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Gabrielle Union: ‘The Pandemic and This Racial Reckoning Has Sent My PTSD Into Overdrive’

Photo credit: Djeneba Aduayom
Photo credit: Djeneba Aduayom

From Women's Health

  • Actress, entrepreneur and activist Gabrielle Union is Women's Health's November cover star

  • In a candid interview, Union shares how she manages her mental health and PTSD for the Strong Mind issue

  • Union says 'the combination of a pandemic and this racial reckoning' has sent her PTSD into 'overdrive'


*Trigger warning: rape*

Gabrielle Union has a multi-faceted career that encompasses acting, activism and writing, as well as several new entrepreneurial projects (including a re-launch of her affordable haircare line, Flawless). Now, Union can add a second Women's Health cover to that list as she is fronts our annual Strong Mind issue.

Speaking candidly in her cover interview about the affect that the past year has had on her mental health, Union said: 'The combination of a pandemic and this racial reckoning, alongside being inundated with [images of] the brutalisation of Black bodies, has sent my PTSD into overdrive. There’s just terror in my body.'

If you need to speak to someone about rape, you can call the Rape Crisis national freephone helpline on 0808 802 9999 (12-2.30pm and 7-9.30pm every day of the year)

Union first sought therapy aged 19 after she was raped at gunpoint in the shop where she worked. As well as therapy, Union has developed her her own coping mechanisms to help manage her PTSD.

‘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,' she says.

‘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,' she says. 'It’s been this way since ’92. It’s just something I do; second nature.’


Read the full interview with Gabrielle Union in the November 2020 issue of Women’s Health on sale from the 30th September 2020. Pick up an issue OR why not get Women's Health delivered directly to your door? SUBSCRIBE NOW

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