People Who Went Missing When They Were Young Reveal What Happened To Them

It's every parent's worst fear. Heck it's every person's worst fear regardless of age. To discover you have a Missing loved one or to BE the missing loved one. There are countless tv shows, movies and books covering the topic. Whose heart doesn't sick at the sight of a missing child poster? Some see it as a fear greater than death. At least with death there is a knowing and a closure, not a happy one but a closure none the less. And to be a missing or to be lost and not be able to find your way to safety is a nightmare come to life.

Redditor _u/PrimarilyMarten wanted to know... Redditors who have gone missing but were found. What happened? Pay attention people this could be any one of us.

DON'T BE SPITEFUL, JUST WALK HOME!

My mom reported me missing one midnight. We were staying at a hotel a few miles from home (long story), we got into an argument and she kicked me out and told me to walk back to the house. I was 15. Instead of doing as I was asked, I said f*** this and messaged my theatre director, one of the only adults I knew, and said I was outside at night and that I wasn't safe. I spent the night at her house and the police were looking for me. I made sure my older brother knew where I was, and went to school the next day. Police took me home after I went to her house a second time.

Back when I was around 7 or 8, I was at this family camp during the summer. I would hang with this group of boys who were all a few years older than me and always thought "OH BOY, I get to hang with the big boys." So anyways there was this place people called "the secret hideout," where it was just a little hut made of sticks and a fireplace that you could find by going into the forest a little bit. Me and these dudes go to the secret hideout place and for some reason decide to find another. So we just walk deeper into the forest until we find a place and we're like _"cool, this is the second secret hideout, let's go find another." _Once we find the third secret hideout we decide to go back to camp and had no trouble finding our way. But as soon as we got back, I went to my cousin and was like _"Dude you got to come with me, there's like 2 more secret hideouts" _So me and my cousin go to the secret hideout, then I proceeded to lead the way to the second secret hideout. On our way to the third secret hideout I get completely lost and start crying and the both of start going mental. We're just two little kids frantically running through the forest having no idea where we are. Eventually I'm just like _"okay, let's just sit on this log and wait until we die" _and my cousin was like _"that sounds good."_ Apparently, that's actually what you're supposed to do if you get lost, you're supposed to stay in one place and wait for help. So me and my cousin have possibly the most intimate conversation about all the things we'll miss when we're dead. Eventually my family notices were gone and my dad eventually finds us. But yeah I essentially welcomed and accepted death at the ripe age of seven.

Happened twice. First time was comical second was quite serious.

When I was 5 or 6 my best friend lived a few houses down. We would see each other every day and do normal kid stuff. I guess he went on vacation one week and me being 6 didn't quite understand that... I took off on my trike and was determined to find him. I pedaled at least two miles before a concerned adult saw me and called the police. My parents were quite relieved!!! And took away my bike. Still friends with that neighbor and it's a joke that comes up every now and again.

So now for the not so funny part.

This happened when I was 22. I'll spare all the details, but my life literally fell apart. My father died and we were very close. My girlfriend dumped me because I was having trouble getting over the loss. I failed a bunch of classes in college and was told not to come back. My life was crumbling. I wasn't suicidal, but I felt this urge to leave. I hopped in my car and drove until the gas ran out. I found a cheap motel and spent the night. Then I kept driving the next day, and the next. I turned my phone off. No contact with anyone. Not quite sure what I was thinking, but it felt good to just keep moving. I was in a Waffle House one morning around 4am. Met a fellow traveler and we exchanged stories. I spilled my heart out to this random stranger. He gave me a hug and just listened for hours. He bought my breakfast and just said, _"Go home, kid. This too will pass." _I had a good cry and drove home. A lot of people were very worried about me. My mom was convinced I killed myself. It was extremely selfish. But whatever happened in those 5 days I was off the grid seemed to set me straight.

Not me but my brother, and Reddit found him for us.

