Natalia Naman Temesgen: Listen to the call for help

Amanda Bynes has made pop headlines for very different reasons over the course of her nearly three decades of life. She was a child actress on Nickelodeon, starring in her own sketch comedy show, "The Amanda Show," at age 13. Over the past few years, Bynes has grown infamous for DUIs, erratic public behavior, psych holds and a rambling, confrontational Twitter feed.

Very recently, Bynes again began exhibiting off-color public behavior. She was talking to herself and inanimate objects, shoplifting, assaulting fellow partygoers, and claiming a sudden engagement with a 19-year-old bait shop employee who says they never even dated. Through all of this she kept a very active Twitter account, where she tweeted that a microchip in her brain caused her to say untrue things.

In a world where we can be nearly anonymously cruel, it should come as no surprise that reactions to Amanda's behavior ranged from cyber-rubbernecking to insensitive mocking to off-hand recommendations that she end her own life. The same happened when pop star Britney Spears suffered a highly photographed mental breakdown in late 2007. Following this display, Spears was placed under a 5150 involuntary psychiatric hold, "which authorizes a qualified officer or clinician to involuntarily confine a person suspected to have a mental disorder that makes him or her a danger to themselves, a danger to others, and/or gravely disabled."

Bynes was placed under the same hold a few days ago, apparently thinking she was on her way to meet a lawyer about getting a restraining order on her parents, when in fact she was en route to a mental health facility.

Now that Bynes is out of the public eye, much of the pointing and laughing has subsided. But too few people (and media outlets, for that matter) are checking themselves on their cruelty and hypocrisy after mocking a clearly ill person.

Recently, every social media site and entertainment network mourned the suicide of beloved actor Robin Williams. The public was inconsolable. The same questions were asked: Why aren't we more aware of the signs of depression? Why is there such a stigma around mental illness? Why didn't he reach out for help?

Two months later, Amanda Bynes is clearly in need of help and for all we know has been reaching out in a very public way. Yet the overwhelming reaction is amusement, apathy or disgust. My sister, husband and I all have friends who suffer with mental illness. We've seen them ridiculed and alienated within their own communities. In the case of a celebrity, this happens on a much grander scale. None of it is kind and it needs to stop.

Bynes' behavior may not trigger sympathy like the sight of a young woman bald from chemotherapy, but illness is illness; it deserves a generous measure of care and sensitivity. If we mourn those who succumb to mental illness, let's support those who are in the midst of the struggle. Or at the very least, don't kick them when they're down.

-- Natalia Naman Temesgen is an independent correspondent. Contact her at nataliadian1@gmail.com or on Twitter @cafeaulazy.

This story was originally published October 18, 2014 at 10:02 PM with the headline "Natalia Naman Temesgen: Listen to the call for help."