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When missing people don’t want to be found: ‘I’d removed myself to push the world away’
“I’d planned to hole up in the hotel, which made total sense at the time. Then I could see [the social media] stuff blowing up. My face and people’s thoughts about me were being shared across the UK and beyond.” Esther says. She had just wanted to be alone, but this wasn’t what solitude was supposed to feel like. Her phone was deluged with increasingly panicked messages and phone calls, from family and relative strangers, including her year 9 geography teacher. Esther couldn’t bring herself to answer them. Then there were the actual strangers; people inserting themselves into her private messages, asking where she’d gone and when she was coming back. On the late afternoon of Sunday 31 January, Esther walked into St Thomas’ hospital, a few yards from the crowds of tourists on Westminster Bridge, and asked to see the mental health crisis team. Her missing episode, as the rest of the world seemed to be calling it, was over. She had been found safe and well, to use the standard policing jargon.
“I’d planned to hole up in the hotel, which made total sense at the time. Then I could see [the social media] stuff blowing up. My face and people’s thoughts about me were being shared across the UK and beyond.” Esther says. She had just wanted to be alone, but this wasn’t what solitude was supposed to feel like. Her phone was deluged with increasingly panicked messages and phone calls, from family and relative strangers, including her year 9 geography teacher. Esther couldn’t bring herself to answer them. Then there were the actual strangers; people inserting themselves into her private messages, asking where she’d gone and when she was coming back. On the late afternoon of Sunday 31 January, Esther walked into St Thomas’ hospital, a few yards from the crowds of tourists on Westminster Bridge, and asked to see the mental health crisis team. Her missing episode, as the rest of the world seemed to be calling it, was over. She had been found safe and well, to use the standard policing jargon.
