Hi, some of you may remember me but if not I will go over our circumstances: We have an adult son, Josh, 33 yo, adopted, biracial son, living in Phoenix, Az currently. He moved there in June of 2020. We have been dealing with mental health issues from him for about the last ten years or son, having not realized initially that it was mental health issues. Possibly bipolar? He has never been diagnosed. We only think this because of something his birth mother told me in a conversation about her own issues. Last year, in March, he called and confessed he had gotten hooked on fentenyl, which is epidemic in Phoenix. He was terrified he had overdosed. Long story short, we had him checked out at a hospital by ordering an Uber online. The next day, my husband flew out there, got him into a methadone treatment, and then the two of them drove back across the country to Georgia, where we live. He was on methadone for a couple of months, weaned off of it and worked a couple of temp jobs while staying with us. After four months, he insisted he wanted to return to Phoenix because he missed his job there. We begged him not to go. I knew he would probably relapse because he minimized his experience of nearly overdosing and insisted we were overreacting. So he left last June.
Fast forward to the last two months: He got involved with a prostitute, becoming obsessed with her and convinced she was the love of his life, when she only was interested in milking him for money. He has lost his car, after putting it up with a title loan company (possibly something related to her). He is now on the streets, back on fentanyl, and we no longer have contact with him because his phone has either broken or he is using an app that allows him to gain a new number when he doesn't want to be contacted. His last text messages to me were three weeks ago and they were abusive and hateful.
We have contacted a couple of people that know him and they are keeping an eye out to see if they can find him. The police made contact with him on Monday of this week while he was hanging out at a bus stop. He was offered information about getting treatment and he refused it and refused to have them contact family. He ended up just walking away. The police officer called to let me know they had seen him and he is alive.
So the thing I have feared most these last six years or so has finally happened: We don't know where he is and we have no way of finding him or contacting him. The only thing left to us is prayer, and we are doing that constantly. Sometimes, this is seems so surreal and like a nightmare I can't wake up from. I have to compartmentalize this in my mind in order to get up each day and do the things I'm responsible for doing. The hardest time is at night as I'm lying in bed, trying to quiet my mind from the "what ifs" that might be happening to him. Those are the moments I want to scream, cry, and pound my fists into something. 33 years of loving and sacrificing for someone and then they are just gone from your life and you can't do a thing about it.
I feel so many emotions, swirling around within me. Facing the possibility that we may never see him or hear from him again and may never know what happened to him is incredibly painful to consider. Three years ago, when we lived in another state, I spent almost every day checking this site, and receiving the counsel and encouragement of many of you on this site, but when we moved here, I just felt the need to take a break, hoping I would not need it again, but here I am. That's all I have to say right now. I just needed to tell someone what is going on. The people around us are nice and sympathetic, but they don't really understand because they either have school-age children or they have adult children with stable lives. Right now, I can't talk to them. They don't understand and I just can't do light chitchat conversations right now. I need people who understand the raw pain of this. Thank you for taking the time to read this.
Fast forward to the last two months: He got involved with a prostitute, becoming obsessed with her and convinced she was the love of his life, when she only was interested in milking him for money. He has lost his car, after putting it up with a title loan company (possibly something related to her). He is now on the streets, back on fentanyl, and we no longer have contact with him because his phone has either broken or he is using an app that allows him to gain a new number when he doesn't want to be contacted. His last text messages to me were three weeks ago and they were abusive and hateful.
We have contacted a couple of people that know him and they are keeping an eye out to see if they can find him. The police made contact with him on Monday of this week while he was hanging out at a bus stop. He was offered information about getting treatment and he refused it and refused to have them contact family. He ended up just walking away. The police officer called to let me know they had seen him and he is alive.
So the thing I have feared most these last six years or so has finally happened: We don't know where he is and we have no way of finding him or contacting him. The only thing left to us is prayer, and we are doing that constantly. Sometimes, this is seems so surreal and like a nightmare I can't wake up from. I have to compartmentalize this in my mind in order to get up each day and do the things I'm responsible for doing. The hardest time is at night as I'm lying in bed, trying to quiet my mind from the "what ifs" that might be happening to him. Those are the moments I want to scream, cry, and pound my fists into something. 33 years of loving and sacrificing for someone and then they are just gone from your life and you can't do a thing about it.
I feel so many emotions, swirling around within me. Facing the possibility that we may never see him or hear from him again and may never know what happened to him is incredibly painful to consider. Three years ago, when we lived in another state, I spent almost every day checking this site, and receiving the counsel and encouragement of many of you on this site, but when we moved here, I just felt the need to take a break, hoping I would not need it again, but here I am. That's all I have to say right now. I just needed to tell someone what is going on. The people around us are nice and sympathetic, but they don't really understand because they either have school-age children or they have adult children with stable lives. Right now, I can't talk to them. They don't understand and I just can't do light chitchat conversations right now. I need people who understand the raw pain of this. Thank you for taking the time to read this.