A Pulse Shooting Survivor Struggles to Cope Without Her Mom's Support

Twenty-year-old Patience says she was never close with her family, but when the young woman was shot and her leg shattered during the deadly mass shooting at Orlando's Pulse nightclub, in 2016, she wanted one thing: her mother. While some of Patience's fellow survivors—like her friend Tiara—were able to turn to family members for support, Patience struggled with the additional burden of her mom's absence. In fact, she has no idea whether her mother is even alive.

"Nobody knows where my mom is," Patience tells Iyanla. "I just really thought, like, that this would be the situation that she would just pop up, and she didn't. So, I don't know if she's dead or alive, but if she is alive, like, I thought that this would be it."

While Patience has spoken to her friend Tiara about their shared experience at Pulse, Patience admits to suffering in silence when it comes to her absent mother. "If I feel sad, if I feel depressed about something, I have to suppress it because what [Tiara's] going through is a lot worse. She held her cousin as she died," Patience says.

"No, no, no. We're not measuring pain, beloved. Let's stop that right now," Iyanla says. "She may have held her cousin, but you know what, Miss Patience? A piece of you died in that bathroom too."

Watch as Iyanla counsels Patience and helps her give a voice to the deep emotional pain she's kept buried beneath her physical wounds for nearly a year.

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