Source: Djeneba Aduayom / Djeneba Aduayom
Gabrielle Union‘s PTSD has been in overdrive since the onset of the pandemic. She’s not alone. The gorgeous actress appears on the October cover of Women’s Health magazine where she opened up about having to break out her “emotional fix-me toolkit” to get her through the current times.
“The combination of the pandemic and this racial reckoning, alongside being inundated with [images of] the brutalization of Black bodies, has sent my PTSD into overdrive. There’s just terror in my body,” she admitted int he candid interview that also touches on.
Shot by Djeneba Aduayom, the cover features Union wearing a yellow two-piece swimsuit by Chromat with her natural curls blowing in the wind.
“I break out my emotional fix-me toolkit, and I try to run through all the situations. I call it my ‘what’s the likelihood of X happening?’ method…If I’m fearful about going into a store because I’m anxious about being robbed, I’ll make myself feel better by going to one where there will be witnesses to cut down those chances. It’s been this way since ’92. It’s just something I do; second nature.”
Union, who recently announced the relaunch of her hair care collection, opened up years ago about being raped and how it has greatly contributed to her anxiety. Union often talks about the trauma in an effort to raise awareness about racial discrepancies when it comes to victim shaming, etc.
“I am grateful I was raped in an affluent neighborhood with an underworked police department. And an underutilized rape crisis center,” she writes. “The fact that one can be grateful for such things is goddamn ridiculous…I know this now because I have spent time lobbying Congress and state legislatures about the treatment of rape victims. I’ve seen the worst-case scenarios, and they are devastating. Now, I can appreciate the care with which I was handled. Now, I know it rarely happens that way. And it really rarely happens that way for Black women.”
Read the full interview, here.
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Gabrielle Union Says The Pandemic And ‘Racial Reckoning’ Triggered Her PTSD was originally published on hellobeautiful.com
