You see adverts for people who have been missing for maybe 10 or 20 years. Perhaps they were running away from something or running to something. Perhaps they had an accident or had a degenerative disorder which meant that they forgot who they were and either floated or went through the process of being someone else. Perhaps sadly they were the victims of another person's cruelty or had to leave an abusive situation. Either way, it seems inconceivable to me that people could just disappear but still be alive albeit, living as somebody else.
I have been thinking recently of grand gestures that might lead you to have to disappear for a while. For example, you might be so unhappy in your job that you decide the only way out is to leave but you may be so ashamed of having left that you can't face people or you have to leave your family or a relationship for some what of the same reasons or you have to leave an abusive situation.
The whole process of having to start again after such a traumatic experience is exhausting and upsetting just to consider. I imagine you would have to slowly wind down things that could lead you to be traced like bank accounts or friendships. If you had a medical condition, how would you go about registering with a doctor in some place new? What about if you got sick? Would you need to change your career? How would you start to pick up the pieces of your life again? Where would you start? Do you need money to disappear with the intention of coming back as somebody else? Would you need to have people that know you are missing from somewhere with whom you can share your feelings or get practical support and advice? What about if the circumstances that led you to contemplate going missing where so traumatic that you didn't think you could trust anybody to help you or to talk to?
I was thinking there about what I would do if I wanted to go missing. Where would I start, what would I take, where would I go and who would I tell? Would I have a tipping point where I would decide in advance that being missing was worse that staying put? What would it be? When would I no longer be missing and now be found? Would I ever?
3 comments:
I have never understood how this is a possible thing to do. Does the UK have social security #'s like the US? Cuz there's no way any legit employer is gonna give you a job without one, and if you were on the run, certainly if it was from the cops, you couldn't use your real one or they'd find you. So what, you steal somebody else's?
we have the same - it's National Insurance. I have no idea but I think people must do it? I was reading something there about this guy who writes about a split in the time continuum and people falling into holes etc. Very X files. I tried to find out what percentage of adults who go missing are subsequently found but couldn't find it. Still looking
There was a well known psychologist who disappeared maybe in the 1980s. Noone not even her family knows where she is.
I have felt like doing this...sometimes one feels isolated.
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