Adult son M.I.A.!
It's been two years since our 41-year-old, married son called to tell us that he had decided the cause of the mental distress he had been experiencing is that he is in the wrong body. He informed us that, to remedy this, he had already started hormone therapy. He told me he had not seen a psychiatrist. He self-diagnosed and his primary care doctor went along with it.
I have worked in the mental health area for more than two decades. I have been trying to persuade him to visit a respected, well-known brain and neurological clinic near him, but he had refused. At that point, he cut me off but continued to talk or text with his father until last September when he cut him off as well.
Since then, our son has had two surgeries and is attempting to present as a woman. He is no longer Daddy to our granddaughter. Now she has two mommies. We have sent cards, gifts, and letters trying to let him know we will accept and love him but both he and his wife are non-responsive.
I know my son is struggling with a mood disorder and possibly schizophrenia but, in the present culture, there is no real help for him and others like him. While he was raised without any risk factors in our home, genetically we have some mental illness on each side of the family.
It is not the same as being able to bury and mourn a child. In that case, there is a cemetery plot to visit and community support. No, this is just M.I.A. We have sent our son into a hostile world and now he is missing!
So, we hope and watch daily from afar, ever vigilant in prayer and advocacy!
A Loving Parent
I'm sorry for your loss and I feel it intimately. Our adult son at age 27 is doing the same thing. He's not married, nor children, but he did put his sperm into a sperms bank for possible future use. Not only is there no REAL help for them, there is also no real help for parents to help us grieve our loss. No. Instead, we're told to celebrate. I'm still going through waves of grief. I imagine it will last for years. We've lost a child. We've lost a real person. Even grief groups will not allow us to attend their groups because they say our lost person isn't dead. I will never see my son again abs never experience the future that I had thought I would. It's a real and tangible irreplaceable loss. I still see my son, but he totally presents as a woman, expects me to address him as such and even expects me to discuss him as she in co conversations that go as fast back to the day he was born. If that is not a mental illness, I do not know what is. I have no idea how to keep him in my life and not become mentally ill myself.
Again, I'm sorry for your situation, too.
It is so hard when you know in your mom gut this has nothing to do with body dysphoria. This path he is hell bent on taking will only create ripples of pain for others and he ultimately won’t be happier once the euphoria passes. Meanwhile there are parents who can’t grieve the loss, a daughter that is suppose to pretend she has no father and a wife who has to decide is this what she wanted for a marriage. Definitely pray for God to work on your son. Keep fighting for him even though it’s hard once they are adults. This epidemic continues to create victims.