Credit: Brian To/WENN.com National Mental Health Day was last month, but the conversations regarding the taboo topic must continue everyday. Cleveland Cavaliers star Kevin Love is doing his part to raise awareness by speaking out about his own battle with anxiety and depression. He revealed that he had a panic attack on the court last season, which forced him to return to the locker room. Love told CNN , “Beating that stigma has been something that has been great in my life. It’s been therapeutic, and it’s been good to share my experience and try to help. The biggest lesson for me since (the panic attack) in November wasn’t about a therapist, it was about confronting the fact that I needed help.” He also thanked fellow NBA star, like Demar DeRozan , for being candid about their struggles with mental health. Man, love and respect for opening that door for me. You’ve helped more people than you know!! https://t.co/cFjTsUHbIx — Kevin Love (@kevinlove) March 7, 2018 Love has partnered with Shick Hydro on a website series called “ Locker Room Talk ” in which he chats with other popular athletes as they attempt to break down the stigma surrounding men’s mental health. Congrats to Kevin Love and anyone else courageous enough to seek help and share their stories.
Many people have had a toxic ex. Most have been lucky enough to avoid an ex who fabricated medical paperwork in order to fake having cancer . In that regard, Vicki Gunvalson has been very unlucky. In this video, she's talking about hearing from fans who've been through the same thing — “The truth always comes out,” Vicki says optimistically. “Karma is a b–ch, baby,” she adds with a smile. She is speaking about her own experience with Brooks Ayers, who dated her for four years and ended up faking cancer, chemo, and chemo symptoms. She is also speaking about the experiences that others have had — experiences that eerily mirror her own. Dirty John is true crime anthology series based upon a podcast of the same name, and it tells a very similar story to Vicki's. “Well, I've gotten a lot of letters from people,” Vicki shares, before specifying: “Women, mostly women.” Vicki says that these letters were “saying what a sociopath, what a narcissistic man is.” While buzzwords like sociopath can lose thier meaning or be used to demonize people with mental illness, she is speaking of toxic manipulators. Vicki says that these letters spoke of their struggles “and what they experienced, and our stories were exactly the same.” “The love letters, the flowers, the ‘Baby, we got this, they’re the enemy,’ you know,” Vicki says. That practice, known as “love bombing,” can be used as a weapon to manipulate a victim and ot mask a lack of genuine affection. Vicki acknowledges that Brooks was “really shielding me from my safe people which was my daughter, which was my cast members.” These, she says, were people “who loved me.” “And I didn't see it as that,” Vicki admits. “My daughter would have probably really hurt him if he'd kept pushing into my life,” Vicki says. Vicki is still awed by the sheer scope of how common this can be. “But the amount of letters I received from people, emails, and letters in the mail,” Vicki says. All of these were “from people that have gone through what I went through …” That shows how common this sort of thing can be. This is probably why the Dirty John podcast was so popular that it's becoming a Bravo series — with a companion docuseries on Oxygen. ” Dirty John , that is my life,” Vicki laments. “He portrayed he was somebody he wasn’t.” “That happened to me, and we’re intelligent women,” she says, referring to herself and to other women. “It happened to me with my eyes wide open,” Vicki says. To be clear, victims are never to blame. They're not stupid or deserving of the attention of creeps. “So if it can happen to me,” Vicki says. “Can you imagine how many women it’s happening to?” “And,” Vicki adds. “I’m a smart cookie.” You know what? That's true. Say what you will about Vicki, she's not dumb. “Everybody told me he was a bad boy,” she says. “And I didn’t see it till it was over.” Vicki knows that her warning will fall on deaf ears: “I guess I can’t say ‘Listen to me’ because you can’t listen to anybody when you’re in it.” “You gotta really trudge through it,” she concludes. Of course, being familiar with the red flags in advance could help a lot of women — and others — to avoid toxic relationships. The differences can be subtle, of course. Not everyone who buys someone a bunch of presents is trying to manipulate a victim. But if someone is trying to isolate you from your loved ones and convince you that they're really enemies, that is almost always a bad sign. Vicki's story clearly resonated with a lot of people who have had brushes with these same sorts of manipulators. Brooks Ayers may be out of her life, but he's left a stain on her story. Of course, Brooks doesn't care what Vicki thinks . At all.
Chrissy Teigen is pregnant with her first child . This means the model and husband John Legend will welcome a baby in the spring of 2016… that Teigen’s breasts are about to get bigger… and that she may lose her lunch on multiple occasions. But Teigen is prepared for the latter. “I am so excited I could barf 4-5 times a day,” the beauty Tweeted today, hours after making her pregnancy announcement on Monday night. Teigen is also aware that her appetite may change, that she may have some unusual cravings during some unusual parts of the day. She’s cool with this as well. “I have come to realize that at some point in the day, I will order and consume a pizza so it might as well be in the morning,” she Tweeted as a follow-up. The model and Legend have been open for awhile about their struggles to conceive, with the former taking a few moments during a recent segment on The Fab to talk about her problems. “As many of you know, we’ve been trying to have a baby for a while now,” Teigen added upon confirming her exciting baby news to fans this week. “It hasn’t been easy, but we kept trying because we can’t wait to bring our first child into the world and grow our family. We’re so excited that it’s finally happening. “Thank you for all your love and well wishes. I look forward to all the belly touching!”
