Keshia reveals her immediate reaction to learning about her son’s betrayal.
Iyanla speaks with Keshia for the first time. Keshia found out five years ago her son who passed away molested his youngest sister. He was a teenager when it occurred, and the daughter was 8.
Keshia found out when Ke’necia, her middle daughter told her during an argument. When Keshia found out, she tried to attack her son.
“I tried to killed him.” – Keshia
Iyanla learns from Keshia that he was molested, and that led her to believe her daughters. When she learned this, she learned that this same son is terminally ill with Sickle Cell Anemia.
During their conversation, Keshia begins to cry. Iyanla tries to get her to understand why she feels bad, opening up about it. Iyanla tries to get her to look at her son as a son and not a s*xual predator.
Before they do anything else, she tells Keshia that she’s going to need professional help for her and her daughters.
Keshia’s daughter Ka’necia has trauma of her own to deal with.
Next, Iyanla talks to Ka’necia and Alicia. Ka’necia was verbally abused by Keshia, which led to a strain between her and her sisters. They feel Keshia and Gabby are cliqued up.
Alicia feels what her brother Terrell did Gabby tore the family apart and he should’ve gone to jail.
“The people that knew, covered it up, and they didn’t find a problem with it… He should’ve went to jail.” – Alicia
Iyanla appears to disagree with Alicia’s opinion. Iyanla says a breakdown in family communication is the main source of their family’s trouble.
Ka’necia says that when she was younger, Keshia called her a s*** and a h**. Alicia reveals that she heard rumors about Ka’necia sleeping with boys in high school. In reality, it was her friends. Iyanla learns that Keshia put Ka’necia on birth control.
“The first time I had s*x, somebody raped me.” – Ka’necia
She was 15 when she was raped by an older man while at a friend’s home. She told her mom one year later. Ka’necia didn’t tell her mom because they were not getting along.
Gabby’s scaring runs deep.
Iyanla next meets with Gabby, age 21. She feels her childhood trauma is affecting her as an adult. Iyanla digs into Gabby telling her about the assault at their age 11. However, Gabby reveals she told Ka’necia about it when it first happen.
“I didn’t know how to.” – Gabby
She felt fearful of losing her connection to her mom if she told her about Terrell.
Gabby also looked at Ka’Necia as her friend also. As a result of everything, she says she doesn’t have any connection with men or has any friends.
“You can’t trust anybody you know. I never had friends.” – Gabby
Iyanla sees how the incident broke Gabby down.
Everyone is brought together in an effort to get everyone on the same page.
Afterwards, Iyanla brings everyone together to get everyone on the same page. To demonstrate this, Iyanla has the women sit on all the same side of the table.
Suddenly, an alarm goes off, and men in trench coats run in. The people in trench coats are beating on pots and a woman runs in screaming.
Iyanla’s intention is to use the surprise to demonstrate how each tells their own story. She has each woman write down what they say specifically.
Afterwards, she gives them a card of rules. She asks if they follow each rule. When Iyanla asks if they listen to each other, no one raises their hand.
During this exercise, Iyanla learns that Ka’necia called Terrell her best friend. They were born 13 months apart.
“The reason she told you, instead of you, is because she knew you were his best friend, and felt you could stop it.” – Iyanla
Ka’necia says she stopped it, Iyanla refutes this by says it kept happening.
Each one expressed their own experiences surrounding this trauma, including Keshia’s fear of being homeless while dealing burying her son.
At the end, Iyanla gives them homework to work on an exercise to help better express themselves to one another.
Iyanla gets a breakthrough.
The next day, Iyanla brings them all together to talk about their homework. Gabby appears closed up. During the conversation, Ka’necia beings up the verbal abuse from Keshia. Iyanla gets Keshia to explain she was projecting her feelings about herself when she was younger.
Ka’necia’s perceived promiscuity was also brought up, and Ka’necia brings up she was actually sleeping with a girl.
She reveals she’s bis*xual and hid it because she felt they were judgmental.
“But so were you.” – Iyanla
Next, Gabby shares her experience of being violated by Terrell. She tells everyone it started when she was 8. She says that she could tell anyone.
“There were times where my body would just lock… I would freeze.” – Keshia
Although Iyanla feels like they’ve made many strides with one another, she has everyone talk to Terrell. Gabby begins to cry, saying, “How could you?”
“How could you take my innocence away from me?” – Gabby
She then says she wished Terrell would die. But she till loves him no matter what and forgives him. Ka’necia joins her on the couch.
Next, Ka’necia says she understood his pain, but it doesn’t excuse what he did.
“I don’t understand how he could do that to her.” – Ka’necia
Next, Keshia, joined by Gabby and Ka’necia and Alicia on the couch as Iyanla speaks to them. She reminds them of the strides they made together listening to each other prospectives and respecting them.
After the episode, Keshia says that working with Iyanla provided her and her family with the emotional reset that they were all desperately needing.
Alicia has learned not to allow the past to determine the future, and Ka’ecia now realizes the importance of speaking up for herself. Both girls say their communication with their family has never been better.
Gabby says that Iyanla helped her “tame the mind chatter” within herself. But, she’s has not yet been able to fully forgive her brother, though she is trying.
What are your thoughts on the episode?
