Chap­ter 44 marked a sig­nif­i­cant turn­ing point in my life as I final­ly returned to my home, my chil­dren, and my dogs. It was a relief, but that feel­ing was soon over­shad­owed by an unwel­come vis­it from my fam­i­ly. My father, with a facade of pride, con­grat­u­lat­ed me, say­ing, “We’re so proud of you, Brit­ney!” But I knew what he tru­ly meant: “I can’t wait to see your money—or, should I say, you.” The facade was clear to me, and despite their appar­ent care, I couldn’t shake the feel­ing that they were only there for one thing: to take from me what they believed they were owed.

As they moved in, I was still recov­er­ing, and it felt as though the weight of every­thing I had been through was suf­fo­cat­ing. I was on lithi­um, and my sense of time was dis­tort­ed, which left me dis­ori­ent­ed and afraid. It became hard to tell whether their vis­it was out of con­cern or if they sim­ply sought to fin­ish what they had start­ed months before—their manip­u­la­tion and con­trol. The fear was almost unbear­able, but I played along, try­ing to be kind, hop­ing that by being agree­able, they would nev­er again push me to the brink of destruc­tion. After months of iso­la­tion, bare­ly a hug from any­one, the vis­it felt like a cru­el reminder of every­thing that had hap­pened.

Despite every­thing, my fam­i­ly act­ed as though noth­ing had changed, as if the trau­ma I had endured did­n’t exist in their real­i­ty. My sis­ter, Jamie Lynn, had found suc­cess in her own career, but her exu­ber­ance was hard to stom­ach in the midst of my despair. She bounced around with ideas for TV shows and rom-coms, her ener­gy almost infec­tious, yet I felt com­plete­ly dis­con­nect­ed. I was still bare­ly able to func­tion, lean­ing against the kitchen counter, unable to focus on any­thing but the chaos that sur­round­ed me. Even as she excit­ed­ly pitched her lat­est plans, I could only won­der, “What the fuck is going on?”

When they final­ly left, the weight of every­thing I had endured hit me all at once. The anger bub­bled up from deep with­in. My family’s actions had been an exten­sion of the betray­al I had suf­fered for years. They had pun­ished me for sup­port­ing them, for being there for them since I was a child. The anger was over­whelm­ing, and I could hard­ly process the tor­ment I had endured. How had I man­aged to sur­vive? The thought of end­ing it all had crossed my mind so many times dur­ing my dark­est days. It was almost impos­si­ble to under­stand how I hadn’t giv­en in, but I knew I had to keep going, even if I didn’t ful­ly under­stand why.

The break­ing point came lat­er that August when my father argued with my son, Sean Pre­ston. The sit­u­a­tion esca­lat­ed to a dan­ger­ous point, with my son lock­ing him­self away to escape the argu­ment, only for my father to break down the door and phys­i­cal­ly shake him. It was the final straw. Kevin filed a police report, and my father was banned from see­ing the kids. This moment, this new trau­ma, forced me to dig deep and find one last ounce of strength.

The jour­ney had been long and painful, filled with moments of faith and moments of despair. Every time I thought I was free, some­thing would pull me back in. But I had endured, and I knew I couldn’t give up now. With every­thing I had, I decid­ed to take the biggest risk of all. I would ask for the end of the con­ser­va­tor­ship. I couldn’t bear the thought of those peo­ple still hav­ing con­trol over my life, over my chil­dren, or even over my dai­ly exis­tence. No more. I want­ed my free­dom, and I would fight for it with every­thing I had left.