42 Comments
User's avatar
Alison's avatar

I feel your grief, the impossibility of this loss, the utter powerlessness with the situation. I am in your shoes, you are in my heart.😢

Expand full comment
Expensevo's avatar

Perfect summation of the unique grief so many of us share. And honest portrayal of being denied the sad mercy of physical loss

Expand full comment
Captain A's avatar

So well said. You spoke my heart in this piece.

Expand full comment
Erin Sardiello's avatar

Exactly

Expand full comment
Loulou's avatar

Soooo true, I miss our relationship. What used to be a fun time just hanging out. When I do see "her" now, I am treading on eggshells watching what name I use, careful with my pronouns etc..

This is a deep unrelenting grief of the living. Thank you for sharing.

Expand full comment
Adri Mans's avatar

WOW that last paragraph specially the last sentences are superb. A wonderful way to express the pain at last you opened your heart and what it is the core of the problem, the ones left behind. I know is the title of a movie or book but your essay made me think about that. And that is why this group was created with the "ones left behind" because this cult of transgenderism demand totally and full support for the victim, for those who are sacrificed in the altar of evil.

I think one of the best way to cope with this madness is to try to understand why this happens and all the variables around but at the core of it is about the old like time constant spiritual battle of good and evil. The enemy of God who hates His creation hate us because we are part of that creation. We cannot deny that evil doesn't exist anymore, he doesn't hide any longer, it is out. He started with the first couple in the garden of Eden until he achieved to kick us out of a perfect utopian life to this no so perfect planet, then he continued with relationships and to create animosity among humans, then among gender man and woman, we have more divorces than ever before and people do not get marry as they did, then he attacked families, he broke them and now he is braking their children, he is aiming for the core of the human soul and his identity. Evil is tangible , any person who presence an exorcism knows this but in modern life evil takes different forms and ways as for instance, oppression. And people are more oppressed than ever before for many reasons but one is the lack of understanding about the spiritual dimension of humans beings, we are too focus in the physical/materialistic world. Children need to embrace their destiny that has nothing to do with to "be cool" or "popular" or "have

one millions followers" in a simulacrum world because this world and what this society thinks about what "being successful or amount for something" as important, It is inconsequential, is shallow, is empty. Each human being is uniquely sacred, our worth is so great that God himself became one of us and died for us to save us from the enemy that sometimes we help the enemy with our owns sins. Children need to know how much they are loved not only for us but for the transcendent and eternal intelligence, who had made us and brought us to existence in the first place, and nothing else matter. For the world maybe we have gray and boring or "good for nothing" lives but not for Father and we are part of something bigger that the world don't understand because darkness don't understand the light. Fyodor was a man who understood well the dangers of nihilism, a world where "the nothing" prevails, where life lacks meaning and purpose and our children are suffering the consequences, and evil as a wolf is ready to fill ours children hearts and minds with "quick fixes" for their unhappiness and misunderstanding of their own destiny. Why are we here, who am I? Do I have worth? The ones left behind, those are the spoils of war, a war old as Creation.

Expand full comment
CA mom's avatar

What you describe as the micro mourning resonates with me. I wonder if those glimpses that let you know he’s still there are really opportunities for maintaining the connection that will be needed when he’s ready to be pulled out of this thing.

Expand full comment
Brenda Childs's avatar

Today I listened to Kent Christmas on ElijahStreams. He has many times given great hope so I wanted to share that you can find it on rumble dot com. We are living in extraordinary times. We are all here for such a time as this, and none of what we are going through is a surprise to God. He sees our pain, and I truly believe there is a reason for it. God has big plans for our kids. He knows the end from the beginning. Hang in there...as hard as it might be to believe...the Best is yet to come!

Expand full comment
LAMacroGuy's avatar

The term "ambiguous loss" describes this well for me. I heard it in other contexts. mostly in something like dementia, where the physical person is there, but the relationship is lost. But in those situations you usually have someone having lived most of their life and this, frankly, is another phase toward death, even as it is painful and often too lengthy.

With our children though, it is especially painful since we believe they were supposed to have a full, healthy life, and that is just not happening. Also, there is a sense that this will resolve somehow, but how that happens remains a mystery.

Expand full comment
rejoicinginhope's avatar

My tears fall.... for you, for all of us in these shoes... may the Living God comfort yours and our wounded hearts🩵🙏

Expand full comment
Mark Patrick's avatar

Every day

I read, I listen

I think

Every day

I read

Bernard Lane

Jamie Reed

Mia Hughes

Eyes Open

PITT

(and hundreds more)

Every day

I listen

Helen Joyce

Stella O'Malley

Eliza Mondegreen

Jennifer Sey

(and hundreds more)

And every day

I celebrate

Cass, Skrmetti, HHS, COHERE

The WPATH Files, UPenn, Sturm

(and hundreds more)

While every day

I long

For my son

Who

Despite my reading

Despite my listening

Despite my writing

Despite my speaking

Despite my celebrating

Despite me

Is not one step closer to me

Not one step out of the cult.

