Not a fan.  Never will be.  And I confess to taking my fair share of pot shots at her.

But this is just plain sad:

Britney Spears went “completely psycho” as she was rushed to L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai Thursday, a source tells Usmagazine.com.

“They had to strap her down like a mental patient and she was going between laughing and hysterics,” the source adds, calling it “a total psychotic breakdown. She just went crazy."

(LAPD Jason Lee told City News Service that Spears appeared to be under the influence of an unknown substance at the time.)

Another Spears pal tells Us: "I guess she has good days and bad days – it’s mental instability. All she has is to think of something sad and she goes crazy.”

After she defied court-mandated visitation hours Thursday night by refusing to turn over her two sons to ex-husband Kevin Federline, police were called to her home and later a reportedly intoxicated Spears was rushed via ambulance to L.A.’s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. (See video here.)

A hospital source tells Usmagazine.com that Spears has been designated a "special needs" patient, meaning "they have either overdosed or tried to commit suicide. So we go stay with these patients and monitor them constantly. We watch them so they don’t hurt themselves and watch the people who come visit them to make sure they don’t pass anything to them."