Ghosting - an abusive act

[Tomma]

he has contacted me again

So as I see it from what you wrote here and in your other thread, he was being honest when he told you he needed a break, he was not ghosting you, and you were a bit quick calling him narcistic, immature, and abusive.

I have been ghosted, it's a confusing and painful experience, so I can understand your upset. But it seems now that this guy is not a "ghoster". What do you think?

[Evangeline 77]

I ghosted a "friend" at the end and I dont feel guilty about it.
She claimed to be my best friend but then lied to my face, when I need a place to stay for a week before I could move in to my flat she lied again despite of having an empty room.
I got her jobs three times. Never a thank you but "we were best friends"
I had to realise how condescending she was towards me, I was pretty naive before so yes I decided this person is not worth my time nor more effort. I just stopped talking to her.

Also ghosted another "friend" who was only available whenever she needed something,

You can call it immature or weak but these people do not deserve any explanation in my eyes.

[white-dove]

Originally Posted by Ankhesenamun

I would like to write about ghosting. Ghosting has nothing to do with ghosts. Ghosting is the act of suddenly ignoring a friend or partner as if they don't exist. Ghosting means to suddenly not reply to someone's text, call, email, it is the act of not contacting them - basically treating them as if they were a ghost - as if they don't exist.

Ghosting someone is a very abusive act. It causes a lot of suffering and uncertainty to the person being ghosted, it causes worry if something might have happened. The person being ghosted is left devastated, not knowing what the reason is for the sudden cessation of all contact. They will wonder forever what happened, why their friend or partner suddenly excluded them from their lives. They wonder whether they have done or said something wrong. They wonder if the person ghosting them is alright or if they might need help. The person being ghosted will never find closure to the friendship or relationship. Being ghosted is soul destroying.

I have experienced being ghosted numerous times. Each time from someone who proclaimed to be ever such a good friend or even potential future partner. Each time it was absolutely devastating because I genuinely care about people I believe to be friends. Each time there was no argument, no disagreement, no sign that the person that was ghosting me did not want to be friends any more. Each time I was left desperately trying to find out if they were alright - only to find out that they were and just did not even have the courtesy to tell me they did not want any further contact.

At present I am yet again being ghosted. Again by someone I believed to be a very good friend, someone I cared very deeply for, someone I did not ever want to lose as a friend. Someone who had proclaimed to also care about me. Someone who I trusted and believed to be a good person.

Sadly ghosting has become very fashionable recently.

I would however like to state the following:

A person who ghosts someone is an abuser, a narcissist. To commit such an abusive act and to knowingly cause another person to suffer worry and anxiety, devastation and inner pain shows a very devious and evil personality. A person who is capable of doing such a thing is not worthy of my time or the time of anyone who is a genuinely good and spiritual person. People who are ghosting me or have ghosted me in the past might enjoy the knowledge that they are causing me pain - but my pain will heal whilst they can never hope to achieve the inner strength and the faith in God that I have. People who are so seriously flawed that they don't know how to treat others are truly beneath me and anyone who values themselves.


So, folks, if any of you are being ghosted or have been ghosted - yes it hurts. It hurts because we are genuine people with genuine emotions. We hurt because we really cared about the people who are ghosting us. But the fact that the people ghosting us are laughing at us, enjoying our pain, feeling that they are above us because they managed to cause us such pain - this only shows that they can never even hope to achieve what we have achieved: the ability to truly feel, to truly care about someone, to truly love.

And that makes them very poor indeed.

I fully agree about this, and would never do it to anyone!
I don’t understand it at all... it just seems so cruel. It’s interesting to hear you describe it this way.

It has happened to me once, and it was clear that emotionally he could deal with nothing that even reminded him of me, not even e.g. my name next to a FB post ‘like’!!

So ok, I can forgive him. But now I consider it and how deeply we cared for one another (reciprocal) it was cruel of him to subject me to this, and yes it did really hurt.

