This chapter describes the many ways of committing social suicide – i.e., leaving home, disappearing & never returning. The author asserts that just as physical suicides destroy their biological selves, social suicides destroy their social selves or identities. He describes 3 types of social suicide: calculated & complete abandonment, gradual & partial changes in identity & situational or impulsive disappearances. Two case histories & grief reactions from survivors are included. (VM)