Rachel Greenbush is getting candid on how the end of Little House on the Prairie affected her — for years after its end.
The actress and her twin sister Sidney, now 55, joined the show when they were only three years old, sharing the role of Carrie Ingalls, the younger sister of lead Melissa Gilbert's Laura Ingalls Wilder, daughter to family patriarch Charles Ingalls, played by the late Michael Landon.
The two were credited under one name, Lindsay Sidney Greenbush, and remained on the show through its eight seasons, leaving the beloved historical drama when they were 12 years old.
Rachel, speaking at the Little House on the Prairie Final 50th Anniversary Reunion at the Strathearn Historical Park in Simi Valley, California earlier this month, reflected on her time on the Prairie set, and particularly her life after she left it.
In conversation with moderator Pamela Bob, cohost of the Little House 50 podcast, Rachel said: "It's a really strange thing about acting and all actors know it, that it's not forever, that you don't know if it's going to get renewed for another season," noting: "You're always on pins and needles, 'Are we coming back? Are we not coming back?'"
She added that even though "logically" she knew it would end, even at 12 years old, she said: "Your heart feels like it's never going to end. This is never going to end."
"I don't think I really realized how much it affected me until I was much older and went on the journey of reconciliation and self-discovery," she said of the years that followed away from the Prairie cast and set.
"Everybody separated and I didn't see anybody," she recalled, adding: "And that was really hard for me personally because I didn't realize how connected I had been to everybody until years later," and compared it to parents getting a divorce, and not seeing your family anymore, per People.
She further reflected: "It's almost a tragic loss, but I wouldn't let myself acknowledge it because I was like, 'But this is the profession. This is what we do.'"
"You make these really deep intense bonds working with each other every single day and then when it's over you're just supposed to be like, 'Okay, that was nice. Bye.' And it's really hard that way."
And while the grief of leaving Prairie stayed with her for a long time, spending her childhood on the show, and the work ethic it instilled, also had other lasting effects that were positive. "If I tell you I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it," she said. "And you can count on me to do that because I gave my word that I'm going to do it."
She continued: "If I can't do it, I will call you and say, 'Hey, by the way, something's come up,' but I will never leave you hanging and just not show up. That's something that I learned in my childhood because Michael [Landon], he wanted us to be prepared and he was depending on us to be little working actors."