The outspoken actress says quarantining has been triggering to her struggles as a rape survivor.
Gabrielle Union has been opening up about her PTSD and trauma ever since she survived a rape at the age of 19. The 48-year-old actress was the first guest on Taraji P. Henson's new mental health Facebook Watch series, Peace of Mind With Taraji, where she discussed how quarantining amid the coronavirus pandemic has affected her mental health.
"I thought quarantining was right up my alley," she admitted. "I love silence. I love hunkering down at home, but you add in our former president [Donald Trump] was so rooted in racism and white supremacy and hatred and evil that he inspired so much of it, we have been in the midst of an onslaught, a daily barrage of the brutalization of Black and brown bodies that we're just taking in every day, all day."
Union, who has opened up about being raped at gunpoint by a stranger at a Payless store where she worked during college, went on to describe what a PTSD episode feels like to her, saying, "Usually my right arm starts to feel like it's going numb and it just feels like a full-body heart attack, the way you'd imagine a heart attack but in your knees, in your legs, in your arms, in your chest, in your eyeballs."
Union also opened up about the new challenges she's faced with her husband of six years, Dwyane Wade, while quarantining.
"It has been hard during the quarantine because we are in the same space," she explained. "I have not been home in any kind of consistent way since I have been an adult. So just getting to know my husband, which sounds crazy. I was like, 'Oh, every day, every day you're going to be here? I guess this is healthy.' I just feel a little more naked, exposed, because I'm just on Zoom with the therapist."
The Being Mary Jane star noted that having her struggles out in the open has made her self conscious in her marriage.
"You've got to find out, do you love me for all of the baggage? It's like a Tumi store. There's so much baggage," she said. "You get worried that maybe you have revealed too much and you're going to scare them away because damaged women aren't supposed to be lovable."
Host Henson recently opened up to ET about her goals for her new Facebook Watch series and how she hopes to reach people of color amid their mental health struggles.
"It's a peace of mind. It's educational, it's an opportunity for us show you, actually, what it looks like inside of a therapist's room," Henson told ET. "[We hear], 'Boy, get over it. Man up! Tough it out, strong Black woman.' These things have been passed down, so to even talk about mental health, how do you do that when you've never talked about it? When it's been taboo?"
Peace of Mind with Taraji premieres on Monday, December 14 on Facebook Watch, with new episodes dropping weekly, every Monday and Wednesday at 9amPT/12pmET.
Episodes can be found on facebook.com/Watch and Taraji P. Henson’s Facebook page: facebook.com/tarajiphenson.
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