The former child star checked into a mental health facility earlier this year for a stress-related relapse.
Amanda Bynes is reportedly living in a sober group facility after an alleged relapse.
According to The Blast, the actress was advised to check into the group home by both her family and doctors, claiming they felt it was “the best place” for her to be.
Sources tell The Blast that there have been several signs pointing to a shift in Bynes’ mental space, such as increased Instagram activity and dying her hair bright pink.
Conservatorship Hearing
The actress recently made an appearance in Ventura County Court in relation to her conservatorship case. The conservatorship has been in place since 2014, when Bynes nearly lit her dog on fire.
Entering treatment for her mental health is not new for Bynes, who has been in and out of such facilities since 2012. She has also been sober for varying amounts of time—at one point for four years.
In April 2019, Bynes’ attorney Tamar Arminak announced that Bynes had chosen to return to treatment on her own.
“I will tell you she’s doing remarkably well, under the circumstances,” he said at the time. “This time around, she realized herself, after the PAPER magazine interview spread, that she really wasn’t feeling like herself all of [a] sudden. She wanted to address it right away before going back into show business and exploring show business again. And it was her decision and her choice to address the situation, seek treatment, which I think is an incredibly mature way of handling this type of thing.”
Graduating From FIDM
A few months later, Bynes was allowed to leave treatment in order to walk at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising’s graduation ceremony, where she received her bachelor’s degree. She then returned to the treatment facility.
Bynes has been open about her struggles in the past. In November 2018, Bynes spoke to PAPER magazine about her history with substance use disorder. She said she first tried marijuana when she was 16, then delved into harder drugs.
“Later on it progressed to doing molly and ecstasy,” she said at the time. “[I tried] cocaine three times but I never got high from cocaine. I never liked it. It was never my drug of choice.”
Bynes said she also abused Adderall, noting she “got really into my drug usage and it became a really dark, sad world for me.”
She added that she’s grateful her drug use never went further and warned others against going down a similar path.
“There are gateway drugs and thankfully I never did heroin or meth or anything like that but certain things that you think are harmless, they may actually affect you in a more harmful way,” Bynes told the magazine. “Be really, really careful because you could lose it all and ruin your entire life like I did.”
