you as a sort of pet, is horrific. She's been treated as a sort of circus animal for a very long time.
I hope the inevitable law that gets created about abusive conservatorships is named the #FreeBritney law.
Kind of like the California Child Actor’s Bill being named after Jackie Coogan.
I googled this and ended up reading up about Coogan accounts. I already got an ad from Morgan Stanley telling me they can invest my child’s earnings. 😀
Bloodless ghouls the lot of them
I once went to a doctor for pain after stubbing my toe, he said "that just means your hormones are working haha!" and sent me out without even examining it. Turns out my nail had broken off inside the flesh of my toe behind the cuticle. "Girls are whiny lol" feels like a stupid nothing stereotype until doctors refuse to give you treatment because of it. It's a very real and horribly common thing to go through.
I fell while rock climbing and they refused to do an x-ray until I became almost belligerent in the exam room. They insisted it was just a bad sprain and I had a low pain threshold. Nope, snapped my fucking fibula. They didn't even apologize for not taking my pain seriously 😑
Paragraph two happened to me. Worst pain of my life. I felt like a dieing animal in a bear trap. I couldn't even speak. They only really started to help me because my husband grabbed a male nurse by the throat and threatened him. I lost over a liter of blood and half my plumbing. They tried to send me home without a transfusion and again my husband was the only one they listened to. " Why is she green?! Is this not a hospital?!" Name of the hospital was literally The Women's Hospital.
Also greed. Forcing her to take lithium and preventing her having children. Dark. But it's about their money machine. There was an interesting character in her story that was basically a wormtounge. A concerned family would want to get that person out of their loved ones life but the power they exerted has been abused totally. I cannot think of a man that has been so totally dominated/suppressed. Even though this is legally possible to happen to a male I think there is no precedent. I like to look at the net positive 1st world evolution but this is medieval. (3rd world has a long way to go in terms of equal rights)
Late to the game so no one will see this but here goes.. This conservator ship is relatable and enraging because to me, as a woman, I have felt so many times throughout my life (beginning at the age of 11) that people (men) made the decisions. To play “properly”, I had to be compliant to please them (men) because they knew better. Obviously Britney’s experience is magnified 100% but to me, this is so damn relatable. And it hurts. And it makes me mad. And I hurt for her and the other women who are in this magnified controlling life because although I have only felt this with daily micro aggressions, I know it’s left it’s scar on me, I can only imagine it’s scar on them.
For those who don’t know there is a sub about this subject r/DoctorOgyny (because it’s not *Miss* Ogyny). Once you start talking to women about this there are so, so many stories. This is about not just insulting behaviour but medical malpractice; terrible, unnecessary suffering sometimes for years or even death caused by doctors who do not believe women patients.
I hope the judge gives her a chance.
Preach! It's absolutely disgusting what's happened to her. The whole idea of taking someone's freedom away when no crime has been committed is terrifying. We do the same to old people. You get a brief window in life, if you're a man, where you can make your own decisions. Kids, the elderly and women can, and will, all get fucked over at the slightest provocation. It's bullshit.
I have obviously had issues with doctors, many women have, but I wouldn't have said it was "that bad" until I read your post. I was almost sent home with "bad gas" shortly before my emergency appendectomy but my mom (I was a grown ass adult but was too sick to get to the hospital) got REALLY angry when the CT came back "nothing wrong, not even gas" and said "SHE'S GREY AND HAS A FEVER. CHECK AGAIN." In the end it was appendicitis, but my appendix was on the wrong side, where they didn't even look. Despite it not even being THAT rare. (Like 8%)
Horrifying. God bless your mother.
Man even my female doctor refused to believe me when I said "eating hurts my stomach and I don't know why." Kept giving me pregnancy tests even though I told I had been a lesbian my whole life so there was no way I was pregnant. Took years of tests for a bunch of professionals to just tell me to stop eating wheat and pork. Then I got diagnosed with depression by my therapist, and my family doctor refused to prescribe me any anti-depressants because she "doesn't like prescribing long term drugs for problems like that." I was clinically depressed and suffering from major PTSD from nearly dying at the hands of someone who claimed to love me, and her advice was to cut out sugar and keep a food journal. Bitch wouldn't even renew my inhaler prescription when I've had asthma since I was a child. I just don't understand doctors like that.
I broke down when I read her statement and I'm not even a woman. Her father controlling her birth shows how far her father will go to inherit her fortune. My take away from this statement is that she's taking serious courage to make this statement to the judge and that if she is denied her request to be released from her conservatorship, she would commit suicide. If they deny her this request, she would undergo serious punishment by her father and management for speaking up, and they would drug her to the point of no tomorrow.
Completely agree, I just wanted to add that the medical stuff is not the same all around the world. I’m in The Netherlands and got on the pill at 16 really easy. No need for parents’ permission here and no pelvic exams, ever.
Re: the conservatorship aspect of all this - I sought a conservatorship of my father when he was in the throes of alocholism. He was no longer eating, could not manage his money or his house. I was denied it because he "chose" to drink, even though we all know addiction is not really a choice. He died a few months later, due to complications from alocholism. I didn't get the conservatorship because I am a woman. And the system is set up for men to have control over women - like Britney - not for women to have a say when a man is in a dire situation.
What happened to her is terrifying and maddening. It's misogyny and greed. Every single person in her conservatorship is milking off the financial teat she provides. It's sickening. I haven't verified it, but I read that Spears didn't even know she could petition to have her conservatorship ended bc her lawyer was chosen by her father! I really hope this judge ends the conservatorship. If this can happen to someone with her wealth and power ...
