Britney Spears Feels ‘Brain Damage Happened to Me’ but Says She Has ‘Moved on’

Britney Spears is reflecting on a dark point in her life.

In an Instagram post shared on Sunday, Oct. 19, the pop superstar seemed to open up about spending four months in rehab in 2018 while under a conservatorship and the impact it’s had on her life, claiming she feels “brain damage happened to me.”

Spears posted a photo of herself riding a horse and compared her shoulder blades to “wings” in the caption, before writing about the film Maleficent and highlighting its plot.

“Remember the king tried to kill her but instead a guy secretly took her wings but anything from the father in heaven the real father whom is the one I only claim who loves unconditionally… anything holy is never forgotten,” she wrote. “Her wings were holy so the king couldn’t take them not one person could say they were restored and hidden locked in a secret holy stain glass church…not that this has any relevance with me but I do find it incredibly interesting…”

The “Toxic” singer then spoke about enduring a “traumatic experience” that she says she wrote about “at the end” of her 2023 memoir, The Woman in Me, “where for 4 months I no longer had my private door and illegally was forced to not use my feet or body to go anywhere.”

“For a person like me who understands the sacredness is god speed… it did more than hurt my body,” continued Spears. “Trust me there’s ALOT I didn’t share in my book and still things at this very moment I’ve kept hidden because its incredibly painful and sad… I do feel the logic and mindfulness in my body as ONE was 100 percent murdered and destroyed I couldn’t dance or move for 5 months…”

She also reflected on feeling physically stronger in the past than she does now. “I used to swim with my babies on my back till they were 4 and 5,” said the Grammy winner, referencing sons Jayden James, now 19, and Sean Preston, now 20.

Spears circled back around to Maleficent and how the titular character finds her wings again at the end of the film. Then, she noted how the plot relates to her own life.

“I do feel like my wings were taken away and brain damage happened to me a long time ago 100 percent,” Spears wrote. “I have of course moved on from that troubling time in my life and I’m blessed to be alive…”

In her 2023 book The Woman in Me, the pop star said her father, Jamie, made her spend more than three months in a rehab facility in 2018. “My father said that if I didn’t go, then I’d have to go to court, and I’d be embarrassed,” she wrote.

The “Gimme More” artist claimed Jamie would make her look like an “idiot” if she didn’t comply with going to the $60,000-per-month Beverly Hills facility, where she was allegedly prescribed lithium and only allowed an hour of television before her 9 p.m. bedtime.

“They kept me locked up against my will for months,” Spears wrote in her memoir. “I couldn’t go outside. I couldn’t drive a car. I had to give blood weekly. I couldn’t take a bath in private. I couldn’t shut the door to my room.”

In another post shared to Instagram on Sunday, Oct. 19, Spears wrote about a conversation shared with her grandfather before his death. “He said promise me one thing… people will talk and talk and he said the world can be a very cruel place… he said promise me you won’t care what these ignorant people say and lie about you,” she recalled.

She continued, “He said you stay fearless… that’s in your blood… to be fearless… don’t become crippled and scared and a person explaining yourself so you give them the entitlement to make you less than them… when people really understand the power of your name alone people will test you and do absolutely anything to pull you down…”

Spears’ latest posts come amid the promotional cycle for her ex-husband Kevin Federline’s new book You Thought You Knew, which will be released on Tuesday, Oct. 21. Excerpts shared by The New York Times, USA Today and E! Online feature claims about Spears’ behavior as a parent, allegations of cheating and an expression of imminent fear that “something bad” will happen to her.

A rep for Spears responded to Federline’s memoir and the allegations in a statement shared with PEOPLE on Tuesday, Oct. 14.

“With news from Kevin’s book breaking, once again he and others are profiting off her and sadly it comes after child support has ended with Kevin,” they told the publication. “All she cares about are her kids, Sean Preston and Jayden James, and their well-being during this sensationalism. She detailed her journey in her memoir.”