Chap­ter 31 rep­re­sents a crit­i­cal point in my strug­gle with the con­ser­va­tor­ship, where I began to ques­tion the con­tra­dic­tions and the manip­u­la­tion at play in my life. The rea­son giv­en for the con­ser­va­tor­ship was that I couldn’t man­age the basic aspects of my life—feeding myself, man­ag­ing mon­ey, or even being a moth­er. Yet, after it was estab­lished, I was sent to work, appear­ing on How I Met Your Moth­er and embark­ing on a gru­el­ing world tour. This con­tra­dic­tion didn’t make sense to me. On one hand, I was deemed too inca­pac­i­tat­ed to make any deci­sions for myself, yet on the oth­er hand, I was expect­ed to per­form for the pub­lic, trav­el­ing the world, appear­ing on TV shows, and main­tain­ing a career as though noth­ing had changed. The real­i­ty of being under con­stant sur­veil­lance while being pushed to work was mad­den­ing. My sense of self was being con­stant­ly under­mined, and I began to feel like I was sim­ply an object for oth­ers to con­trol and use, with no regard for my well-being or per­son­al free­dom.

Over time, it became clear to me that the con­ser­va­tor­ship was less about help­ing me and more about ben­e­fit­ting my fam­i­ly. I noticed how my moth­er and my brother’s girl­friend were going out, liv­ing their lives with­out restric­tions, get­ting short hair­cuts, and enjoy­ing wine while paparazzi eager­ly cap­tured these moments. It seemed staged, like a care­ful­ly con­struct­ed nar­ra­tive to present them as care­free, while I remained trapped. My father, who con­trolled every aspect of my life, went as far as tak­ing away my per­son­al rela­tion­ships, even telling me who I could and couldn’t date. I was even banned from dri­ving, and my entire exis­tence felt con­trolled by his deci­sions. I was stripped of my auton­o­my, and my very wom­an­hood seemed to be tak­en away. The sense that my fam­i­ly was using the con­ser­va­tor­ship to their own advan­tage, while I was left with no say in the mat­ter, was crush­ing. I was con­stant­ly remind­ed that their desires and inter­ests came before my own, and it felt like I was being pun­ished for no rea­son oth­er than to serve their needs.

What hurt the most was the real­iza­tion that my father, a man with a his­to­ry of addic­tion, bank­rupt­cy, and fail­ures in busi­ness, was giv­en the author­i­ty to con­trol my life. He had caused me fear and trau­ma as a child, and yet, the state of Cal­i­for­nia had allowed him to take over my affairs. It was dif­fi­cult for me to under­stand how, despite all his per­son­al flaws and fail­ures, my father was trust­ed with the pow­er to make life-alter­ing deci­sions for me. He wasn’t the role mod­el any­one would want in charge of their life, but some­how, he was the one decid­ing my fate. I thought about my own achieve­ments, my own career, and I couldn’t under­stand why the sys­tem had allowed him to over­shad­ow all that. The fact that some­one so flawed was in con­trol while I was stripped of my rights and free­doms felt like a slap in the face. It was a betray­al that left me ques­tion­ing my entire real­i­ty and the fair­ness of the sit­u­a­tion.

As I reflect­ed on the sit­u­a­tion, it became increas­ing­ly clear that my father wasn’t inter­est­ed in help­ing me; he was using the con­ser­va­tor­ship to con­trol me. He framed it as a nec­es­sary step for my “come­back,” but I knew it wasn’t about help­ing me rebuild my life. The idea that I had just released my best album and yet was being forced into a sys­tem of con­trol was a harsh con­tra­dic­tion. It felt as though my father was manip­u­lat­ing the sit­u­a­tion to serve his own inter­ests, mak­ing it seem like the con­ser­va­tor­ship was a per­fect arrange­ment for our fam­i­ly. But was it per­fect for me? I was being asked to work under the assump­tion that I was too unwell to make deci­sions, but at the same time, I was expect­ed to trav­el the world and per­form for thou­sands. I was forced to main­tain the facade of being healthy and in con­trol, even as I was being denied basic rights, like the free­dom to make per­son­al deci­sions. The more I reflect­ed on it, the more I real­ized how dam­ag­ing this sit­u­a­tion was to my men­tal and emo­tion­al well-being. It wasn’t just about my career; it was about my very iden­ti­ty being con­trolled and dic­tat­ed by oth­ers.

This entire peri­od of my life felt like I was play­ing a role in a sto­ry that wasn’t my own. The expec­ta­tions were placed on me by oth­ers, and I was stuck in a cycle of per­form­ing for the ben­e­fit of my fam­i­ly and the peo­ple around me. Despite every­thing, I tried to main­tain a sense of nor­mal­cy, but the deep­er I got into the con­ser­va­tor­ship, the more I felt like I was los­ing myself. The con­tra­dic­tions were too stark to ignore, and I start­ed to see the con­trol over my life for what it real­ly was—an attempt to keep me in a per­pet­u­al state of depen­den­cy, unable to make any real deci­sions. This stark real­iza­tion fur­ther pushed me into a men­tal and emo­tion­al bat­tle, where my per­son­al desires and free­dom were con­stant­ly sac­ri­ficed for the sake of oth­ers’ agen­das.