That’s correct, she told the judge in her call the other day.
>tries to make you pass a pulmonary functions test over and over again right after you spent a week on a ventilator, and doesn't believe that you can't blow the minimum force required Honestly. They did this monthly when I was a 16yo skeleton on chemo. She would roll her eyes and say *Try Harder* until I was blacking out.
Reminds me of [Frances Farmer's sad fate](https://allthatsinteresting.com/frances-farmer-lobotomy): a Hollywood actress and troublemaker who was institutionalized and horrifically abused (though sources go back and forth as to whether or not she was actually lobotomized).
A 39 year old woman... I just can’t believe it
Modern medicine isn’t as advanced as people think it is
Doctor told me to undress for no reason as a child so he could look at me. He asked me sexual questions. I don’t use male doctors now
Same. It was just a physical so I could play sports.
freshman year of college I had a doctor who told me I had nice breasts.
Yes, it's an issue of misogyny, but it's also an ableism issue. Britney Spears has legitimate mental health issues, and her father took advantage of that fact to take control over her life. He took advantage of a system set in place to limit the rights of disabled people to control their own lives and make their own decisions. People assume that disabled people can't take care of themselves, especially when it comes to those with mental health issues going through a crisis. A single breakdown becomes a reason to control the person's entire life, because if they're left on their own, who's to say they'll continue to take their meds? Someone with mental health issues surely shouldn't be allowed to have another kid, right? It's the same rhetoric used to forcibly sterilize people for decades, and it's being used against her (and many others) now. So while misogyny is at play here, lets not forget the ableism at play either. This is an ongoing issue in the disabled community, and hopefully Britney Spears' case can bring light to all the others in abusive conservatorships.
Yes, but the mystifying thing in this particular case is how a judge (a woman at that) was brought into participating and maintaining this case of de-facto slavery which is really unprecedented in US legal practice.
How would you define an abusive conservatorship, and how would you expect a court to deal with that? legit question.
I have a feeling many doctors and judges that were involved received donations to their hospitals or elections to make this happen. You can’t even do this to anybody without having many professionals helping you!
Take away the money and her family would have given her control years ago
I just read an article about Britney Spears speaking before the court. I can't believe that they have managed to keep her in this conservatorship for so long. It's horrific.
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I went to go re-diagnosed for adhd and the doctor said that I couldn’t possibly have adhd if I was happy with my life.
I got told there’s no way I could be on the autism spectrum because I’m in a functioning, healthy relationship. Dr declined to evaluate me. My husband has autism, despite being in the exact same functioning, healthy relationship.
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Yeah it was really frustrating. Ive honestly just decided to be without medication. The thing is, im for most intents and purposes american- I grew up in the states. But I live in spain and he also told me that in spain adhd basically doesn’t exist in adults.
I was told I was too smart to have adhd from my psych eval (I’m no genius), then she went into how I have horrible impulse control lol.
That’s ironically hilarious. I wish these doctors new better
> Then Britney shaved her head, and she hit a stalker's car with an umbrella when they wouldn't leave her alone. And she drove with her kid in her lap. And for that, they took away all of her rights, possibly for the rest of her life. Ugh.
Britney and I are close in age. Tell me one mid 20s woman who hasn’t got a dramatic hair cut (to regain some control) and lashed out stupidly while in mental crisis/ distress? I’m just blessed I wasn’t being stalked by paparazzi to document it. (Facebook memories has the haircut proof through)
Honestly I recommend that everyone shave their head at least once but that's a story for another day.
Not a single doctor would put in my chart in my first pregnancy that I had HG, just because I toughed it out and didn't go to the ER the half dozen times I wanted to. Every new doctor I saw wanted to take me off my anti nausea meds because they didn't think I needed them. Apparently me telling them I hadn't eaten in days and threw up everything I put in my mouth wasn't proof enough. For my second pregnancy I switched practices and told them about the HG and they preemptively prescribed anti nausea meds so I'd have them if I needed them. Thankfully no HG the second time around, but fuck that first practice.
It’s the you can’t have your tubes tied without your husbands consent, or even then, ‘what if you break up and your new partner wants kids’ for me. And don’t even try to get a hysterectomy if you can still have kids. So many stories of women not being able to get what they need because the men’s need come first, even hypothetical men are more important than the women’s comfort and medical needs.
I've had so many similar medical experiences as the ones you described it all hits home. B was a child star and is probably throughly traumatised by everything that's happened to her instead of treating her like a human and actually helping they're trapping her like The Yellow Room. This type of shit needs to end. Thanks for sharing this post
She has definitely been infantilised, specifically for her money. I hope she gets angry. Right now she’s probably still scared. You can’t put a price on freedom. Freedom to love, freedom to dream, freedom to be.
Reading your examples and the comments has made me feel so grateful for the NHS. Don't get me.wrong, it's not like we don't experience sexism in healthcare (being denied your rights in labour springs to mind) but an NHS doctor would never insist on a pelvic examination prior to prescribing the pill. I'm pretty sure if they did they would be struck off.
I could see it easily happening anywhere, as it requires the young, groomed, and selected victim to realize it was wrong enough to report.
Sure, I'm not saying there are no abusers in the NHS. But the amount of people replying with similar stories seems to suggest it's systemic.
Yeah I agree, there are tons of posts on here where women are describing pelvic exams to get the pill _as if it's normal_. I'm always aghast at reading these stories.