Where Are They Now: Amanda Bynes After Her 5150 Hold

Before her 5150 involuntary hospital hold, Amanda Bynes was an enigma on the loose. No one could seem to figure her out, though it was unmistakably clear that she was suffering from some sort of mental disorder. In the hours leading up to her 5150 hold, Amanda had apparently started a fire in a stranger’s driveway in Thousand Oaks, California. She was also seen running to the bathroom in a gas station, where she attempted to wash off her gasoline-soaked dog:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CVvIxN-tss&w=584&h=390]

I know for a fact that Bynes Instagrammed one photo of herself with Lindsay Lohan and another of Tila Tequila in the past week. It’s just that the damn girl deleted these photos and there’s no trace of them on the internet. But, barring the lack of evidence, let’s start here.

So, she still has a penchant for Ms. Tequila, hmmm? The doctors over there at UCLA Medical Center seem to really be getting to the root of her problems. But let’s backtrack a little; we don’t know why this sudden and strange fondness came about. More likely than not, it’s not unrelated to the altered state of mind Bynes was in pre-hospitalization, wherein she thought that cheek piercings was a good idea. Because pre-hospital, Bynes and Tequila seemed to share many interests. However, in the spirit of Friday, let’s give Bynes the benefit of the doubt and assume that, pre-hospitalization, her house was broken into by Ms. Tequila’s pimp, who offered Bynes a pretty penny if she would promote Tequila in exchange. Yeah, that’s totally how it went.

Now, with regards to the Lindsay post, I’m not so sure what she’s trying to get at with that one. Perhaps she feels it’s time they rekindle their friendship, seeing as both are now straddling that fine line between child star and fugitive.

Then there’s this, which she posted two days ago and subsequently deleted:

From this we can tell that a) she likes the holidays, and b) she’s aware of the phrase “keep calm” and what it means in this context. Ipso facto, one can only surmise that she’s at least a tad more self-aware than she was pre-hospitalization. Baby steps, Amanda. Baby steps.

She also posted this gem:

Which leads one to believe that she’s really not all that different from us regular peasants out here in the world. She’s just a girl in the world too, who likes to throw back every once in awhile. And really, can you blame her? More importantly, however, she chose to post this photo in particular, which obviously means she considers this to be one of the few “acceptable photographs” of herself, WHICH MEANS she remembers looking like a little, innocent, pretty girl and looks back on this girl fondly. Again, baby steps.

This, too, is cause for some hope:

While she’s notably more celebified in this photograph, she’s also commenting on rehabilitation and, by extension, what she’s going through momentarily. This is the ultimate meta projection Instagram post, and reveals that she doesn’t regard rehab as cool and thus presumably does not consider her recent erratic behavior as cool either. Phew! (Going out on a limb here, but maybe this Instagram is commenting on the one of her and Lindsay Lohan, perhaps conveying: Lindsay doesn’t think this is cool either. Just a thought.)

But then she posted this, only a day ago:

And it’s as if all of her and the doctors’ efforts are in vain. Good news is she has eyebrows–and real eyebrows too. Which can only mean that her hair under that wig is likely growing back. Bad news is she’s still not budging with this whole crazy homeless woman look.

Finally, this:

Up until yesterday I was in a complete and utter funk. Every day–nay, every hour!–I would go on twitter, type in Amanda’s handle, and every day, since July 19th, I was greeted by a cacophony of cricket chirps. I was starting to think she was never coming back, that all that would remain in place of her chosen uglys and laments over her nose crease would be an expansive, black void. But then she tweeted this, and we’re back to square one. Amanda, glad to have you back.