Empathy for Britney
Categories: Divorce & custody, Celeb kids, Behaving badly, In the news, That's entertainment
Over the past few days, stories about Britney Spears have dominated the news. The latest development is that visitation has been suspended and she has been committed to the hospital. I will get this out of the way now. I feel sorry for her. I am not making excuses for her because I realize that her behavior is compounding the problem, but I cannot help but feel sympathy for her and her situation.I have been through a custody trial. I have spent months, running into years, with people watching my every move and documenting everything I did. I have had everything I have ever said or written twisted around to make me look terrible. I cannot even imagine what it must be like when you get to see all of that documented in the tabloids every day and be the butt of every joke on late night talk shows.
I know that I have no idea what she's thinking or what motivates her actions, but I can sympathize with the constant stress of losing your children. Stress makes you do crazy things. If cameras had been following me around during those awful months I know I would have done more than shave my head and hold a standoff with police. If you have not been through this experience, I think it is impossible to truly explain how it feels. My hair fell out, I cracked two teeth from night grinding and I repainted one of the walls in my house black. I have no explanation for my behavior and when people ask me to sum up that period, I just shake my head. There were times I went so long without sleep that I lost my short-term memory.
What worries me more is that no one seems to be stepping in and doing something to help Britney. There seems to be a lot of fires being extinguished, but no smoke alarms being installed.
Before I join the torch carrying crowd, exclaiming, "Britney is a horrible mother and deserves to never see those children again," all I have to do is pull out my $7,000 dentist bill that I finally paid off or walk into the extra bedroom and look at the black wall. Then I thank my lucky stars that it's not all documented in the tabloids. Hopefully, other mothers can look at her with a little bit of compassion right now, if only for the sake of Sean Preston and Jayden James and hope that she starts getting the help she needs to save her visitation rights with those children.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ethel 1-07-2008 @ 9:39AM
In a lot of ways I think this period is much harder on Britney then it would be on most of us since she obviously thrives in the adulation of throngs of people, attention of people must mean she's doing well and right now the only way she's getting attention is when she's bad. I just think that she is pulled in many directions as most young moms are, who she is and what she needs to do, and her whole life has been about performance and she gets her good strokes from that. So she is getting a lot of attention, in the wrong way, but it feels good, and she is loosing her kids which is terrible but feeds the attention, but the kids loose out and so does she in the end.
Sigh, dime store psych....
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Kelsey 1-07-2008 @ 11:17AM
Secon what Ethel said. Briteny Spears needs a mental health intervention, get out of the spotlight, and away from the people who are using her. To some extent, it feels like her family is hurting her just as badly as everyone else. Who allows "Dr." Phil, a television pyschologist whoose ratings are falling, to their ill daughter? She needs more than his, "You can do better" speech, she needs someone to care about making her a whole, healthy person again and not how much money they can make off of her.
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meredith 1-07-2008 @ 11:35AM
It is so sad that people are too quick to judge. It is too easy to say that she is an awful mother and question why anyone isn't helping.
I have an addict in my family and I can say that at some point, it is necessary to insulate yourself from the person who has become poisonous.
Whether or not it is self inflicted (like drugs) or mental (like bipolar disorder), she has all the money in the world to hire person after person to tell her what she wants to hear. After all, there is only so many ways you can help someone who doesn't want to be helped.
Now, we can all hope that the judge does his job and protects those kids to the fullest extent from their mother and her refusal or inability to get herself help.
It is just such a sad situation all the way around.
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karen 1-07-2008 @ 1:04PM
i agree. i feel sorry for her. she is having a complete mental breakdown that is only being made worse by being in the spotlight. i just wish someone could get her the mental help she needs. when she first started her antics i laughed and said what a stupid person she was, but i look on her with a sad face, a concerned face. i know plenty of people who still want to gossip about her and laugh at her, but i walk away from them. i speak my two cents about feeling sorry for her and walk away.
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Jennifer 1-07-2008 @ 1:18PM
It is a very sad situation. I do no believe at all that she is addicted to any drugs or alcohol. I think she has an untreated mental disorder. Unfortunately, there is no one in her life to step in and demand that she gets help. If she is addicted to anything at all it is the attention frm the poparazzi. I can only imagine how much more willing she would be to seek help if she wasn't getting all of the attention...kinda like rewarding someone for positive behavior instead of negative behavior... I wish her luck in pulling herself out of this quagmire.
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Joy 1-07-2008 @ 2:37PM
Chalk up another vote for: "I feel really sorry for her."
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heather 1-07-2008 @ 5:16PM
She obviously needs some help in the mental heath deptartment. I heard she has been released so I am not sure if she got the help she needed or if they just kept her there for the sake of it. I think if they had really done the proper tests she migh still be there.
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Ann Adams 1-07-2008 @ 6:09PM
I already said it on Kristin's post about "judgment" earlier.
Yes, I feel sorrow for any young person whose life is spinning out of control and it must be even harder with the public second guessing every move.
It's even more difficult on families who in many cases are powerless to help. Despite our best intentions, we can't "fix" everything. I know I couldn't and heaven knows, I tried. The end result was tragic for all of us.
As for Britney (and the many young women famous or not) who are suffering, I can only hope that somehow she is willing to accept the help she so obviously needs. I've seen firsthand, starting with my own family, what can happen otherwise.
Meantime it's not judgmental (or I don't think it is) to make sure the children are safe.
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SKL 1-08-2008 @ 2:22AM
I don't waste time reading Britney articles, but I can see from the headlines that America has always been holding Britney up to a ridiculous standard. I haven't heard of one thing she did with her kids that hasn't been done by a good percentage of "fit" parents. And who even knows how much of these allegations are true?
Britney is pretty young and has more on her mind / plate than probably anyone on this site had at her age. Yes, she needs help, but when I was her age, there is no way I had the maturity to recognize and act on such a thing.
It's sad that her problems were compounded so badly by the media attention, divorce lawyer tactics, and anonymous judgments that she basically had no chance to be a successful custodial parent. Now maybe if everyone just backs off, she might have some chance to have a non-toxic relationship with her kids.
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