My brother moved to Hawaii and from there Iceland. One day we stopped hearing from him, like he vanished off the face of the Earth. He had stopped posting on social media, he had stopped contacting all his friends (even the ones his family didn't know). It was always a possibility that he was going off the grid for some reason, but last we spoke everything was fine and normal. Still, we thought he would pop up somewhere, as he was an extensive world traveler and often went incommunicado for periods of time. A year goes by, we are more worried. What if something happened to him? Why wouldn't he be on social media anymore? Why would he cut contact with his entire network of friends and family? He had never done that before. There was no fight or drama. The last conversation he had with my mom was about Christmas presents. We start looking for him. We message everyone we know he knows. We message his best friend, who gives a VERY cryptic response neither denying or confirming anything. This gets us worried, why is this guy being shady? Last we knew these two were travel the world together. My mom email bombs his best friend, who refuses to respond. We wait another year. Nothing. We are starting to think he might be dead. My mom files a missing persons report, and the police find no trace of him. I start posting missing persons reports. We scour the internet. We find nothing. Another year. I haven't seen him in 5 years now. I think ill never see him again. Half my family is convinced he died somewhere abroad. He hasn't filed any W2s or Pplied for government services oranything in the US in 5 years. Another year. My mom hires a private detective for 10k. The guy can't find much, he is worthless. I start posting on Scandanavian subreddits, because that was the region my brother was last seen in. I basically make a missing persons poster with his pic and all his info. A week later someone sends me a message, they had seen my brother!

We are freaking out. The person explains that he was in Norway, and had worked with my brother doing construction. This Gentleman was from Michigan, but owned a business in Norway, so could kind of weed out the BS in my brothers story. My brother was telling people that he was adopted (he wasn't) and that his family had stolen him as a baby. (We didn't.) He said my brother seemed kind of mentally off, with a lot of conspiracy theories and rambling thoughts. I thanked this guy PROFUSELY. It was so nice to know my brother was alive.

Still, this isn't proof positive. There is no picture of my brother, and by the time this guy messaged us my brother had moved on. Reddit dude told us where he my brother had said he was going next. We contact our local police with this new info. They message the police force in Upsalla, where my brother had said he was going. The police there know where he is! They go to his door and let him know his family is looking for him. He tells them he knows, and doesn't want to talk to us. They check his passport to make sure he is actually my brother. This is the best/worst news we have had. It was now 7 years since we had talked to him at all.

A couple months later my brother sends me a Facebook message! He hasn't directly contacted me in almost 8 years. He wants me to remove my Reddit post about him being missing, it was showing up when you Google searchd his name. I say I will and try and start a conversation with him. Slowly we being talking again. He agrees to taken to the rest of the family. We keep in contact for the next 2 years and I go visit him in Sweden. The year after that he moved home.

So thank you Reddit, for finding my brother :)

My brother (when he was a toddler) got put down for bed at night. My dad worked nights and I guess my brother decided he missed dad... grabbed his hobby horse and let himself out the door. Some neighborhood people called the police because this little kid wearing only a diaper was "galloping" down the street on his horse on a stick.

My stepdad was really sick when I was 4. We lived next door to his mom, my evil step grandma. While my sisters went to school I had to stay with her because my mom stayed at the hospital with my step dad. Evil Grammie was mean as a snake and haaaated me. She refused to turn cartoons on and I didn't have any toys with me, so when she went to take a shower I escaped from her house and broke into my house next door. To this day I cannot remember how I got into my house, but I hid in the bathroom cabinet behind the towels. I'm guessing hours pass, I hear people in the house calling for me. My step-Aunt says _"If I was her momma I would whoop her!" _So I stayed in the cabinet until I heard everyone leave. Including cops. Once it was quiet I called for my mom to come help me out of the cabinet. I ended up not being in trouble because my mom was sooo pissed at Evil Grammie and Auntie because I was missing for a while before they called her.

When I was in second grade... so I was 6 years old I think, the teacher got mad at me for something I can't remember now. The teacher tells me to get out of the class. I go outside into the hallway but I was pretty upset and just left. I walked out of the school and walked straight home. We only lived about 1/2 mile from the school. I went straight into my bedroom and just started playing with star wars stuff. About three hours later my frantic mother came rushing in from wherever she had been... apparently there had been quite a ruckus kicked up looking for me. My defense at the time was that the teacher told me to leave. So I did. They made me go back to school the next day.

