During her discussion with the cohosts Jada Pinkett Smith, Willow Smith, and Adrienne Banfield-Norris, the Oscar-winning actress said she used eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy to heal after a stalker broke into her home while she was inside in June 2014.
The actress said she had "extreme anxiety" and had a revelation during an EMDR session.
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"When I got out of it, I realized I have surrounded myself often with unsafe people and situations and put myself there — I have no one else to blame but myself — because that was the most familiar feeling I had," she said.
Bullock added: "In that EMDR journey, I had to take ownership of everything that I bought into my world because it felt comfortable and realized it no longer had a place."
The "Bird Box" star added: "Vanity got me out of it."
"I was looking at my body, and I said, 'It's going to break,'" she said. "It was not responding well to what was happening."
Bullock said that several stressful situations happened in succession. She said it started when her son, Louis, had a grand mal seizure and she thought he died.
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"Two days later, I pulled my hair tight, went to the Academy Awards, pulled it too tight," Bullock said. "Day later, I was bitten by a poisonous spider. My hair starts falling out. I have alopecia spots everywhere. I'm like, 'What the hell?'"
Bullock said that the break-in was the final straw that caused her to reevaluate her life.
"I literally had to take inventory, going, 'If I don't pull it together, I'm going to die. Something is going to happen to my body that I can't control' — and I can control almost everything — so EMDR, I sought counsel, and I would seek it again," she said.
Bullock credited Louis and her daughter, Laila, who were adopted in 2010 and 2015, respectively, as motivating her to recover.
"It was my children who showed me that unless I pull it together right now, I'm not going to be around to have the moments that I want to have," she said.
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Watch the full "Red Table Talk" episode below.
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