missing

Last week, one of our patients at the child inpatient psych hospital was a 14 year-old boy who hid behind his hair and had difficulty making eye contact. His face --which you could see rarely from behind his chin-length, bleached blonde (with pink streaks) hair-- had starting features: still childlike, beautiful and you could already tell he was going to be an attractive adult.

Unfortunately, he could not look at people (possibly due to a genetic mutation that made direct gaze excrutiatingly stressful), cut himself to release his anxiety and anger, skipped school to drink, and lived without much hope for the future. He didn't quite meet our hospitalization guidelines, and after seeing him for a few days, we sent him back home with referrals to counseling and drug treatment programs. Today, while on call at the crisis unit of Sacramento's mental health treatment center, I saw his name on the 'missing persons' board. That was a pretty big shock, and it's left me wondering what may have happened to him since he left the hospital lobby last week.