For example, the UK’s “The Sun” tabloid is been running a series of stories claiming that Britney has recently been partying irresponsibly, fuelled by drink and drugs, and is so out-of-control that the only remedy is another (longer) spell in rehab. Yet these stories haven’t been confirmed by the other tabloids, and the photo agencies don’t seem to have any pictures to support them. Another little niggling anti-Britney campaign that EVERYBODY seems to be buying into is that she was booed at one of her shows “when the crowd discovered she was lip-synching”. But we all know that this is complete rubbish, if only because everybody already knew she was lip-synching! And we have direct witness confirmation that no booing at all took place. Yet, as Michael Jackson said in “Billie Jean”, “the lie becomes the truth”.

If you’re a sensitive soul, it can’t be easy to be numb to what you see. I guess you can manage it if you’re on Prozac. I had a breakdown a while ago, and during the recovery period, when I was pretty much permanently medicated, I experienced that numbness. I just couldn’t get worked up about anything, no matter what anyone said about me. My description of myself was “mellow”. Unfortunately, I also found it hard to concentrate, to be creative, to have energy and to care about anything much without bursting into tears. I don’t know if Britney has achieved that deeply flawed nirvana of numbness, but if she has, while it may help her get from day to day it can’t be good news for her career.

It’s hard to see what’s going on in Britney’s head when she says that everyone wants “a certain image of ourselves out there, and at some point we all do really care what other people think or we wouldn't be here.” At exactly WHAT point did she start caring what people thought? The problem many fans have is that, since she met Kevin Federline, she hasn’t seemed to care what ANYBODY thought. For month after month, fans were almost afraid to open the tabloids or celeb mags and confront yet another picture of Britney, spotty-faced, greasy hair dragged back, cigarette in hand, looking for all the world like she fully deserved the “trailer trash” label the media decided to pin on her. She admitted in interview that she “let herself go”, and has made other “mea culpa” statements since, but we still aren’t seeing the glamorous image we’d expect of the most famous young celebrity in the world and one of its most talented entertainers.

So what image of herself DOES she want out there? I’m guessing it’s the image of an honest, down-to-earth, real, grounded human being. But she should know by now that this public persona is only going to attract ridicule from the media and anyone remotely unsympathetic. Nobody really believes that Britney Spears’ world bears any resemblance whatever to a normal person’s existence. So perhaps she should just accept that people see her as the next thing to an extra-terrestrial and play up to an image of remoteness, inaccessibility, fastidiousness and old-fashioned glamor. As things stand, they see her as an eccentric, but not necessarily in a good way.

From what Britney says about rehab, it wouldn’t be hard to believe the media stories that she was furious about being sent there and is having problems forgiving everyone involved, including her family. It becomes part of her legend now, since people will always draw the conclusion that she was an alcoholic, a druggie or both. Back when she was in there, the media peddled stories that she engaged in strange, manic behavior and made at least 3 suicide attempts. Then they claimed that Britney was attributing everything to post-partum depression. That would be a comfortable explanation, but she hasn't used it in her letter. I find it strange that some commentators and fans should blame her for not blaming herself, since it has always seemed to me that Britney, a girl with low self-esteem, has a strong tendency to blame herself for everything and offer neither excuses nor defense. Here she says she was like a bad kid running around with ADD, which once again is her way of accepting guilt for her behavior where others would have tried to rationalise it away.

There is an incredibly moving frankness in her remark that she “realized how much energy and love I had put into my past relationship when it was gone because I genuinely did not know what to do with myself, and it made me so sad. I confess, I was so lost.” To me, it has always seemed that Britney, above all, needs someone to lavish her love upon. One of her recent remarks, in reply to her father’s treacherous e-mail to a tabloid, was to the effect that none of the men in her life had had the ability to accept the fullness of her love. Most people snorted in contempt when they read that, but I think it tells us a lot about her. She isn’t needy in the conventional sense of desperately craving someone else’s love. Clearly she loves and enjoys that, but a person with Britney’s big heart and generosity of spirit needs, above all, someone who can respond to her intensity, someone who is as romantic, impulsive, excitable, impractical and emotionally overwhelming as she is.

Probably the most touching, and disturbing, part of Britney’s letter is the next one, where she talks about letting too many people into her life. It’s not surprising that she is reputed to have made a track called “Who can she trust?” because this has been a major theme in her life since her second year as a star. It seems that the passing years have not enhanced her ability to sift out the false friends from the real ones, and now she’s reacting the only way she knows how - by shutting almost everybody out of her life who ever had any kind of influence there. She now feels that everybody who has been allowed to come close has tried to run her life, with disastrous consequences.

Sadly, this includes her parents. And it’s not that she’s pushing them away with a defiant, punky attitude. She’s simply devastated that she has had to take this step. As she says, “It’s so sad, because if anyone is a family person....it is me” and “I hate what is going on right now so much”. We can only imagine the burning pain inside her now, that almost unbearable pain of separation from the people she once held dearest and trusted the most. She must be wondering what it was that made them look at her with different eyes - judgmental, disapproving eyes - and SEND her to rehab. Note that she says she was sent, not that she volunteered to go.

