Gabrielle Union has opened up about how the pandemic caused her post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), saying it made her feel “ exposed ” in front of her husband Dwyane Wade.
The 48-year-old actress talked about her rape survivor and her struggles with PTSD during a candid conversation with Taraji P. Henson and co-host Tracie Jade on Facebook Watch’s first episode of Peace of Mind with Taraji.
For whatever reason, whenever I talk about a rape survivor, people are like that [gasp] and then they forget, ”Union said. ‘We have been so conditioned to know what someone who has suffered from PTSD looks like, we think we know what rape victims look like. And I am not. ‘
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Candid: Gabrielle Union, 48, has opened up about how the pandemic caused her post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Candid: She spoke of a rape survivor and her PTSD during a conversation with Taraji P. Henson and Tracie Jade on the first episode of Peace of Mind with Facebook Watch’s Taraji
Union was 19 years old when she was raped at gunpoint while working in a Payless store in the summer for her sophomore year at UCLA. She wrote about the traumatic experience in her 2017 book We’re Gonna Need More Wine.
‘During my rape I floated over my body, I floated over my body and it wasn’t until the guy asked me to give him the gun that I came back to myself, [I] tried to kill him, ”she told Henson.
The Bring It On star said she started therapy less than a week after the attack and has persisted ever since.
Being able to have the language, knowing what happened to me, defining the terror that exists in my body, in my mind, in my soul to this day, to be able to say, ‘Oh, that’s post-traumatic stress syndrome “I need it,” she said.
Union went on to detail what it feels like when she has a PTSD attack.
Trauma: The actress was 19 years old when she was raped at gunpoint while working in a Payless store. Union is depicted in 1993, about a year after her attack
Getting Help: The Bring It On star said she started therapy less than a week after the attack and has kept going ever since
‘Usually my right arm starts to go numb, and it just feels like a heart attack all over the body, the way you would imagine a heart attack, but in your knees, in your legs, in your arms, in your chest, in your eyeballs, ‘she said. “Trauma can take so many forms.”
Union recognized the stress of the pandemic and the racial unrest ultimately negatively impacted her mental health, which she had not expected when she first went into quarantine.
“I thought quarantine was for me – I like silence, I like crouching at home,” she said. But you add that our former president was so rooted in racism and white supremacy and hatred and evil that he inspired so much of it that we were in the midst of an attack, a daily barrage of black and white brutality. brown bodies, which we just absorb every day, all day long. ‘
Union said Wade, 38, “was aware [her PTSD], as a fan, ‘but quarantine requires her to be even more vulnerable to him.
“I think it was difficult during the quarantine because we are in the same room,” she explained. ‘I haven’t been home consistently in any way since I grew up so I got to know my husband, which sounds crazy, I thought,’ Oh every day, every day you’ll be here, okay ahh yes I think this is healthy is. ”
Difficult to handle: Union said her husband Dwayne Wade was aware of her PTSD, but quarantine made her feel ‘exposed’ because he could hear her talking to her therapist through Zoom
Open: Union admitted to worrying about chasing her husband “ because damaged women shouldn’t be nice. ” They are pictured with their two-year-old daughter Kaavia James
Family: Union is the stepmother of Wade’s children Xavier Zechariah, 7, and Zaire, 18, and Zaya, 13, who recently came out as transgender. He is also the legal guardian of his cousin Dahveon Morris
“I just feel a little bit more naked, naked,” she continued. ‘Cause I’m just sitting on Zoom with the therapist and I can hear the housekeeping, and then the doors open and … there’s not enough room, you know what I mean, and that worries me sometimes.
‘You know when people say,’ You have to keep the mystery about yourself. Don’t tell him everything. I’m like, ‘Well, s ** t then, the pandemic, you’ve got the whole thing.
So you have to find out, ‘Do you love me for all … the luggage? ” She added, admitting, ‘You worry that you may have revealed too much and you are going to drive them away because damaged women are not supposed to be nice. ‘
Union and Wade were married in August 2014 after five years together. They welcomed their first child together – Kaavia James – through surrogacy in 2018.
Wade has three children from previous relationships: Zaire Blessing Dwyane, 18, Xavier Zechariah, 7, and Zaya, 13, who recently came out as transgender. He is also the guardian of his 19-year-old nephew Dahveon Morris.