The Echo of Leaving: Why Goodbyes Hit Differently When You're Care-Experienced

Posted on January 28th, 2026  

There is a particular kind of ache that comes with goodbye. For most people, it stings for a moment, then fades. But when you have grown up in the care system, when you have been adopted, fostered, or moved from placement to placement, goodbyes carry a different weight entirely. They echo. They reverberate through old wounds you thought had healed. They whisper things your younger self once believed about being unlovable, unwanted, or not quite enough.  

If you are care experienced and have ever felt like goodbyes hit you harder than they seem to hit everyone else, please know this: you are not broken. You are not overreacting. Your response makes complete sense when you understand what your body and mind have been through.  

When Leaving Becomes a Pattern  

For many care experienced people, leaving was not a single event but a recurring theme. Social workers changed. Foster carers moved on. Siblings were separated. Friends at school drifted away each time a new placement meant a new postcode, a new uniform, a new set of faces to learn.  

Each departure, no matter how well intentioned, taught the nervous system something powerful: people leave. And when people leave, it hurts.  

This is not a conscious belief most of the time. It lives deeper than that, in the part of us that flinches before we even know why. It is what researchers call anticipatory grief, a readiness for loss that develops when you have experienced too much of it too young.  

The Friend Who Stops Texting Back  

It might start small. A friend who used to message every day suddenly goes quiet. They are busy, they say. Life got in the way. And maybe that is true. But for someone care experienced, the silence can feel like confirmation of something darker.  

You might find yourself replaying every conversation, searching for the moment you said too much or asked for too little. You might feel a wave of anger, then guilt for feeling angry, then shame for caring so much in the first place.  

The thing is, when you have experienced significant loss in childhood, your brain becomes highly attuned to signs of rejection. It is not paranoia. It is protection. Your mind learned early on to scan for danger, to notice when someone is pulling away, because in the past, that awareness might have helped you prepare for the inevitable.  

But in adulthood, this hypervigilance can make ordinary friendship drifts feel catastrophic. The pain is real, even if the situation might not warrant it by someone else's standards.  

The Colleague Who Moves On  

Work relationships can be surprisingly significant for care experienced people. For some, the workplace becomes a source of stability that was missing in childhood. Colleagues become a kind of chosen family, people who see you every day, who know your coffee order and your deadlines and your Monday morning moods.  

So when a colleague leaves, whether for a new job, retirement, or simply a different team, it can trigger grief that feels disproportionate. You might find yourself struggling to concentrate, feeling irritable, or withdrawing from others in the office.  

This response makes sense. Your system has learned that change often means loss, and loss often means pain. Even a positive transition for someone else can activate old feelings of being left behind.  

When Family Leaves Again  

For those who were adopted or in long term foster care, family relationships carry layers of complexity that others rarely understand. Perhaps you found your birth family later in life, only to experience another kind of leaving when contact became too painful or too complicated. Perhaps your adoptive family, despite their love, could never quite bridge the gap left by early separation.   

And sometimes, family members who promised to stay simply do not. They drift. They disconnect. They choose other priorities.   

When this happens, it is not just a current loss. It is a reopening of the original wound, the one that said you were not worth keeping. The betrayal feels doubled, tripled, layered with every goodbye that came before.   

This does not mean your feelings are stuck in the past. It means your past is informing how deeply you feel the present. And that is a very human response to a very difficult history.   

Romantic Relationships and the Fear of Abandonment   

Perhaps nowhere does the echo of leaving ring louder than in romantic relationships. For care experienced people, intimacy can feel like walking a tightrope. You long for closeness, yet closeness makes you vulnerable. And vulnerability, your body remembers, has not always been safe.   

When a romantic partner leaves, whether through breakup, betrayal, or simply growing apart, the grief can be overwhelming. It might feel like proof of everything you feared about yourself. It might bring up feelings of worthlessness that you thought you had moved past.   

Some care experienced people find themselves pushing partners away before they can leave. Others cling tightly, terrified of any sign of distance. Both responses are attempts to manage the unbearable anxiety that comes with loving someone when you have learned that love can be taken away without warning.  

The Layers of Grief   

What makes goodbye so complicated for care experienced people is that it is rarely just about the person leaving. Each departure can activate layers of grief, some of which have never been fully processed.   

There might be grief for the childhood you did not get to have. Grief for the birth family you lost or never knew. Grief for the sense of belonging that always seemed just out of reach. Grief for the version of yourself who learned to expect abandonment as the norm.   

These layers do not disappear with time. They need acknowledgment. They need space. And they need compassion, both from others and from yourself.   

You Are Not Too Much   

If you have ever been told you are too sensitive, too needy, or too intense when someone leaves your life, please hear this: you are not too much. You are someone whose early experiences taught your nervous system to take separation very seriously. That is not a flaw. That is survival.   

The good news is that with the right support, your relationship with goodbye can change. Each honest, gentle farewell where someone explains they are leaving and follows through on promises to re- turn can begin to rewrite the story your body holds about love and safety. It is one of the most powerful gifts anyone can offer a care experienced person.   

Finding Your People   

At the Susan Vickers Foundation, we understand these feelings because many of us have lived them. Our community is built on the understanding that care experienced people deserve spaces where their emotions are validated, not dismissed.   

Whether through our monthly coffee mornings, creative workshops, or simply a place to connect with others who get it, we are here. You do not have to navigate these feelings alone.   

If this blog has resonated with you, we would love to hear from you. Every message is read. Every story matters. And every care experienced person deserves to know that some people stay. 

Get in touch with us or explore our services to find out how you can become part of our community. Because while goodbyes may hit differently when you are care experienced, hellos can be healing too.