I strongly disagree with this statement. Just because it's hard to do doesn't mean it isn't what you rationally decide you want to do. The reason for staying and the reason for leaving are orthogonal to one another or else there wouldn't be a conflict. Compare to substance addiction: You decide you want to stop, but you need.

I would disagree.

While it seems strange on the surface, what a person needs closure from isn't the site, per se. It's the sense of connection and community.

You are right that leaving a place that gives that shouldn't be abandoned lightly. Where differ is in whether or not the site is what a person is really connected to. Reddit, in particular, is no different than Facebook or Twitter, or any other digital gathering place. If that service can not, or will not, serve to connect people with bare minimum interference, they should be left.

But that leaving is (and I fully expect some grief for this) little different than leaving a church.

Things that give us that sense of connection, community, or even a piece of that feeling, have weight. People tend to accept a lot of bullshit that goes along with a structure that gives us human connection. Much like a church, a social media outlet can become toxic and cause more harm than good. When that happens, leaving is necessary. That departure being necessary does not make it hurt less.

In the case of reddit, or other social media, when you leave you have an echo left behind. That echo is vastly different than the echo left by leaving a church or a hobby club or something like that. The echo you leave at reddit or similar is an echo a company uses for their own gain.

Part of the process of leaving is minimizing that echo as much as possible. The steps involved aren't about practicality. We all know that reddit has copies of what we delete, if they want it. So we also know that closing an account, or unsubbing, or deleting comments doesn't do anything to reddit. It's done so that the individual makes a clean break. It's a necessary closure for the self.