My son decided to disappear without a trace at 54 years old.

Hello @maone,

All of your guesses about what happened to your son will probably not offer you much relief because they are just guesses. There is really no way to know what was going on in his mind when he disappeared.

I would like to suggest that you begin posting in Loss and Grief group. While most of the people in this group have experienced a loss due to the death of a loved one or friend, other losses are discussed there as well. I'm sure you will find some support. I encourage you to post in the discussion titled, "Loss When There is No Closure." This would very much fit your current situation.
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/discussion/loss-what-do-you-do-when-there-is-no-closure/
Please keep in touch!

Thanks so much !

Hello @maone,

Just a thought: Have you and your family ever considered the possibility that your son may be in a witness protection program? I'm not sure how you would ever find out for sure about that, but it might fit the picture of what happened to him, especially since he visited beforehand and left clues that indicated that he knew something was about to change in his life.

Yes,I had thought of this but like you said,no way of finding out. Thanks for caring

@maone Wishing you much peace as you reconcile yourself to this disturbing change in your family.

You know I posted in this group and I think I only got one response from the mentor?.

Hello @maone,

As I look through the responses, I see that several mentors have responded to your posts as well as other members. As you are new to the Connect community you might not realize that other members respond to the posts as well as the mentors.

@maone Even though you feel he may have been planning this and that he may have felt he was doing this to protect others, I would file a missing persons report. If you have anything that they can get DNA from and keep it in their files, or anything with his fingerprints, all of this can be kept in a national or even International database. If his fingerprints or DNA come up anywhere they can be run through the data base and you may have some additional answers of what is going on. I know that this seems very clinical and dry, but it would help give closure. Like all of the others here I hope that you continue to keep posting and letting us know how you are doing.
Ginger

I agree that submitting a missing person's report is a good idea. Anything that you can cross off your list, that you've tried, is at a tiny thing to give you a sense of doing something. I am reading your posts and am again grateful that we have this forum of caring people. Thank you for sharing your story and thoughts.

Hello @maone, Are you checking your Spam filter. Sometimes posts do get put in there on occasion.