She is now convinced that her parents have betrayed her, that they have not shown the family solidarity she expected from them, that they haven’t taken the trouble to really understand her and what’s going on inside her, and have been all too ready to sacrifice her good name and reputation. Her father ratted her out to the tabloid press and supported Larry Rudolph, who, Britney feels, is pretty much to blame for the wrong turn her life took lately. Her father stated quite clearly that Larry was chosen to carry out the family’s wishes in sending Britney to rehab. She herself seems to be far from convinced about the merits of that course of action, but it’s now generally accepted as if it was proven truth that she was an addict, depressed, insane, whatever.....and that a spell in rehab was the only answer.

Those wild rumors about crazy rehab behavior too add a kind of spurious retrospective justification for the belief that Britney was on the point of self-destruction and needed drastic intervention. And that’s a horrible thing to have on your record, when you feel strongly, inside yourself, that you really didn’t need to be there; when you feel that your family could have understood the anguish caused by divorce, felt the emptiness caused by losing the previous focus of your life, and taken more affectionate care of you. I get the feeling (and some sources have reported) that Britney’s mom took Kevin’s side from the moment the divorce papers were filed, and never gave Britney the solace and comfort she so desperately needed. Her manic and deranged behavior was a sign of her distress and desperation, of her sense of loss and bewilderment, but all she got was disapproval and punishment.

For all that most of the world sees her as some kind of bimbo, Britney has always been a questing, searching, inquisitive and deeply spiritual soul, who is perpetually puzzled by herself as much as by anyone else, and has experimented endlessly to find herself. A lot of her occasional strange behavior is, I believe, a subconscious part of this ongoing experiment. It’s nothing superficial, like exploring various aspects of life simply to see if she enjoys them. It’s more like a test of good faith, to see if anything she stumbles upon feels right and genuine and honest; to see if it holds the key to who and what Britney Spears is - and to check its potential to open herself fully to the spiritual powers around her. But she made the mistake of being “too open and looking for answers when I had it all to begin with”. What did she have to begin with? She believes she had the key to understanding herself and to achieving her spiritual identity. It was all there, to be discovered through quiet thought and contemplation and prayer, through tapping into her own inner strength for once in her life, and, probably most of all, through motherhood and her children.

But nothing she says in her letter suggests that she has gained confidence or stability from this sudden realisation. She talks about having been in a vulnerable state, as if it was in the past, yet she also says “I am having to face a lot of things right now since I have children of my own. A lot of insecurities from when I was little are coming up again. It is like we are never good enough.” I believe this has always been Britney’s problem. She never thinks she’s good enough, in her life, in her relationships, in her behavior, or in her career. Yet at present, she’s trying to be the sole mistress of her own destiny, following her instincts maybe, but most of all trying to use her brain.

It’s such a revolution for her, and so strange for us to conceive. We may have thought that she decided what should happen in her world, and many who know her have said that she’s “no puppet”, but clearly she didn’t feel like that. Right up until she was “sent” to rehab, she must have felt that there were those in her life whose position it was to give the orders, while it was her position to obey. Maybe she has always been that polite, deferential Southern girl who calls everyone “sir” and instinctively does what she’s told. She seems nervous that by being - not just like other stars - but like almost any other independent women, she will be portrayed as a “bitch”. Yet her “thought for the month” is so devastatingly true: “It is ok to disagree with people regarding certain issues. You’re not being true to yourself if you succumb to others opinions because you feel guilty.”

I can imagine people who have been pushed off her gravy train getting in the papers to badmouth her. But I can’t imagine people like Madonna or Christina Aguilera allowing themselves to be bossed around just so they can come over as nice, sweet and well-behaved. The stakes are way too high for that. Britney’s worried that people see her as “playing the victim”, but “victim” has never been the right word for the role she’s had to play. Incredible though it may seem, it has always seemed that she was the employee, not the employer. Apparently it was never her place to tell everyone around her what was going to happen and how - it was her place to be told, and to obey. Larry Rudolph came back “to try to direct me and my life after I got my divorce”. That’s the way it had always been. And that’s not what she wants now.

And so we see her, almost every day, in the sole company of her cousin Allie, the person she’s chosen to accompany her and support her through this transitional period. Allie’s job is not to tell her what to do, or even to give her well-meaning advice, but purely to be there for her and ensure that she’s always in a safe pair of hands. As fans we will have to be patient. There’s no point in our acting frustrated, impatient or disappointed. She has to have time to work everything out for herself, become a woman in her own mind and implant that vision in the minds of everyone connected with her. It won’t be easy. Even now she’s still referring to herself as a “young girl” and where someone like myself feels that I’ve seen most of the tougher side of life by my mid-20s, Britney is still admitting she’s got a lot to learn.

She may say adult-sounding things and try to act like an adult, but somehow there’s always a huge doubt that, in her heart-of-hearts, she really believes in any of it. This year will be a massive test, and it’s by no means certain that she’ll come out of it any stronger than she went in. Britney thinks too much, worries too much, cares too much and loves too much. She needs some of that dumb, insolent, sassy attitude that allows so many of our stars to get through the day. But if she was like that, would she still be Britney Spears? Would we still love her, despite everything?

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