The person is pulled back out of the painful but necessary process of adaptation and returned to a state of uncertainty.

And when the false hope is then exposed — when the returned “missing person” is revealed to be an impostor — the person has to begin the grief process again from a complicated position.

They have experienced the relief of apparent resolution and then had it removed.

They may feel foolish for having believed.

They have the additional trauma of having been exploited.

And they return to the original uncertainty, but now with less psychological resources than they had before the false hope appeared.