Amanda Bynes' hospitalization for a mental health evaluation was the culmination in close to a decade of bizarre behavior which began with delusions that she was being spied on via smoke alarms and clocks at her home as a teenager, Breaking Celebrity News has exclusively learned.

"When she was a teenager, Amanda would cover electronic items inside her home because she thought that was the only way she wouldn’t be spied on," a source with knowledge of the situation said.

In recent years, the 27-year-old began talking to herself in a “non-sensical” language and was hearing voices, the insider added.

Said the source: "When she was living at her apartment near New York's Times Square, neighbors spotted her wondering the halls and talking to herself in unintelligible sentences."

Bynes was forcibly taken into custody after a witness said he spotted flames on her pant legs from a small gasoline fire in the driveway of a Thousand Oaks, Calif., home.