Amanda Bynes: Our Tween Comedy Queen Is Back

The truth is that we never really noticed when Amanda Bynes “left” us. Growing up in the 90s, technology has had a dramatic impact on media and the way we view celebrities. The 90s were that odd time when celebrities could still have a personal life away from the public eye but that was changing. When videos surfaced of Amanda Bynes behaving erratically, people talked. We judged. We attributed it to another child actor gone wild. But in doing so, we partook in the toxicity of substance abuse in the worse way possible. We allowed ourselves to enjoy Amanda Bynes as a comedian, watched her completely lose it in the public eye and once that form of entertainment got old, we trashed her.

Paper Magazine‘s in depth interview of Amanda Bynes provides us with an inside look at a girl who was lost in substance abuse. She explains:

“I’m really ashamed and embarrassed with the things I said. I can’t turn back time but if I could, I would. And I’m so sorry to whoever I hurt and whoever I lied about because it truly eats away at me. It makes me feel so horrible and sick to my stomach and sad. Everything I worked my whole life to achieve, I kind of ruined it all through Twitter. It’s definitely not Twitter’s fault — it’s my own fault.”

This puts the concept of fame in its true light. While many of us are embarrassed when Facebook reminds us of something we posted years ago, imagine having had posted a few things while heavily under the influence and having it exposed to thousands upon thousands of people.

While the drugs she mentions abusing were weed, Adderall and alcohol, she offers advice about it from her own personal experience:

“My advice to anyone who is struggling with substance abuse would be to be really careful because drugs can really take a hold of your life. Everybody is different, obviously, but for me, the mixture of marijuana and whatever other drugs and sometimes drinking really messed up my brain. It really made me a completely different person. I actually am a nice person. I would never feel, say or do any of the things that I did and said to the people I hurt on Twitter.

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. Be really, really careful because you could lose it all and ruin your entire life like I did.”

While we’re glad to have her levelheaded, it’s really sad to read that she believes she ruined her entire life. Fame is not normal human interaction with the world. It’s its own lonely community so whatever she had to go through, most of us would never really understand it. She’s still young and has her entire life ahead of her. These mistakes of the past are really just a bump in the road of our lives.