Tommi has talked and talked and talked today. He’s always been a big talker. He talked early and sometimes talked from wake up to bedtime. Talking exhausts me. Haha. Listening exhausts me too. I like silence. Silent moments are rare in my life.

Anyway. Today was a day when Tommi and I spent the day together. He woke up at 3:30am today so he was ready to talk to someone when I got up. He spent a lot of time this morning talking to me about his depression, anxiety, mental health, the suicidal thoughts he’s had, his take on medications among many other things. I took it all in, made lots of mental notes, and told Tommi that all of this is why I am being so adamant that he do individual therapy with Brad, so he has someone besides me to talk through this stuff…someone who knows better what to do with it all.

And in Gods perfect timing, Tommi had a session already scheduled with Brad this morning. And even though Tommi had the stomach of anxiety before session, he was able to bring some of our conversation into the safe space Brad creates for him. It was interesting… 5 minutes before therapy Tommi said “my stomach hurts and I don’t know if I can talk to Brad about any of this today.” 5 minutes into therapy they were diving down into Tommi’s depressive parts,

I’m in the room when Tommi is doing therapy with Brad. That’s Tommi’s call. I don’t ask to be, sometimes I try not to be. But he is insistent. I never interject, I just sit quietly, usually working or reading. I bought Tommi a 40-pack of colored pens for therapy last week, so Tommi has lots of choices to do their parts journaling-he was so excited to show Brad all their new choices today. So funny. And Brad even gave Tommi another therapy technique along the same lines that they can try whenever Tommi is ready, And Tommi truthfully said he’d like to try that technique someday but not today. They worked hard for 50 mins, and Tommi was done. He advocated for ending 10 mins early, Brad agreed since they had been working so hard and without even hearing Brads bye, he ended the session, closed the computer and said “Man that was a good session-I feel so good!” 😊

While we were talking today Tommi brought up the fact that he’ll be applying for colleges before too long and he’s been doing some thinking on that. He knows there’s culinary programs out there besides Ivy Tech and he would like to have a true college experience where he has a campus and lives in a dorm. He wants to look into Vincennes University and he was so excited about that possibility. I’m not sure who this kid is somedays. He’s thinking about things I never dreamed he would, he’s advocating for himself in positive ways, …and the fact that he’s thinking about leaving home to go to college astounds me! And left me in tears. We have made such progress. My Mama Bear has a measure of peace and calm in her heart tonight! ❤️ God is good all the time!