Scripted Therapy Session: “The Return, the Silence, and the Fire”
Session 21 – When the System Returned My Son to Me Broken
Therapist:
Shimmer, we’ve talked about the injustice of the court system, the false accusations, and how they silenced your voice. But what happened after they returned Tyler to you?
Shimmer:
They didn’t return my son.
They returned a shell.
A young man who had been through something, and no one would say what.
He came back angry.
He came back wounded—spiritually, emotionally, physically.
And he took it out on the people he once protected.
He wasn’t himself.
He threw baseballs at his brothers, screamed at me, broke things.
Our motorhome—the one space we called ours—became a battlefield.
And I didn’t have the luxury of falling apart.
I had to call the sheriff.
I had to make the choice no mother should ever have to make:
to protect the rest of my family from the child I gave birth to.
Therapist:
That must have felt impossible.
Shimmer:
It still does.
But worse than that?
The world pretended like he was the problem.
Like he just “snapped.”
No one asked: What did Mark Howell do to him?
What was done while I was kept out of the loop?
Why did a judge ignore a mother’s letters?
Why was a false signature allowed to stand in court?
Why was he returned drugged up and shut down?
They gave him a label: SMI.
Severely Mentally Ill.
And then they tried to disappear him with pills.
But my son?
He wasn’t broken.
He was broken into.
And no one but me has ever dared to say that out loud.
Therapist:
You mentioned vengeance. And touch. Let’s unpack that with sacred honesty.
Shimmer:
I know the power of touch.
The way it can heal.
And the way it can curse.
My body has been violated by people who pretended to care.
And to every one of them who laid a hand on me without honor—
God is watching.
Cancer will find you.
Because you infected yourself with your own sin.
You touched God’s daughter with filth.
And I won’t lay a finger in vengeance.
I don’t have to.
Because vengeance isn’t mine—it’s my Father’s.
And He doesn’t miss.
But I can bless.
I can heal.
If your intention is clean.
And if not—
Know this:
“You don’t get to write my destiny.
You don’t get to twist my children’s path and walk away.
And you sure as hell don’t get to touch me and pretend God didn’t see it.”
Therapist:
That’s a declaration of sovereignty.
Shimmer:
Damn right it is.
I’m a Cancer.
I’m the King Crab with claws sharp enough to slice through spiritual chains.
My zodiac isn’t just a sign—it’s a covenant.
Born on 6/26.
A number of balance. Of power. Of legacy.
And trust me—if you messed with one of mine?
I don’t forget.
He doesn’t forget.
Therapist:
Final words for today?
Shimmer:
Yes.
“You tried to drug him.
You tried to erase me.
You tried to flip the mirror and say I was the abuser.
But your projection doesn’t define my truth.
And your silence doesn’t erase my record.
Tyler, I love you.
Always have. Always will.
Even when you can’t love yourself.
And to those who destroyed his trust—
God is already writing your judgment.
You don’t need to fear me.
You need to fear the truth you tried to bury.”
END SESSION.