Exclusive Preview: General Hospital star Genie Francis talks mental health, GH's most controversial storyline on State of Mind with Maurice Benard

General Hospital stars Maurice Benard and Genie Francis are sitting down for a two-part insightful talk on Benard's YouTube talk show, State of Mind, which examines mental health issues. The first episode airs this Sunday, November 16. Soap Central has exclusive clips of what viewers can expect.

General Hospital, paging Laura and Sonny

In the first exclusive preview clip, Francis, along with her real-life husband, actor/director Jonathan Frakes (Star Trek: The Next Generation), has a rare, deeply personal talk with Benard about marriage, mental health, and unconditional support.

Frakes admits that in the couple's early years, he didn't fully grasp the depth of Francis's anxiety. "I was selfish," he says. "We were both working nonstop, and then I’d drag her out to see friends on the weekends. I didn’t realize how hard that was for her." Over time, he learned to recognize her triggers and give her space without guilt.

Francis recollects how even anticipating a social event can send her into panic. "I start to get panicky and cry and feel sick… my subconscious remembers I have an engagement that night before I consciously do," she explains. The couple opens up about how they learned to navigate depressive episodes together. "When I go down the rabbit hole… he will never leave me alone," Francis reveals. "When it lifts, I can finally stand up straight, I can breathe. And I look at him and say, ‘Thank you for not leaving me alone.’"

"You know what my shrink told me?" Frakes asks. "When Genie goes that low, all you can do when she’s in a riverbank is just walk along. That’s it. It was the greatest piece of advice I ever got."

Benard connects deeply, acknowledging the unseen pain of anxiety and depression and praising the couple’s enduring love and understanding after forty years together.

General Hospital, Luke & Laura's origins

In this second exclusive clip, Francis also addresses with Benard the show's controversial rape scene between Luke (Anthony Geary) and Laura from October 1979. Luke, desperately in love with Laura, thought he was going to die after committing a hit for the mob. He danced with her to Herb Alpert's song "Rise" and raped her.

"If you were truly raped, I don't see [how] you fall in love with the guy," says Francis, who has addressed this issue in the past. She was a teenager when the storyline unfolded. "So, as a kid, I was following directions and doing what I was supposed to do according to Gloria [Monty, executive producer at the time of General Hospital]," Francis shares. "I played rape. Tony treated me like I was, you know, a delicate little doll. He was so gentle with me because I think I was underage. I think I was only 17 at the time… but I mean, it was just us dancing and then us dropping down out of frame. That’s all it was. That’s it. They did not show, well, they couldn’t. No, there was no violence.

"I don’t think the people knew or that the show knew that it was going to take off in such a way that everybody would want this couple to be together," Francis continues. "So, at some point, they tried to make it seem like it wasn’t rape… I’m going to go into this in great detail in my book, but I can’t get to it all here. Looking back on it as an adult, I won’t defend it.

"They threw me out there as a kid to answer the questions and defend this relationship," the Daytime Emmy-winner adds. "[But] I won’t defend it. For years, they made me do it, and I won’t do it anymore. It was wrong.”

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Benard's series State of Mind drops episodes on Sundays.

Catch all-new episodes of General Hospital weekdays on ABC and Hulu

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