In pre-K I loved to read. One day the teacher told us to line up to go to chapel (Christian school) but I was deep in a picture book and didn't hear. They left me and didn't notice I was gone until she was counting heads after lunch hours later! I got in soooo much trouble but never understood why it was my fault as a 4 year old that the teacher didn't check the room before leaving it.

My dad had my uncle babysit my sister and I for the day when I was ~4 and sister was 2. It was awesome, we got to hang out on his boat and eat ice cream all day. When he took us home really late I remember my mom was hysterical and a cop was there. Dad had told mom that he got rid of us and she would never see her kids again and refused to tell her if we were dead, alive, or if he even knew. The cop took us away that night and ultimately mom's parents raised us for a few years while my parents got their shit together independently from each other.

Got really drunk, woke up face down in the snow in the woods in Montana. I'm not from Montana and this was my second night there. Found the lake that we were staying on and used the moon to find the house where we were staying. Walked in the door at around 2:30 am to a group of relieved friends.

When I was around 8-10 years old my mom would drop my dad, a few of his friends, and I off on a part of Oahu in Hawaii that was all jungle with no people/buildings. We'd hunt, fish, and surf all day every day with no communication to the outside. My mom would pick us up 5-7 days later at a pre-designated spot/time.

One of the times 2 days before pickup I wandered away from camp and got lost. I had my pack and surfboard with me. Ended up camping alone for a night and surfed a few times by myself. The next day my dad found me and we never told my mom.

I honestly had a blast, would do again if I was 10 still.

My best friend and I went to a party in Portland, Oregon on a Friday night. I lost track of him at around 10 and didn't hear from him all weekend. I receive a phone call on Monday afternoon from him saying he was in Chicago.

Moral of the story: don't do drugs.

My parents were shopping with me when I was 4 or so years old. I disappeared from right next to them and they couldn't find me, had employees searching for me, yelling my name etc. My mom was frantic. They were about to file a report and do the whole Amber Alert business when I popped out from the middle of one of those round clothing racks, happy as could be because nobody found my hiding spot.

They were not pleased with me.

Not technically missing but..

When I was about 10, I went to walk to my friends house for the very first time. I usually go with him or other friends and never really played close attention to the route, but thought I will just 'remember.'

As I got about 3/4 of the way there, I suddenly arrive on a street I have NEVER seen before, this was before I had a phone, and as English was my second language having arrived in England a year before, I couldn't even ask for instructions properly.

About an hour of walking around in circles, a woman with a push chair saw me and asked if I was lost, I wasn't able to ask her for directions, I had no idea what street my house was in, no idea about my house's phone number, so she just took me to the local supermarket and from there I knew the way home. - after that, my step-dad made me memorize his mobile number, home number and address

My father had kidnapped me from my mother when I was 6. She had kicked him out of the apartment and just told me he was staying with my grandmother for a bit.

He picked me up early from school and took me to the beach. I thought it was just a fun trip to the beach with my dad. He basically spent most of the time nodding off. Two police cars pulled up and my father just got on his knees with his hands up. He was handcuffed in put in one car and the cops in the other car just told me they were taking me to my mom.

I didn't find out what actually happened until I was 17. My mom kicked my father out because he was abusive and on some drug (Thinking back on it was probably Heroin). He picked me up early from school then called my mom from a payphone (It was the early 90s) saying if she didn't let him back in the apartment he would sell me and she would never see me again.

So I fell asleep on a cot inside of a display tent in a sports supply store when I was about three or four...

It didn't help that I was my parents first kid.

Not me but my uncle.

Where he went to college there was a few train tracks that ran near campus. Trains would roll by pretty slowly, one night him and a friend drunkenly jumped on a train fully intending on jumping off close to their house. They passed out and woke up in a train yard 2 hours away from their college.

This was 25 years ago so no cellphones, took them 2 days to hitchhike back, they called their parents but friends thought they got abducted on the wrong side of town.

Got lost in the jungle for 2 days. Had the national guard find me. 6/10, would do again.

I was a baby and it was winter. My mom left our front door open and I crawled out.

She freaked out, but a few hours later the mailman brought me home.