People that vanish and don`t want to be found

[TheCheekySloth]

Just been watching a documentary about people that have vanished basically evaporated.
Some just up and left no warnings no fall outs no coming back.
Others left for other reasons, reasons some of us would think are silly.
But to just wake up walk out never come back.
No calls messages nothing they just evaporated.

This got me thinking does this happen more than we think, i dont know anyone that as done it.
Would you do it?
I dont know if i could as ive cut most out of my life, but to just evaporate is a different level.

There’s always a reason. I at times, wish I could. Although I’m married and adore my dh and children, so I’d want us all to go. I settled on moving country instead.
For me, I am estranged from my parents and I’m devastated about it. Contact with much loved brothers and their family is wonderful and it’s so so difficult too. Constant reminders of my traumas and of how they have parents and I don’t. I often tell me therapist that I get why people disappear without a trace. Why they cut everyone off. Because ties are painful.

when you read about people in the past who were stigmatised - particularly single mothers or unmarried ones…. I can never understand why they didn’t just move and tell people a different life history (change wedding dates, invent deceased husbands etc). I suppose there must have been some of that going on - birth dates in our family were certainly fudged more than once. It must have been so much easier (practically) before the digital age.

This boy vanished from a neighbourhood near to where I grew up. Minimal coverage. I often think of him.
www.missing.ie/missing_persons/rory-aherne-dublin/

My friends dad just vanished when she was a kid. Nobody knows what happened or where he ever went. I find it bizarre that he just got up one day and disappeared. This would have been in the 80’s.

It sounds as if they've heard word that he's OK. It says "We know you've built a new life for yourself."

Thanks for answering and I hope your move goes really well 💚

About a year ago, I found that a good friend from school was missing. I was trying to find her online to reconnect, and she came up on a Missing Persons website. But then it transpired that the police knew that she was OK; she had just walked out of her life.

She was adopted from being a baby, and I wonder if she felt she didn't fit in with her family - although she had a brother who was also adopted, so she couldn't have felt like she had to "compete" with bio kids, and her parents seemed, to me, to be absolutely lovely, and pretty similar to her. All left-wing academics (missing friend went to Cambridge and her dad was a university lecturer while her mother was a teacher). I remember them as wonderful people. But, of course, you never know what goes on behind closed doors.

Her SIL told me that she thought my friend wanted to break free, as it were, and "just didn't know how to say it." Assuming neither of her parents were secret monsters, she could have left a note! They must have been frantic.

My sister has a friend whose dad disappeared more than twenty years ago. In his case, they do think that something happened to him, because his bank accounts were never touched again.

This thread, and my experience of my friend having walked out of her life, makes me realise that it's more likely people who vanish have done so to start again, rather than something awful happening to them.

When I found that my friend was on that missing persons website, other things about missing people came into my feed. There was a story about a married mother who disappeared one day and wasn't heard of again for about forty years. Turned out she wasn't terribly far away, but had left because her husband was abusive, and had remarried and had four more kids!

Did you leave a note so at least they knew that nothing grisly had happened to you?

No. But they wouldn’t have cared even if something grisly had happened, it wasn’t a loving situation.

I have considered that too, as an adoptee. I know about my birth mother's circumstances (at least some idea) and why she wouldn't have taken that route but hearing stories about other birth mothers who really wanted to keep their babies, it did cross my mind to wonder why they didn't just say (given my era) that their husband was killed in Vietnam, for example? Who would ever really know? But - I think this is a very modern way of thinking, at least with respect to women, given we couldn't get credit cards, had issues opening bank accounts, help with childcare so you could work, etc. I can see how it would have felt insurmountable.

I posted my own story on why I did it in another thread I didn’t realize there was two Very similar Reposting here :
About 15 years I up left the area I was born in and lived in.
my mother was a addict who abused me in every way possible and father not on the scene.
I was heading the same way as her addiction wise, aswell as struggling with self harming because of my alcohol and addiction issues I was in my early 20s.
everyone in the area knew me as “her” daughter so I had no chance.
I tried to commit suicide but it failed, (very thankful it did now) i had just had enough I didn’t want to live like that anymore and knew if I kept up that lifestyle in the area I lived I would end up dead. I had always dreamt of having a family, a husband a “normal” life.
so I left my flat, deleted all social media. Through away my SIM card (that was when it was proper SIM cards not e sims)
I went to the civic Centre in another area quite far away told them I had addiction issues, been raised with abuse etc. And they were amazing. I was placed in a Centrepoint. From there I was housed, I used a different surname, then when I had enough money I changed it formally by deed poll and applied for benefits. Centrepoint helped me with all of this they were amazing. They also got me psychological help for my issues. They fed me, they got me clothes because I arrived with what I had on my back and a printed out map of how to find them from the Civic Centre, they taught me how to cook and clean and basic self hygiene. I doubt I was ever reported missing or if I was the police didn’t bother to look for me.
Once in my own little flat I found a sense of peace I had never ever had. I slept like I had never slept before. I found a job, met an amazing man. Made normal friends.
I have told my husband about my past and the full story in detail. He doesn’t blame me for what I did. We now have 3 amazing children, a proper home, pets!
Due to my past I do have mental health issues such as PTSD and anxiety disorder. But I deal with that, it’s a small price to pay I would rather deal with that then have the old life I did. I still have no social media and have no want to plus the fact I’m scared someone sees my picture and makes contact.
I now have my husbands name because we are married and my marriage certificate doesn’t have any parents on. I am so grateful for all the help with center point and lucky that my husband “gets it”

