Preloading

A Wounded Mother and Daughter Begin to Heal

Season 2 Episode 107
Aired on 03/08/2015 | CC tv-14
Growing up, Ester Nicholson suffered abuse and neglect at the hands of her mother. She turned to drugs and alcohol, and soon became a teenage mother with a crippling addiction. Ester began repeating the same vicious cycle of neglect with her own daughter, Shawntee, who was eventually taken away by her family.

Now 25 years sober, Ester has begun to heal her wounds. Her daughter, however, still deeply feels the pain of her mother's abandonment. To begin rebuilding their relationship, filmmaker Jonas Elrod helps facilitate Ester and Shawntee's first joint therapy session with counselor Rochelle L. Cook, MA, CHT.

"I don't understand how you could leave a little girl alone," Shawntee says to her mother. "What was going through your mind when you were doing those things?"

Watch as Ester and Shawntee discuss the wounds they both suffered as children and the beautiful relationship that can have once both women begin to heal.

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