She sounds to me like someone who may be under some extreme medication - unable to form thoughts clearly. Who knows what her keepers are giving her (lithium?!), or gave her before a court appearance to make her seem less competent than she could be.
What we know for certain is that there are a lot of people sucking money out of her who have an interest in the status quo. That includes her lawyer, her therapists, and her doctors. And not only does an end to the conservatorship mean an end to relatively easy paydays, she has now stated she would like to sue a lot of these people.
Right; I always got the impression that while she wasn’t necessarily making the best choices she could have, the whole conservatorship was done at the behest of her father, who seems to see her as the gravy train, and didn’t want her bad decisions to mess that up for him. The terms that have been exposed to the press seem to back that up- they are very restrictive and basically keep her performing, and not going off getting married, having more children, or doing much of anything else that women her age might otherwise do.
I don’t know how smart or dumb she is, but there does definitely seem to be a conflict of interest having her father be the conservator.
Has anyone suggested that the judge too may be in on the cabal?
The Los Angeles Times had a full-page investigative report, about 15-some years ago, on predatory conservatorships in California. They made it sound like a burgeoning cottage industry. The article strongly implied (but didn’t actually state) that there are some corrupt judges on the take, and the predatory conservators know exactly who they are, and who to bring their cases to.
ETA: I’m not immediately finding that report, but I did just find a follow-up from 2007 describing reforms to the California conservatorship rules resulting from the LAT report:
The odds are that she needs a lot of guidance about how to manage her affairs, but that might be partly because she has never been allowed to manage her own affairs. And there’s a difference between “hasn’t learned it yet” and “could never learn.”
Nah mate, you don’t get to say someone’s less intelligent than your cat -repeatedly - then act like you’re not being critical of that person.
I hope Britney gets out of this, and judges and courts become more aware of how abusive this sort of situation can be.
Who’s saying I’m not critical of her? I am critical of her. She’s a dummy, as far as I can see. Extremely dumb, not very smart, a dim bulb, and I’m very sorry for her. Being of below-average intelligence (but rich) shouldn’t mean you need to have your affairs managed by an unethical relative against your will. She has every right to do stupid shit with her money and possibly wind up bankrupt and on drugs, and I will defend that right, if needed. What I won’t do is call her “smart” or “well-educated” unless you can show me a shred of evidence to that effect. I’m not sure why you folks are clinging to this unlikely claim–it doesn’t really change her situation or strengthen your case much, if at all.
So who exactly has claimed she’s ‘smart’ or ‘well educated’? Absolutely no-one would claim the latter- she clearly has not had much education, having been working as a performer since her mid teens. What you are being called out for, or at least part of it, is equating a lack of education with stupidity- what evidence do you have about her actual intelligence?
None of us actually really know the person we’re talking about. We have second or third hand info that- if her claims are correct- has mostly been vetted by people who have a vested interest in making her sound incapable and in need of a guardian, who is also compelling her to take mind-altering drugs.
My aunt took lithium for years, until she found a medication which worked better for her about 30 years ago. While taking it, she was vague, dreamy, regularly lost track of her thoughts, easily confused and suggestable. None of this is an accurate representation of her actual intelligence or personality.
Most of what you’re claiming appears to be the same victim blaming nonsense some people like to smugly trot out in this situation, that boils down to a belief that it’s basically someone’s own fault for letting [bad things] happen, because a ‘better’ person would have stopped it.
Am I trying to claim I think she’s really a smart person? No. I have no idea, and neither do you. You certainly have no evidence that she’s less intelligent than an average schoolchild or a sodding cat.
Do I think it matters if, san psychiatric drugs, given free access to information, not living under someone else’s control, she’s still not showing any signs of being brighter than average? No. Intelligence isn’t how I measure someone’s worth. Human decency is one trait I value more.
And where have I done this? I have stated that she seems vastly under-educated to me, which you freely concede, AND that she seems to me to lack intelligence. Are you disputing my opinion? Are you contending that she is clearly of above-average intelligence? Seems to me the burden of proof is on you to show me why you think so. My claim is that I’ve never heard her utter a syllable that supports her native intelligence, and I have heard her babble nonsense many times, even when well-prepared, in inteviews and other venues, so I feel pretty comfortable with that conclusion until shown otherwise. Please, present me with some evidence why I should change opinions. I’m all ears.
So one of the things that seems to be going on is that her father had some huge issues with alcohol. He was frequently absent in Brittney’s childhood, was apparently occasionally abusive to at least his second wife (she filed a restraining order against him when they separated claiming violence), and went through rehab - as I understand it, more than once. There may be a significant amount of projecting going on, as well as some genetic dispositions to substance abuse and psychiatric issues.
Though honestly, why a father absent through much of her childhood, sometimes estranged, who has had ANY abuse accusations made against him, would be seen by the courts as a good primary conservator is really scary.
It almost seems like that’s enough reason to wonder aloud about whether or not a better conservator could be found for Ms. Spears if a conservatorship was truly appropriate.
Kevin Federline, the father of Britney’s two kids, also had a restraining order issued against Jamie Spears that prevents him from coming near the kids:
Interesting. I started taking lithium last year (after never being on any sort of psychiatric medication), and I honestly can’t really tell what kind of effect it has on me. I still feel “normal” just a little more modulated emotionally perhaps. One of my high school girlfriends was on lithium and she seemed perfectly normal cognitively.
This is not to say it may not cause some effects for some people. but it’s not like lithium makes most people a zombie either. And while there is a dosage range, I don’t believe it’s very wide.
Lithium is still the #1 treatment for bipolar disorders and you have to be very careful about blood levels and test regularly. My ex husband and both my kids are bipolar (2 are Bipolar 1 and the other is Bipolar 2) and one is fully med-compliant on lithium, one tried lithium and is currently off meds (and not doing all that well either) and the bipolar 2 one is doing better with a little cocktail of anti-psychotics but they discovered lithium is a little TOO depressing for him since he doesn’t have full manic episodes. While it’s true that lithium can depress affect some, I personally suspect that bipolar 1 people actually really LIKE their manic episodes and refuse medication because it takes away their fun time. That’s just my personal observation based on over 40 years of living and coping with the lot of them.
I don’t know what taking lithium would be like for someone who doesn’t get manic episodes or isn’t actually bipolar but I suspect that flattening of affect would definitely play a role.
I’m not really convinced I’m bipolar or anything, but I was having what I self described as hypomanic episodes (with no corresponding depression) and the lithium seems to have tamped down a little bit on the extremes, but it’s rally hard to tell as I also stopped drinking at the same time, so there were two big changes. (As mentioned above, I do kind of miss the hypomania a bit.)
Hypomania and manic episodes look like one hell of a lot of fun–right up to the point where it all goes pear shaped, the person takes off at warp speed toward Crazytown and blows up their entire life. That part doesn’t look like any sort of fun at ALL, and having seen first hand what happens after one of those manic moonshots I get REAL twitchy when someone tells me they stopped taking their meds and they feel SO MUCH MORE ALIVE AND HAPPY. Uh, yeah, okay.
I don’t think my aunt is bipolar - if she is, its bipolar 2 - but she was on lithium after trip #3 in as many months for suicide attempts. I think they put her on it to to turn her into a zombie.
(She is doing much better now - she’s been doing group therapy for a few years and that’s given some perspective).