Britney Spears and The Survival Cycle of Rage and Surrender

“It’s embarrassing and demoralizing what I’ve been through. And that’s the main reason I’ve never said it openly. And mainly, I didn’t want to say it openly, because I honestly don’t think anyone would believe me.” 

– Britney Spears during her June 23rd testimony

When I heard Britney Spear’s testimony to the court, I felt it in my body.

Anyone who knows me for more than five minutes knows I have been a die-hard, unapologetic Britney fan for decades. And to those folks – don’t go rolling your eyes at the notion that I am going to compare myself to her. Britney is in a horrifying situation, the likes of which no one of her age, talent, and capabilities has ever seen. 

It’s actually ironic that the cult I was imprisoned to for almost a decade used to poke fun of my Britney fandom. And yet all these years later, as I listen to her testimony to the court, many of her feelings have been my own. 

When you lose your freedom, when you are forced or coerced against your will, when you are abused and manipulated and exploited, you go through cycles of surrender and rage. I believe it is the human psyche battling for freedom, then settling for peace.

In the winter of 2001, I had my first real intense rage cycle. I was 19 years old and had been in the group for almost five years and I wanted out. I had no plan and could not envision a life outside of the one I was stuck in, so I did the only thing I knew would be a shot across the bow – I went out and got drunk. Because the cult I was in was founded on the premise of being a young people’s recovery group, sobriety was the foundation, so the best I could come up with was to blow that up. 

After my night of drunken rebellion, my car was taken from me and I wasn’t allowed to be alone. It was the holidays, and someone from the group called my parents and told them I wasn’t well enough to be with my family for Christmas and they blindly acquiesced. 

I was told I would spend the holidays with Mike, our, at the time, 57 year old leader. This was seen as a privilege and an honor but I had been hunted by him several times and knew I wasn’t in for plum pudding and tree trimming by the fire. 

This is why the rage period can be so short and tricky. Most often, it will only result in a tighter grip, more restrictions, and punishment. Such was the case with Britney, who spoke of being forced to take Lithium after being referred to as “uncooperative.”

Which is why Britney’s testimony is really such an incredible act of bravery. Because even if she is believed, if someone isn’t powerful enough or willing to save her, she runs the risk of a greater loss of freedom for her rebellion of trying to save herself.  Ultimately, despite her money and fame, Britney legally has less power today than I did as a nobody in the suburbs of Washington D.C. at 19 years old. 

I had given in and slept with Mike years before on different occasions, but that was when I was in a surrender cycle. I was holding firm in the rage, secretly. 

On Christmas Eve, I retreated to bed while the house was still full and pretended to be deep in sleep when he sent for me later that night. I did the same thing the next night too. 

He was pissed, unfamiliar with being rebuffed. The day after Christmas, I was sent to the home of a couple of people in the group that he knew I loved and trusted to be “dealt with.” 

They told me I was self-righteous and self-destructive. The rage bubbled up. 

“Why? Because I won’t sleep with Mike? I don’t want to do it. Can’t someone else?” I remember suggesting one of my friends to take my place.

They were stone-faced. I was pleading with robots. They wouldn’t even look at me. 

With no resolution and sensing they were failing in their directive, we went and joined several others at the movies that afternoon to kill time. I was standing in line for popcorn with two of my closest friends – peers, girls on the same level as me. They were trying to get the low down on why I was in trouble, when one of the elders came up and shooed my friends away.

“You’re not going to spread your poison to them,” she told me. I pushed back, asking if I would miraculously no longer be poisonous if I went back to Mike’s house and fucked him. She had nothing to say and wouldn’t look at me either. 

I followed her into the packed theater and amongst the ten or so of us, one seat remained and she took it. 

“Oops, sorry,” another elder snidely punished me. 

I walked away and found a seat alone. 

I had no phone, no car, no way out. 

I considered turning to the strangers around me and asking for help, but what would I say? How could I explain this? Who would I even ask them to call for me? Where would I go? Who would come rescue me?

And just like Britney said, who would even believe me? The helplessness and hopelessness of being in a cage that is invisible to the rest of the world can quite literally make you feel insane. 

Believing my doomed feelings of hopelessness, I soon resorted back to defeated surrender. Whoever wanted me, I laid down. I spoke when asked, and shut up otherwise. I became a smiling, dancing, easy, juvenile Britney Instagram post. And my life was simpler, more peaceful because of it. Which is why it wasn’t completely shocking to hear Britney say,

“…that’s why I’m telling you this again two years later, after I’ve lied and told the whole world “I’m OK and I’m happy.” It’s a lie. I thought just maybe if I said that enough maybe I might become happy, because I’ve been in denial. I’ve been in shock. I am traumatized. You know, fake it till you make it. But now I’m telling you the truth, OK? I’m not happy. I can’t sleep. I’m so angry it’s insane. And I’m depressed. I cry every day.”

It is human nature. The brain, the body, the soul – it will do what it has to do to find the most accessible peace available. 

So for the next year and a half, I was a star student. In fact, the depth of my surrender was celebrated, pointed to as an example of how to be reformed and behave. 

All the while, I quietly found my inner Katie Holmes. I jumped out of the rage/surrender cycle and started playing chess.

And I think our girl Brit is on the same path. That testimony, though fueled by it, was not an act of rage. I think that was her first checkmate.

What do you think is next in the #FreeBritney movement? Share your thoughts below.