Sit right here for me, mama.
IYANLA (VOICEOVER): Last night, I
urged Miss Alicia to share some long-held family secrets
with her eldest daughter, Shay.
She lived in the essence of your heartbeat.
That's why she needs to know your story as a woman
so she can understand who the hell she is.
Don't leave nothing out!
Tell her.
She has a right to know.
[PENSIVE MUSIC]
Ooh, Lord, we got a lot of work to do.
IYANLA (VOICEOVER): It is important Miss Alicia
to recognize and understand that she must be open and honest
with her adult daughters so that this family can begin to heal.
Alicia?
Yes?
I'm thinking of Shay, who is in a bad place today.
She woke up like that this morning.
IYANLA: But she's seven.
ALICIA: Hmm?
She's seven.
ALICIA: While she's seven--
In her mind and in her emotional self,
none of your kids have progressed beyond seven.
And I really need you to get that and understand that.
Because I think that sometimes you speak to them
or expect them to respond as adults.
But, Alicia, when it comes to you, they're little girls.
Mm.
So I need you to think back and tell me what was going
on for you when you were seven.
I moved from my grandparents with my dad and his new wife.
And what was that like for you?
To me, it was a joyous moment.
OK.
You know, because I'm going to live with my dad
and with my brother.
And I would-- yeah.
But I'm also leaving my--
- Grandparents? - Mm-hmm.
Which I was happy because that's where I was being
molested and being mistreated.
Being molested?
Yeah.
[PENSIVE MUSIC]
Wow.
IYANLA (VOICEOVER): This is a new revelation.
Yesterday, Miss Alicia told me about being
molested by a different family member when she was a teenager.
The earlier trauma that she's speaking of now
exposes yet another layer of her pain.
When you say your [MUTED] molested you,
what does that mean?
Yeah, it was-- it was bad.
He used to wait for me--
I was in third grade-- he used to wait until
I get out of school and just--
IYANLA: Just what? - He was waiting for me.
Waiting for you where?
Honestly, do we have to talk about this?
Because, to be honest, I don't want to talk about it.
That's something in my life that I have,
you know, I've overcame.
I've--
No, you haven't.
And I'm not saying--
but I've honestly, I don't--
No, you haven't.
The only time I--
No, you haven't.
- Seriously, I don't-- - You haven't.
I don't think about it.
You don't have to think about it, Miss Alicia, you live it.
I didn't come here, I mean, to be
healed from what happened to me when I was in the third grade.
But that's what your daughters are living now.
They're living what?
What you didn't heal, beloved.
What you didn't heal.
That's what they're living.
Narrow mindedness-- - No, it's not being--
IYANLA: --showing up right now.
It's not being narrow minded as far as--
Why would I say that to you?
Why do you think that I would bring you out here and your six
children to say something to you that I don't know to be
essential to your healing path?
Why do you think I would say that to you?
Because you know.
It's evident.
I think one of the major breakdowns between you
and your daughters are the unhealed places in you.
Then.
Now!
Where they don't feel you.
They can't hear you.
They think you don't love them.
You got six of them in there competing for your attention
and your affection.
And you can't give it to them because you
shut your heart down the first time he crawled off of you.
[SOMBER MUSIC]
They're acting it out, baby.
I can look at them and tell them what you feel.
I can feel the depth of your woundedness.
I can feel the brokenness.
There are pieces of your soul that are so broken, I
just, I could weep for you.
But how do we heal it?
IYANLA (VOICEOVER): The only hope for this family
to move forward and become healthy begins
with Alicia's willingness to stand
in the truth of her experience.
She must acknowledge how the trauma of being raped
as a teenager has had devastating effects
on her family relationships.
You're a teenager now.
How did [MUTED] get to you at your father's house?
He used to sneak in my room.
Does your stepmom know?
The family know.
They know now.
The family knows about it.
Mm-hmm Did anybody step up to defend you?
No, absolutely no one.
IYANLA: You think maybe--
That's who-- Precious is with that family now.
No.
Precious is with that family?
That's the family that Precious is with.
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
Why?
And is [MUTED] still around?
Mm-hmm.
The one that violated you?
And you let your daughter go there?
Oh, Miss Alicia, talk to me about that.
[EXHALES SHARPLY]
Can I ask you a question?
When did the moment come for you when you said,
I don't want to be a mother.
When did that moment come?
With Precious and Bianca.
IYANLA: Yeah.
I just don't want--
I didn't want to be a mother.
IYANLA: Yeah.
Yeah.
Did you want the children?
No.
Yeah, OK, that's it.
That's the moment right there.
That's OK.
I know the feeling.
[INHALES DEEPLY, EXHALES] It's a lot.
IYANLA (VOICEOVER): Like Alicia, many women
who have faced sexual abuse at the hands of a family member
remain silent.
But the time has come for Miss Alicia
to be honest with her children about what happened so that she
and they can begin to heal.
One of the things that I think is so, so very important,
and I think as mothers we often forget this,
how important it is for our children
to know who we are as women.
Mm-hmm.
You know?
Because I remember the day that I told my daughters, before I
was your mother, I was a broken little girl
with nobody to talk to.
And I grew up, but she didn't.
And there's a part of me that's still a broken little girl.
And, unfortunately, that's what I passed on to you.
So here's what I need you to know.
I mean, I've said it to them, but I've
not had them all in one room and say, look,
this is my testimony.
This is what-- they don't know not half
of what happened to me.
They don't.
I think your pregnancies were sad or shameful or difficult--
Well, I was lost, yeah.
IYANLA: Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what they're living, mommy.
And they need to understand.
Does Shay know that [MUTED] raped you?
No.
IYANLA: And Shay is close with this person?
Mm-hmm.
And that's OK with you?
No.
Well then--
It's not, you know, it's not OK.
You raised your daughter on a lie.
And isn't it interesting that you
and Shay have a huge breakdown?
She thinks you hate her.
She thinks you're jealous of her.
That-- No, no, I'm not buying that one.
I think that's just a conversation to say, you know,
hateful things.
I think my mother is jealous of me.
You mean mommy, who's lied to her about her whole life?
Yes, yes.
You expect your daughter to have
an authentic, honest relationship with you
when you haven't had an authentic, honest relationship
with her.
I think we're gonna have to have a conversation with Shay.
That's fine.
Good.
Awareness, acknowledgment is the first step toward healing.
I want you to hear me.
You have done very well.
A lesser woman wouldn't have made it.
And I think we're just coming to the place
now because of your grandchildren
and because of the suffering of your daughters,
that we just have to take it to the next level.
IYANLA (VOICEOVER): Miss Alicia has
been holding on to her family secrets for far too long.
Now that she has agreed to have an open and honest conversation
with Shay, Miss Alicia is taking an important step in
this family's healing process.