I’ve never felt so bad about my borderline personality disorder diagnosis as I did during the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard defamation trial in 2022. Depp’s legal team used Heard’s alleged BPD diagnosis to position her as an abuser, leading to an internet response rife with misinformation and stigmatizing assessments of a disorder that rarely finds itself in the limelight. It might be tempting to see that time as a blip, but borderline personality disorder diagnoses tend to provoke more negative prejudice than mental illness in general, according to a 2023 study in the International Journal of Social Psychiatry.

Borderline personality disorder is characterized by a pattern of instability in relationships, poor self-image, intense emotions and impulsive behaviour, which cause significant suffering or functional impairments.

Society is getting better at stripping away the stigma of mental illness — particularly around diagnoses like anxiety and depression.

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