#Freebritney

No shame here! And thank you for your perspective on this. I had no idea that conservatorship had such a long history, but I suppose it makes sense. Societies have always had the responsibility of taking care of its most vulnerable.

Since you've done these evaluations before, I'm curious if you know .. do people often have their conservatorship removed? I understand that elderly people with dementia don't really ever recover, but are adults with intellectual disabilities commonly re-evaluated? I know there is a move for family members to have less authoritative roles and more supportive roles, but I'm not sure how this plays out legally.

@Marisa H, in my experience it is fairly rare for conservatorships to be removed. It is much more common for them to simply be transferred from one conservator to another if there was a problem. I have only done one evaluation in which the conservatorship was removed (so far) although it was likely a conservatorship that was never necessary in the first place.

@Esther I think it was clear her father was a sick man too...I think for conservatorships, the parents or people in control should probably be evaluated too. There are so many “good” parents with ulterior (money) motives for power and control over their kids or other relatives and that’s abuse. Financial abuse, and abuse of power. It was clearly abuse in the case with Britney as it is with most celebrities. Her parents probably were the main cause of her psychotic breakdown. Still, I don’t know who performs like that and isn’t a little crazy. Think of Judy Garland. Not much has changed, sadly. Not giving a child autonomy over their own lives, bodies, let alone financially has been proven to keep the child infantiled and in a regressed or dissociated state of helplessness. Britney standing up for her independence was a plea for the adulthood she never got to have because she was never given the opportunity to have it to begin with. Parents’s need to help their kids fly, not clip their wings and keep them in a cage.

Hi Nina! Britney has spoken about having bipolar disorder and her difficulties with medication/her psychiatrist. She was placed under conservatorship after her public breakdown in 2008.