MISSING PERSON - PLEASE HELP

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I haven't read the whole thread but I wanted to mention my own reasons for running away (on purpose, rather than just, say, leaving to explore) in case it's useful. Keep in mind though I was a teen, not 30.

I was in a situation where I didn't know where my life was going to go. I had few particular examples to work from, and the ones I did have pointed to futures I did not want. I had crashed and burned too hard to really continue school (after being accelerated so that, while I would have still been struggling with even seventh-grade work, I was now in college -- my signs of overload were taken as boredom, long story). And school had been something I'd always been expected to well at. I was also experiencing motor and cognitive losses in certain areas (and gains in others, but at the time it felt only like losses).

So the two options there to me in the present were parents' home and institutions. And the options in the future seemed to be institutions, homelessness, or death.

I decided I would run away to the hills and figure out a way to live there.

I never even got to the hills. I looked too unusual. People always called the police to report some kid "wandering" and not particularly responsive to them if they tried to talk to me. (This still goes on today sometimes.)

But that was my reasoning -- find some other life for myself when my life anywhere else seemed to be falling apart. And like someone else said, there was a feeling of freedom once I left. A feeling also like "I have made my own choice, and I am unable to communicate to everyone else about why, but I am not going to live under those restrictions." It was taking a forced-choice question and then adding my own to it.

Another thing is that people thought I could be cured of whatever I had (or at least "recovered" to as close to "normal" as possible), and I knew better because I knew internally that many things I knew how to do was slipping away from me at that time, and that the harder I pushed myself the worse it got. And everyone else's idea of fixing me was getting me to push myself to a degree that was not even possible, let alone sustainable.

Hi:

I am so sorry to hear about your Brother, I hope all turns out well for your entire family. I have had the honor of working, for many years, with individauls very similar to your Brother. I think that he would have gone somewhere that made him feel safe....possibly a special place he remembers from childhood that always brought him comfort. It may be somewhere special that he went to with his Grandparents.

If you can think of any places like this, start checking them out. Just remember to think of places from his perspective and not your own, it may end up being somewhere that you wouldn't particularly draw comfort from.

I hope this helps a bit. I would start looking through some old photo albums to draw some ideas from or try to remember if he ever mentioned a place at any point when he was upset about something.

Good Luck and keep us posted, my thoughts are with you

Jenny

Hello;

Sorry, I didn't read to the end of the thread. I am so glad that you found him safe and sound!! !!

jenny