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Britney in Crisis

Originally posted Thursday January 10, 2008 12:00 PM EST

NOVEMBER 2006: Partying with Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton in L.A. Photo by: BAUER-GRIFFIN

Things had gotten so bad early last year that her family even staged an intervention, planned by her then-manager Larry Rudolph. "Her mom, brother [Bryan, 30], dad, sister were all there," says a source. "[The intervention] was about everything: her work, her partying, just her choices in general." But if anything, the attempt merely created further distance between Spears and her family – not unusual among those with mental illness such as bipolar disorder, says Dr. Goulston. "As soon as people like this feel like you're trying to control them, you can't help them," he says. (Other Spears companions, including Sam Lutfi and Alli Sims, seem to be in her life more sporadically of late, and her recent relationship with photographer Adnan Ghalib, 35, "is her rebellious thing," says a source. "She lets him in because she thinks it pisses people off.")

And so, the young mother who, when asked by PEOPLE in '06 what kept her grounded, replied, "family, family, family," is now cut off from nearly everyone whom she once held close – including, most devastatingly, her own children. They're too young to understand what is going on, but old enough to long for their mother. "It is very, very sad," says a family friend. "If she doesn't get help," adds Doreen Seal, the mother of Jason Alexander, the childhood pal briefly married to Britney in '04, "I don't think anybody wants to see the way this will end."

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