Gabrielle Union spoke about how the pandemic triggered her post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), saying it made her feel “exposed” to her husband Dwyane Wade.
The 48-year-old actress spoke about the survival of a rape and her struggles with PTSD during a heartfelt conversation with Taraji P. Henson and co-presenter Tracie Jade on the first episode of Facebook’s Peace Watch of Taraji Watch.
For whatever reason, every time I talk about surviving a rape, people are [gasp] and then they forget, “Union said.” We are so conditioned that we know what someone who has had PTSD looks like, we think we know what the victims of rape are like. And it’s not me.
Scroll down to see the video
Candidate: Gabrielle Union, 48, has opened up about how the pandemic has triggered her post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Candid: spoke about the survival of a rape and her PTSD during a conversation with Taraji P. Henson and Tracie Jade on the first episode of Facebook Watch’s Peace Watch of Taraji
Union was 19 when she was raped at gunpoint while working at a Payless store the summer before her sophomore year at UCLA. He wrote about the traumatic experience in his 2017 book We Going to Need More Wine.
“During my rape, I floated on my body, I planned on my body and it wasn’t until the boy asked me to hand him the gun that I returned myself, [I] he tried to kill him, “he told Henson.
Star Bring It On said he began therapy less than a week after the attack and has been doing so ever since.
‘Being able to have the language, to know what was happening to me, to define the terror that exists to this day in my body, in my spirit, in my soul, to be able to say,‘ Oh, this is post-traumatic stress syndrome , “I need it,” he said.
Union detailed how he feels when he suffers a PTSD attack.
Trauma: The actress was 19 when she was raped at gunpoint while working in a Payless store. The image appeared in Union in 1993, about a year after his attack
Getting help: Star Bring It On said therapy began less than a week after the attack and has been going on ever since
“Normally, my right arm starts to feel sleepy and I feel like a whole-body heart attack, just like you would imagine a heart attack, but on my knees, legs, arms, chest, eyeballs,” he said. “Trauma can take so many forms.”
Union admitted the stress of the pandemic and racial unrest ended up negatively affecting his mental health, which he did not anticipate when he began his quarantine.
“I thought quarantine was in my alley: I love silence, I love falling home,” he said. “But add that our former president was so rooted in racism and white supremacy, hatred and evil, that he has inspired so much, that we have been in the midst of an onslaught, a daily reservoir of the brutalization of black bodies. and browns, which we are only welcoming every day, all day. ‘
Union said Wade, 38, was conscious [her PTSD], as they do, ‘but the quarantine has demanded that he be even more vulnerable to him.
“I think it’s been difficult during the forties because we’re in the same space,” he explained. “I haven’t been home in any consistent way since I was an adult, so just knowing my husband, who seems crazy, would tell me,‘ Oh, every day, every day you’ll be here, well ahh yeah, I guess that’s sa “.
Difficult to handle: Union said her husband Dwayne Wade was aware of her PTSD, but the quarantine made her feel “exposed” because she could hear her talking to her therapist via Zoom
Open: Union admitted she cared to scare her husband “because battered women aren’t supposed to be adorable.” He is portrayed with his 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 went transgender. He is also the guardian of his nephew Dahveon Morris
“I feel a little more naked, exposed,” she continued. “Because I’m just in Zoom with the therapist and I can hear the house, and then the doors open and … there’s not enough space, you know what I mean and that sometimes worries me.
“You know when people say,‘ You have to keep the mystery to yourself. Don’t tell him everything. ”I say to myself,“ Well, then, the pandemic, you have it all.
“So you have to know, ‘Do you love me for everything … your luggage?’ “, She added, admitting,” You’re worried that you may have revealed too much and scare them away because damaged women aren’t supposed to be adorable.
Union and Wade were married in August 2014 after five years together. In 2018 they welcomed their first child, Kaavia James, by surrogacy.
Wade has three children from previous relationships: Zaire Blessing Dwyane, 18, Xavier Zechariah, 7, and Zaya, 13, who recently came out as a transgender. He is also the guardian of his nephew Dahveon Morris, 19.