Borderline Personality Disorder,  Celebrities,  Emotions

Megan Fox and Borderline Personality Disorder Reexamined

Megan Fox and BPD
Megan Fox and BPD

A little while ago, I wrote a piece on Megan Fox and her statements in an interview that she was considering the possibility that she had a “borderline” personality. I got several reactions that she probably didn’t know what she was talking about or that she was merely emulating/reflecting her “heroine” – Marilyn Monroe. (Fox has a tattoo of Marilyn Monroe on the right forearm).

I read the interview with Fox in “Rolling Stone” this month and found that, if she was being honest in the interview, there is a distinct possibility that she does have BPD. Here are some of the salient points…

In “When Hope is Not Enough,” I point to three features of BPD that I think are common to all people with the disorder. They are: emotional dysregulation, shame and impulsivity. So, let’s start there:

Emotional Dysregulation

Fox: “…But it doesn’t mean I don’t struggle. I am very vulnerable. But I can be aggressive, hurtful, domineering and selfish, too. I’m emotionally unpredictable and all over the place. I’m a control freak. My temper is ridiculously bad. I’ve destroyed my house.”

As a child she had, “panic attacks that manifested themselves as violent, rageful temper tantrums. Like I didn’t know how to control myself or what to do.”

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Shame

Fox: “I’m really insecure about everything. Like what those reporters said about the movie, all I could think was, ‘They’re mocking me… I have a sick feeling of being mocked all the time. I have a lot of self-loathing.”

Impulsivity

Fox: “I go batshit. I’ve had to say to Brian (her boyfriend), ‘You have to go and stop talking to me, because I’m going to kill you. I’m going to stab you with something. Please leave.’ I’d never own a gun for that reason. I wouldn’t shoot to kill. But I’d shoot him in the leg, for sure.”

More evidence…

As a child, she started seeing a therapist because of her real “emotional problems,” but it didn’t seem to help.

She is sensitive about the environment. She can’t sleep with someone touching her. She requires a “cocoon” of pillows to make her feel safe. She can’t sleep in the quiet and dark. She doesn’t like to look in the mirror. She admits to drawing blood during sex, but doesn’t elaborate. She admits to self-injury, but doesn’t elaborate. She hints at an eating disorder, but doesn’t elaborate. She is a “bi-sexual.”

And more. If half of the things in the interview are honest and true, I think Megan Fox may have leaped over my other “celebs with possible BPD (but not for sure)” list.

12 Comments

  • untreatable

    Sure she may have Borderline tendencies but so do 90% of people on the planet. As a member of the BPD community I hope she does not have the disorder as dealing with the stigma right now is bad enough so if you add a celebrity who likes to see her name in print as the spokesperson all of the gains made in the last few years will be thrown out the window. It is impossible to diagnose someone with any mental disorder without knowing their complete life history and not what an attention seeking bimbo says in a magazine.

  • Marie

    “untreatable,” she doesn’t sound like she’s attention seeking to me. If she had planned all those things she said then she’d have to have studied BPD in depth for quite a while to know formulate those kind of statements which have undertones of BPD. I have been diagnosed with BPD and let me tell you, you go straight to questions like the above about emotions and tendencies and behaviors, and spend LITTLE time on your history. I’ve been reading those interviews with Megan Fox for a while now and I’d bet a fair amount that she’s a Borderline.

  • lucy

    I think some celebrities look for excuses to act a certain way, which is damaging and insulting to people who have the illness and find it so disabling.

  • Vaultboy82

    Meagan Fox is NOT a BPD in my humble opinion but close!

    She’s a classic example of the Histrionic Personality Disorder which falls in the Cluster B Personality Disorder spectrum of which BPD is a part.

    Women with HPD typically get misbranded a BPD because BPD is the more well known of the two conditions but HPD’s difference is that they tend to be non violent (when female) don’t self injure (as they lean more towards a narcissistic image centric focus as people) and the main aspect of their personalities is being dramatic and the center of attention. They tend not to rage at lover’s unexpectadly like BPD’s rather their anger is turned inwards at themselves if I remember the research correctly.

    And they don’t really make their lover’s walk on eggshells fearful of saying this or that like the BPD’s do rather the main way HPD’s victimize people is the old push pull game of the NPD’s…they “love bomb” their targets with incessant praise and make you really feel like a god in their eyes and then when you return the love that they claim they’ve wanted their entire life it flips a switch in their minds that tells them that they both don’t deserve that love and they proceed to lose all feeling for you.

    Then you are painted black and you chase them trying to figure out what happened and get your source of (narcissitic) love back.

    The dramas they act out with their lovers is similar to how they and BPD’s were both somehow abandoned in childhood by a parental figure not expressing the appropriate empathy from which they could learn it and to become normal human beings.

  • emmaaaaaaa

    vaultboy82…very interesting indeed, id be curious to know if you have some type of disorder or are a carer/professional, or maybe just an interested person. i like how you explain things and your views seem slightly but critically different from most in a good way. you make a lot of sense without trying to sound clever 😉 thank you

  • Lacey

    Y’all need to shut up! She hads the same symptoms as me and i have BPD! It’s depressing cause you feel hated and y’alls comment are NOT helpin…so quite being jerks!!!

  • Daniel

    I believe that the “actress” Megan Fox has Histrionic Personality Disorder.Her need to be the centre of attention and her lying to get herself attention has been talked about.Also there is a class of HPD called Infantile HPD that has similar characteristics to Borderline Personality Disorder.

