The premiere episode of Facebook Watch’s newest talk show, Peace of Mind with Taraji, is now available and you can view it via the player above.
In Peace of Mind with Taraji, Golden Globe Award-Winning Actress Taraji P. Henson and her best friend and co-host Tracie Jade will shine a spotlight on the challenging mental health issues facing us today – particularly of those in the Black community. Through personal interviews with both celebrities, experts and everyday people, the series will show how to provide support, bring awareness and help eliminate the stigmas of mental health issues.
- Title: PTSD with Gabrielle Union: Not Just For Combat Vets
- Description: PTSD does not just affect combat veterans. In this series premiere, actress Gabrielle Union shares how being raped at gunpoint sparked her condition and why 2020 has been so triggering. Our second guest talks about suffering from PTSD following an abusive relationship, while Taraji opens up about how PTSD has personally touched her family.
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Some highlights from the episode include:
- 3:39: Gabrielle Union on 2020
- Taraji: “You said that 2020 has been triggering to your PTSD, how are you holding up Gab?”
- Gabrielle Union: “I thought quarantining was right up my alley – I love silence, I love hunkering down at home, but you add in our former president 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 are just taking in every day, all day.”
- 4:54: Gabrielle on people’s reaction to her being a rape survivor and PTSD sufferer
- Gabrielle Union: “For whatever reason, every time I talk about being a rape survivor, people are like [gasp] and then they forget, and then I talk about it again and then they are like [gasp] and then they forget, and I’m like we are so conditioned that we know what someone looks like who has suffered from PTSD, we believe we know what rape victims look like and it is not me.”
- 6:59: Gabrielle and Taraji on PTSD triggers and the different forms it can take
- Taraji: “What happens when you get triggered?”
- Gabrielle Union: “Usually my right arm starts to feel like it is going numb, and it just feels like a full body heart attack, the way you would imagine a heart attack, but in your knees, in your legs, in your arms, in your chest, in your eyeballs. Trauma can take so many forms…”
- Taraji: “And I think people, there’s a misconception when we say PTSD, people don’t understand that it comes in different forms, it’s not just from being in the service.”
- Gabrielle Union: “Because we do associate PTSD with soldiers, we forget that we are surviving wars in our neighborhoods every day.”
- 9:30: Gabrielle Union on sharing details of her mental health struggles with her husband, NBA star Dwyane Wade
- Taraji: “I’m wondering when you first started dating Dwyane did you bring up your PTSD? How was the conversation?”
- Gabrielle Union: “… he was aware of it…but I think it has been hard during the quarantine because we are in the same space. 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, ok ahh yeah I guess this is healthy [laughs].’ I just feel a little more naked…exposed…because I am just on Zoom with the therapist and I can hear the household, and the doors open and they’re all like [Gabrielle pulls face]… there is not enough space, you know what I mean and that kind of worries me sometimes.”
- 10:55: Gabrielle Union and Taraji on having baggage and trauma in a relationship
- Gabrielle Union: “You get worried that maybe you have revealed too much and you are going to scare them away because damaged women aren’t supposed to be loveable.”
- Taraji: “Everybody is damaged, I don’t care who you are, everybody has some sort of trauma and perfection is the perfect lie.”
- 12:26: Gabrielle Union on their family’s experience with Zaya coming out
- Gabrielle Union: “As Zaya gathered more language she was able to tell us about her identity, she was able to tell us about her sexuality and she was able to tell us ‘I’m trans.’ And she says ‘I’ve come out a few times…I came out to my teacher in the 3rd grade, and when you guys posted that picture of me, in Chicago at my birthday party,’ and it’s just Zaya standing next to her cake and that picture was dissected on certain Black blogs and the comments were guessing as to who Zaya was and why…she said ‘I felt like I was outed, and I was just standing next to my cake.’ And then she spoke of coming out again when she was like ‘I’m Trans, and I’m Demisexual, and I’m not bound by gender in terms of attraction.’”
- 14:11: Taraji on her brother coming out to her and mental health and sexuality in the Black community and online
- Taraji: “When I was growing up my little brother came out to me because he felt safe, and I just remember feeling so honored because what if we weren’t [ok with it], life could have been very different for him. I really have a problem with this idea of ‘coming out,’ that bothers me, because that creates trauma, unnecessary anxiety, it creates PTSD. I don’t have to come out and say I am heterosexual, why is it that they have to make this big presentation about something so personal, to them… that bothers me!”
“Having said that, in our community, it is very difficult because on top of the stigmas around mental health, then you have the stigmas around sexuality. Now we are dealing with social media, we have people who are very much in the spotlight, and now this baby, is charged with all of this negativity and I just want to commend you on how you guys handled it, and Dwyane Wade brother I love you because what you did and ahhh, because we need that because our children are dying from suicide and these are things that they are dealing with and so, I’m getting emotional because this is very real for me, just thank you because that imagery was very needed, so needed and you guys speaking up [to Gabrielle about her and Dwyane] just thank you.”
- 16:43: In the second interview of the episode, Taraji and Tracie speak with Bri, about her experiences with PTSD after enduring an abusive relationship
- Tracie: “When you realized that you were having symptoms of PTSD, what were some of those symptoms?”
- Bri: “One, the nightmares. I would wake up in the middle of the night, scared, out of breath. My behavior set changed completely. I was a straight-A student growing up, I was in the community, I mentor young girls and I was flunking out of all of my classes. I couldn’t show up for myself, I was not performing at work, I failed out of school. Those and then as well as, I am an only child – I have been alone all my life, I love my peace, I love my space, but this was the only time I felt like I needed to be around people, those were my first signs and triggers for me.”
- Tracie: “How did you know this terminology even, how did you know it was PTSD?”
- Bri: “I didn’t know until I when I was flunking out and I needed to go through exit counselling with my school, they had asked what had been going on and when I opened up to my counsellor, she was like ‘You should go to therapy, you should really sit down with a therapist’ and that’s when I went to therapy.”
- Tracie: “What tools do you use to sort of stay out of that water and get into a positive state of mind?”
- Bri: “I do meditation every morning, I do a guided meditation as well. And then outside of that I cook, I’m from the South, I throw down [laughs]. I dance, everyday I’m like ‘do your dance it’s your chance,’ I used to say that to myself all the time, that really helps me because you can’t help but just laugh at yourself.”
On this Wednesday’s episode Taraji and Tracie are joined by a therapist to further discuss PTSD and unpack the conversations from today’s episode with Gabrielle Union and Bri.
- 1.2 Episode Title: Breaking Down PTSD
- 1.2 Episode Description: Women are twice as likely to suffer from PTSD as men. Taraji and Tracie sit with therapist Melody Murray to tackle the misconceptions of PTSD and the issues raised by this week’s guests, including Gabrielle Union. What are signs you have it and how you can treat it?
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