Angelina's Dark History: We Reveal How Jolie's Past Is Marred by Mental Health Battles, Drug Abuse, Weapons Obsession... and THAT Chilling Murder-for-Hire Plot

Last September, Angelina Jolie confessed she was at a crossroads in her life as she struggled to rediscover herself.

The movie star, who turns 50 next year, told Vogue: "I’m still understanding who I am. I guess I’m in transition as a person."

She added she didn't feel like she's been herself "for a decade, in a way", appearing to reference the toll her tumultuous divorce and legal battles with third husband Brad Pitt had taken on her since their 2016 split.

"I’m hoping to change many aspects of my life."

As Jolie forges a path forward, it's important to understand where she came from.

The Academy Award winner has admitted: "I was not a very stable youth."

From drug use and a mental breakdown to suicidal ideations that led her to plan her own demise in a murder-for-hire plot, she’s been on a troubling and twisted journey.

Jolie added: "I went through heavier, darker times and I survived them. I didn’t die young, so I’m very lucky. I did the most dangerous and I did the worst. For many reasons, I shouldn't be here."

Jolie also has a history of substance abuse. She once confessed she's done "just about every drug possible" in her lifetime.

In a disturbing 1999 video that surfaced a decade ago, convicted drug dealer Franklin Meyer claimed he taped the strung-out star when he was delivering $100 heroin and cocaine packets to her NYC apartment three times a week.

An insider said Jolie eventually cleaned up her act, revealing: "She didn’t want to die a drug-addled death."

In the midst of their two-year marriage, Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton wore each other’s blood in vials around their necks in 2001. She’s called it "a sweet gesture".

Jolie's teens and 20s were "dark and dangerous times," according to a source.

Her parents, Oscar winner Jon Voight, 85, and late actress and artist Marcheline Bertrand, separated when Jolie and brother James Haven, 51, were toddlers. Bertrand, who died at 56 in 2007 after a lengthy battle with ovarian and breast cancer, was permissive and tolerant.

A source stated: "She let her daughter be what she wanted to be and do what she wanted to do. They were more like friends than the traditional mother-daughter."

Not long before her 2000 wedding to second husband Thornton, 69 (she separated from her first husband, Hackers costar Jonny Lee Miller, 51, in 1997 after less than two years of marriage), Jolie told late interview show host Larry King she’d suffered from depression. One terrifying incident involved her "going crazy" when she couldn’t locate Thornton.

She said she was told "you’re having a nervous breakdown", and was admitted to the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute where she was placed on a three-day hold.

The Girl, Interrupted Oscar winner also confessed her plans to die by suicide – or at the hands of another person. In 2001, she told Rolling Stone she’d wanted to use a knife and sleeping pills to end her life, but began to question whether she could pull it off.

Jolie explained: "This is going to sound so insane, but there was a time when I realized I was going to have to hire somebody to kill me ... With suicide comes the guilt of all the people around you thinking that they could have done something."

She reportedly met with a man she was told could do the job, who asked her to take some time to think over what she was doing.

The actress clarified: "And [after] a month, other things changed in my life and I was surviving again."

For Jolie, everything shifted when she welcomed her kids – Maddox, 23, Pax, 20, Zahara, 19, Shiloh, 18, and twins Knox and Vivienne, 16.

She told Vogue: "I was 26 when I became a mother. My entire life changed. Having children saved me — and taught me to be in this world differently."

Said the source: "She would do anything for those kids, to keep them safe."

That’s been difficult in recent days. On July 29, Pax was hospitalized after crashing his electric bike into a car in L.A. — witnesses told a news outlet they feared he was dead.

An insider said: "It left Angelina badly shaken. She stayed by his side at the hospital. She knows he could have been killed."

Nearly eight years after their split, she and Pitt, 60, are still battling in court over ownership rights to their French estate and winery, Château Miraval, as well as custody of their minor children.

While the older kids have largely sided with their mother, who alleged Brad was abusive to her in the past – which he’s long denied – he's still "holding out hope" he can repair their relationship, according to a source.

But some friends are concerned it's too much for Jolie.

An insider told an outlet: "This fight has turned completely toxic, and the strain is wearing her thin – she still has a lot of anger. The feeling is her resilience would have been awe-inspiring if it wasn’t so self-destructive."

Jolie also recently took a hit from her estranged father.

In July, the conservative – who reconciled with Angelina in the 2010s after being estranged from her for years – criticized his liberal daughter’s political views on the Israel-Hamas war, making things "challenging, to say the least", said the source.

"They have never seen eye to eye when it comes to global politics. Now he’s very publicly criticizing her stance on Palestine. For Angelina, it’s impossible to have a good relationship with him."