  • Soho

    A lot of people here are saying HPD… Not quite sure why. I am a diagnosed BPD and have

    wanted numerous times to undergo plastic surgery etc. The main reason for this is because

    people with BPD have a fear of rejection – anyone with a speck of intelligence knows that

    beautiful people hardly get rejected. Still, being a perfectionist as well, it is not

    necessarily ever enough because we start to point out things to ourselves (physical and

    behavioral flaws) that we believe other people will pick up on and begin to dislike. Thus

    we run the risk of being abandoned, or judged. Another thing that people with BPD don’t

    handle well is perceived criticism. And the cycle of self-loathing and self-destruction

    goes on.

    There are plenty of solid explanations to Megan’s behavior that can easily be traced back

    to BPD. I’m with all the other DIAGNOSED BPDers here who believe there’s a fat chance in

    Hell Fox really does have BPD; after all, BPD is the result of prolonged childhood sexual,

    emotional, verbal, mental etc abuse. A pretty little thing like her never ran the risk of

    being raped or molested as a kidlet, eh? Come on guys, think with your heads here. You’re

    looking for reasons to dismiss her cause she’s gorgeous and you’re jealous, that’s about

    it.

    Another thing. People with BPD often associate themselves with a character or another

    because we have such an unstable sense of self, we have to have a pillar somewhere. Megan

    identifies with Marilyn Monroe, I identify with cannibal killer Kathrine Knight. Big whoop.

    We both have BPD, does that mean I’m going to emulate her? Well maybe, if I become

    delusional and convinced that my destiny is to stab a man 37 times, eat him and feed him to

    our children.

    Some people with BPD CAN control their impulses. We still have them, all the fucking time.

    But sometimes we don’t let them control us. Telling a guy he’s got to go BEFORE she shoots

    him, is her way of avoiding losing him. NO ONE WITH BPD WANTS TO BE ABANDONED OR REJECTED

    FOR BEING “CRAZY.” I know I’d shoot a guy in the leg. But she’s got a lot more to lose than

    I do…. hahahaha

    ramble ramble rant rant,

  • Kay

    I also identify with Marylin Monroe and I have pictures of her all over my apartment and on my car. As far as megan, I cant say for certain if she is bpd or not, but she later said she was having her Marylin tattoo removed because Marylin had “personality disorders”. She has also had a stable relationship with her husband and she has never indicated being abused. All of this indicates she may not be bpd, but who knows. I am almost as pretty as she is and I have bpd. I was abandoned by a wealthy family and then raised by a working class family who was extremely abusive. These days I am a part time escort. Its either do that or apply for paltry government assistance, if Im even lucky to get approved, so escorting it is. I guess its better to be crazy and beautiful than crazy and homely. Megan just might be one of us crazy and beautiful ones, altho Ive always thought she is too thin to be a true sexpot:)

  • Susan

    I just want to say one thing. Who are we to judge, seriously. I think everyone has his or her issues at one time or another. I think people need to shut the h— up because like the saying goes so you think your s— don’t stink. Well stop throwing mud slings because you all have yours how would you like it if someone judged you on anything you do or have done or said. Shut your traps, you don’t even know what your talking about.

  • Anastasia

    This is old, but I agree with Vaultboy82. Megan Fox has Histrionic Personality Disorder and not BPD. She is a beautiful woman, as well as being articulate and seemingly conversationally intelligent (more recently with age) but it’s shocking how so many people fall for her bulls***. She will say and become whatever she thinks will get her the most attention in the moment. There is very little, if any truth to these comments about her “bad temper”, “violent rage”, “mild schizophrenia”, “mental illness”, etc. Her interviews are all ridiculously contradictory and designed to make her appear like this troubled person who is deep, mysterious, interesting, a “serious-thinker”, and who has all this buried emotional depth (which in truth, is something she actually seriously lacks). She’s sickeningly calculated in her persona and how she comes across to others. Her “real life” persona is quite poorly acted in my opinion; very unconvincing to anyone who is even mildly intuitive, and yet other people seem to be eating this **** right up. She’s quite a “Vanilla” temperament, hence all the verbal acrobatics and histrionics to appear more interesting. All the being into aliens, UFOs, leprechauns, vikings, astrology, etc.came after she realized it wasn’t enough to be a pretty face with a big mouth, spouting off about how smart she actually is. She had to add another false weird, kooky layer to her already transparent, expertly calculated veneer to make her seem more cool and multi-dimensional. Afterall, it is the Histrionic’s worst nightmare to not be the center of attention at all times. But hey, the world would be far less entertaining without these kinds of people making it go ’round.

  • Anastasia

    I would like to add to my previous comment that Megan Fox does NOT actually “have” Histrionic Personality Disorder, rather she exhibits “some” of the classic signs of a Histrionic, without actually having the disorder. If anything, she is a very, very mild and *light* example of the Histrionic personality type. Naturally with age, she has toned down some of the valley girl theatrics. She still finds ways to draw attention to herself though and she always will. It’s part of her innate setup/wiring. A classic example of an ESTP, though she tries really hard (too hard and unconvincingly) to “appear” more like an INFJ type of person. Intelligent, deep, and complex. But, she really misses the mark….Plus, there are better, more severe examples of the Histrionic out there in the celebrity world. Courtney Love or Madonna comes to mind…

    People often forget that all personality disorders or mental illnesses exist on a spectrum. Disorders are not actually these clear cut, defined, structured, textbook cases that people in psychology like to make them out to be. People are NOT math equations. 2+2 does not always equal 4 when we are discussing someone’s psychology.

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