And I am not one step closer

To working out how

To say a word, a sentence

To having him back.

Not one step closer.

Every day.

Expand full comment
Gretchen's avatar

Me too.

Expand full comment
StillHaveHope's avatar

Crying 😢😢😢

Expand full comment
rejoicinginhope's avatar

😭😭😭😭😭🩵

Expand full comment
Emily Ann's avatar

"And so, you endure the drip, drip, drip of fresh disappointment, new ruptures, unexpected cruelty." Exactly this - but also, you also endure the drips of hope - the tiny moments where you see your real child come through. It can be a glance, a gesture, a rare moment of kindness - and you're immediately taken back to the way things were BT - before trans. Sometimes having that hope is searingly painful, because we can't see an actual path to having that be a day to day reality.

I miss my daughter, even though she is right here.

Expand full comment
Loulou's avatar

i miss mine so much too x

Expand full comment
paleblue's avatar

Very eloquently expressed. I'm wondering...if one of the main reasons children and young adults fall prey to the trans cult is that they have lost faith in a personal future, then maybe as parents we can redirect them by consistently visualizing a future free of the cult and presenting that vision to them. I don't know how successful that would be, but it seems to me that the alternative we're left with is to get caught up in the seeming hopelessness of it all and watching them "wither" as the OP describes.

Expand full comment
Christine's avatar

I think you have a good point. Before my son chose the trans path, he became a socialist and part of Antifa. He told me then and continues to tell me that he doesn't believe he will live past age 40 (he's in his early 20s now) because either humanity will destroy itself or he will be killed (for being in Antifa or trans). I encouraged him to think of what he does have today and make the most of it, but he didn't see the point. It is devastating to hear that as a mom.

Expand full comment
StillHaveHope's avatar

I’m sorry 😢

Expand full comment
Kathleen's avatar

This really resonated with me. Thank you for putting into words exactly how I feel. I keep forcing myself to be grateful t have had a relationship with our daughter for 14 years before she got dragged down the rabbit hole.

Expand full comment
Kimberly Ells's avatar

Poignant, tragic, and deeply stirring. So well expressed. But I wish a thing like this never had to be experienced or expressed. Your pain touched me today.

Expand full comment
Maggie's avatar

This hits so close to home. Thank you for putting my feelings into words. It is a consolation to know I am not alone in this.

Expand full comment
Mama Ain't Playin''s avatar

This is lovely and heartbreaking. The essay today, along with so many by other parents, makes me think that the parents of the boys lost to this mess are the most bereft. In spite of their cross-sex identifications, transgender-ID'd boys and girls/men and women still behave much more typical for their sex than their acquired "gender." That is, I think there seem to be more parents of trans-ID's girls/women who remain in touch with their daughters, whereas the boys who become trans-ID'd seem much more likely to completely ghost their parents and disappear. This is much more male-typical behavior, as opposed to female behavior, absent other mental health issues.

This is not to say that I don't recognize the grief among all the parents of daughters & I'm not ranking parental grief. I certainly do see it among the parents of girls. It's just my observation that there are more girls/women in the cult who seem stay in touch with their families of origin, and we see so many more stories about boys who completely drop out of family life. I'd be interested to hear others' opinions on this. I know of several families of girls who are still in touch, even close touch/weekly Sunday dinners kinds of relationships with their parents.

Expand full comment
StillHaveHope's avatar

I think so too. Men in general when they get married and have a family and a wife and all that they sometimes distance themselves from their parents because of the wife. I think it’s a male thing and I think this is the reason why men who think they’re women have no clue about any woman and their brain because a woman’s brain just feels more nurturing and will stay closer to their parents. I think you’re right about the women staying closer. All in all it’s all terrible.

Expand full comment
Linda H's avatar

I believe you are correct. I hate to sound like a broken record by once again writing “in my ten years of coming alongside families” but this time has given me a much clearer picture. Yes, boys are way more likely to ghost their parents and disappear. The captivity of this evil regarding boys and girls often looks much different. With young girls it is more likely to be a contagion and with boys exposures to online porn and predatory activity. Our autistic son was preyed online by a predator and disappeared six months after “coming out.”

Expand full comment
Mama Ain't Playin''s avatar

I’m so sorry, Linda H. Praying for your boy to come home again. The autistic boys & girls are the ones I worry about the most—they’re likely to be the most vulnerable to despair when the house of cards comes tumbling down. The girls in the social contagion can usually find a way to make it out with fewer losses—many of them adopt a trans ID for social clout or something they think will benefit them.

Expand full comment
Linda H's avatar

Appreciate the prayer! Many of the detrans stories give me hope for even the most extreme cases and I know God is able to do far more than we ask or think. Some have taken longer than our son’s ten years. Yet, realistically, I know this may not be our story. Three years ago one of our sons was able to make a first-time connection and horrified by the mental condition our prodigal son was in. He’s clearly been trauma bonded. We’d rescue him in a flash if we knew he wanted out.

Expand full comment