My Grandad had died by then and my Nana was overjoyed to have her back. They always knew she was alive, just not where, or how she was, as birthday and xmas presents were sent to me every year.
When clearing out my grandads stuff, my Nana found a letter in the bag of his stuff that had come from the hospice, that my Mum had sent him - she had someone at home keeping her up to date on our lives. She has never shown it to me, nor has my Mum told me what was in it, all my Nana ever said was that it confirmed to her that my Mum had never forgotten or stopped loving any of us and that it was her demons and her own guilt that had kept her away.

People always say that the person just left 'for no reason.' But there's always a reason.

DP's sister upped and left when she was 17. This was around 1990. She had recently got an office job, then one day she didn't turn up for work and nobody knew where she had gone. It became obvious fairly quickly that she had planned to leave. She had taken clothing and money and other bits and bobs. DP's parents' first reaction was to be angry. Then embarrassed. Then worried. And that was the crux of it. Their default has always been to be pissed off with their children. To criticise. To make them feel they weren't good enough. They fed and clothed them and bought them expensive stuff, but they were bloody awful parents. Emotionally and physically abusive. They eventually managed to track her down after a year and a half, just by total chance, but she refused to come home, even though she was living in what was basically a squat. Gradually, over a few years, contact between SIL and her parents increased. There have been a couple of very long periods of no contact, basically because she isn't prepared to take any shit. But things are ok now. Just about. Very low contact, but fairly cordial. SIL is married with children and has two Masters degrees, so eventually flourished away from her parents' influence. They don't have any self awareness whatsoever and believe they are the victims and that their offspring are nothing but a disappointment. SIL lives hundreds of miles away, which is exactly how she likes it. She has a had a LOT of therapy.

I do miss them in the abstract and wish them well but I don't miss them enough to continue keeping in touch.

I try to be friendly but not friends so that people don't feel hurt that I don't want a deeper relationship.

Someone I know of left their children (adults) a note to say he was going to take his own life and he will never be found, and not to try and look for him. I can’t remember if he had had a terminal diagnosis or something to make him make this decision, but it was about 3 years ago and he’s not been found.

He can’t be confirmed legally dead until 7 years, it just feels really unfair on his children, but I guess his thinking is this way is better than his children finding his body. Awful.

We had a case like this in Ireland. Tine stachwell , husband reported her missing and years later the police found her buried under the staircase of their home. He had killed her and buried her. I think everyone kind of suspected it though as his story had more holes that a golf course.

Fewer than 1% remain missing, most are found within two days.

I think it's pretty common, as I've known 2 people go missing. One, a college friend disappeared due to mental breakdown and being in financial trouble - he did eventually 'come back' and get in touch again about 10 years later and managed to turn his life around. Another, a close relative, also mental ill health, disappeared - a year later he was found but unfortunately only found because they had died. Both really sad stories and had a profound impact on those left behind.

Many women who had illegitimate babies during the war invented a 'husband' who had been killed in action. My aunt had my cousin just as the war ended. She had lived away from home and came home to have the baby, with a married name,a wedding ring and a husband who had been killed on an air raid but nobody had ever been invited to the wedding (although my dad, who was her much younger brother, had met the man she was calling her husband and liked him a lot). I have always suspected that she never really married him.

Me got a growing pile of cash and a burner phone already.

Clever her! Glad she found a way for that to work out.

I am really not sure why that story doesn't seem to be more common during the Vietnam era, interesting. I think possibly because in WWII basically everyone had their own problems to worry about, with less time to busy-body about?

I am really not sure why that story doesn't seem to be more common during the Vietnam era, interesting.

Depends what country you're talking about. Killed in an air raid would work in the UK but not the US. Killed in Vietnam would do for the US but of course not for the UK.

Yes they do. As soon as they reach adulthood and are able to support themselves financially, then some people do decide they can't be dealing with their toxic relatives any more.

Without support it likely wouldn't be possible.

In my family the whole family moved - dad moved for a job. Took wife and kids with him. Then a few weeks later their young windowed daughter and her child joined them...

That gave her the chance to get a job while her mother looked after her grandchild along with her own children.

She wouldn't have had childcare if she didn't have her family around her. No welfare state would have meant the workhouse and being separated from her child