A behavior I have noticed over my life is that when a change approaches, such as a move or other form of departure, I cut ties with people in a very aggressive way. I will avoid my friends, and become distant in my daily interactions with people. I think of this as staging, in the same way a rocket will discard stages when the fuel in them has been used up and they become dead weight.
This behavior seems to be some sort of pain-avoidance strategy, as if by cutting ties and removing "dead weight" before I actually leave, the departure won't hurt me or my friends as much. This mental strategy has physical counterparts as well, where I tend to throw away or otherwise remove many of my physical possessions before I depart. I don't like to have a large number of things anyway, but I get excessive around a move.
This started when I was ten. I had a breakdown and was moved into a private school. The move was sudden and unexpected. I was ill-prepared, and wound up not even being able to say goodbye to many of my friends, chief among them a girl named April. She was the girl of my dreams, and I never saw her again. I made contact with her, two years ago, but it didn't work out well. So now, whenever a departure comes up, I end my relationships on my own terms, and am hesitant to start new ones. I'm probably only hurting myself, and it can be lonely, but there's a reason it think of it as staging.
When a rocket separates from a stage, it can go faster and higher than before. The less I have, the less can be used against me, and the faster I can go.