I don't have to suggest anything: there are existing legal alternatives that were described in the article that were less drastic.
Yes, they are. But are they the most effective or helpful?
I don't think it has. OTOH, it seems at least somewhat likely.
Though some of the things Spears was doing that got her into a conservatorship seemed pretty mild to me. I mean who hasn't thought about shaving off all their hair at some point in their lives? And some people even do it. She had just had a baby and was being hounded by paparazzi. You don't have to have bipolar to react badly in that situation.
I've actually never thought about shaving my head.
But as I said at the time, I don't think shaving your head is a big deal. I also remember the things Britney was saying at the time, though, and they were not things that made me think she was just shaving her head.
Also, just because a person is mentally ill or making bad decisions, that doesn't mean they should be in a conservatorship. Most of us make bad decisions at least some of the time. It's our right to do so and being mentally ill doesn't mean you have no rights.
I do have personal experience dealing with a family member with a mental illness. It is true that once someone is an adult, the family has little recourse. But making it so that you can commit someone who is an adult against their will so they can get treatment is not the same thing as putting them in a conservatorship and taking away all their rights. There is a middle ground here.
What would be the middle ground? Partial control? That would be just less of the same.
Some might find it enlightening to
revisit this thread from when Britney was taken to the hospital for the first 5150 hold.
Or this thread. Or the one linked above. Or any of the other Britney threads from the past. Note the kinds of behavior being described at the time.
So yes, we all have the right to make bad decisions and live with the consequences of them. But most of us also have the ability to both recognize a bad decision when we are making one and to adapt our behavior to prevent ourselves from making more bad decisions once we do make one.
Please re-read my post. I wasn't saying that he never should have had a conservatorship, ever.
Reread mine, then, as I didn't claim that you'd said anything of the kind. You asserted that things were different for Wilson because he was in a band; my point was that he really wasn't in the band after his illness set in.
The rest was just general comments.
There were clearly times in his life when he was struggling and needed help. My point was that he had, and has, different pressures on him than Britney does, and did, so they're not really valid examples to compare in understanding why or how conservatorshops should work.
I don't see the pressures on them as all that different; in both cases, they are people who were obligated to produce creative content for other people whether they liked it or not while suffering from known mental illnesses.
The main differences I see in them are that Wilson was and is schizoid and Britney is bipolar; of the two, Britney is more likely to be able to manage her own affairs. That, and Britney is, by luck of timing, living in a better time for people with mental illnesses.
He's not making the decisions (allegedly). His wife - who is also his manager - is allegedly calling the shots, and she's POed the group that tours under the name of the Beach Boys. So he's not going to make touring money from touring with them. Apparently he's fine with making music in the studio, and with working on projects like re-issues and compilations. But he's a nervous performer, even with musicians that he trusts and likes, and he finds touring very stressful. Yet he keeps doing it. So you figure it out: is he doing it because he wants to, or because he's being "encouraged" to?
If he says it's his own doing, who am I to say it isn't? When I looked something up about his case to verify that I had the facts right, I found several accolades from people about his wife has really turned his life around and made it better. Once again, I have no idea what's true or isn't and cannot make an informed judgment, so I will go with what he says.
A lot of performers have terrible stage fright and find performing stressful and they still do it.
Actors,
singers,
dancers,
athletes--heck,
I have performance anxiety and I still haul myself up on stage every now and then and perform, shaking hands and churning stomach and blank mind and all--and I have a whole lot less incentive than Brian Wilson does.
www.cheatsheet.com