Tbh I have not been able to face the thought that perhaps in ignoring and blocking me he might have wished to actively harm me... somehow blaming me for things .. the reason we were not anymore in contact was that I said something that deeply offended him. He said I had invaded his privacy and insulted him, I felt how hurt he was, and in the aftermath just responded to his angry vibes with continuous repetitive ‘love vibes’ until his turned more loving too.

But he never contacted me again... and yes, when I liked his post on FB a couple of weeks ago, then I went back to see if he had posted more pics of his hols (this holiday was when we were supposed to meet for 1st time.. being on diff continents), he had blocked me!!

Took me ages to figure it out, I am not even able to ‘reject’ a friend request (I rather leave them sitting there if I don’t know them) let alone unfriend or BLOCK someone!?!

It’s double dutch to me..... but your post helpd :-)

[eliana israel]

In certain cases, ghosting is very very abusive. I experienced something where someone "ghosted" on me and I couldn't figure out why. The one time I go in with pretty much an open heart, he ghosted on me. it really really really effected me for a long time, and I was blamed for it by a third party completely unaware of who I am as a person. I wasn't blocked or anything. After 5 long years, I learned to forgive and let go. More than anything Im mad at myself for "following my dreams: and giving him the benefit of the doubt that he had inner beauty...he was so unattractive lol

[ocean breeze]

I agree with Tomma.

Ankhesenamun, i don't know exactly what's going on but i don't think its wise to end a good friendship over an assumption that may not even be true. Many times this has happened to me.

Very interesting replies on here, thank you!

To start with, I would like to share the wonderful news with all of you that the friend I thought was ghosting me, was in fact doing no such thing, and a misunderstanding has been cleared up and we are still friends. I'm so so happy about that!

Tomma - I wasn't referring to my friend but to ghosters in general when I described that they are narcissistic, immature and abusive. I knew my friend is not like that but assumed that for whatever reason it was happening again - I have been ghosted so many times in the past that I absolutely panicked and jumped to conclusions. When I panicked I lost the ability to think clearly, though I knew there would be a reason for whatever was happening and that my friend is most certainly no narcissist. He has shown great emotional maturity in fact when resolving this situation, but even when I was under the impression that he was ghosting me I knew that there was some reason for whatever was happening. And you are right - I did jump to conclusions. I've learned a lesson from all this, that's for sure.

ocean breeze - true what you say too, indeed I've been jumping to conclusions there and am so happy it's all resolved now.


Whilst I am overjoyed that this situation with my friend has been resolved - and I am glad I can share the good news with you guys on here - this thread has also grown into an interesting discussion.

Having plenty of experience with being ghosted, I can say for certain that narcissists always ghost their target/victim - they enjoy the suffering that they are causing the victim. Indeed they always keep checking up on their victim in secret - usually for reasons of trying to find a way to "hoover" the victim. The term hoovering refers to narcissists contacting their victim again, whether directly or indirectly, and many do so indirectly by way of a fake online account.

However - reading the replies on here also shows me that a person who ghosts another person might not necessarily be a narcissist. I agree there might be other reasons, for example if a friend turns out to be a fake friend and there is no other way to get rid of them. Normally I would say let them know at least - but sometimes that might not even be possible. Under normal circumstances though one should at least have the courtesy to let the other person know what is going on.

Whilst in this instance I had jumped to conclusions, I have been ghosted many times before. All of these people were abusive, narcissistic, all of them later tried to hoover me, all of them had neither the ability nor the will to resolve matters in a mature way. Each time it was devastating though - and I still bear the scars from these traumatic experiences on my soul, which is precisely why I jumped to conclusions in this case. That's what ghosting does to us - there is no closure. We move on eventually but we always wonder what happened.

Whilst I have been ghosted many times, on a few occasions I have had to end "friendships" with people who were no friends. On each occasion though I told them the reason - they hit the roof but at least I had told them.

One exception though - on two occasions I ghosted people because they were scammers! Both were romance scammers - the kind that contacts a woman online and pretends to be in love with her, manipulates her and then tries to scam her out of money - or worse, scam her into marriage for immigration purposes whilst pretending to love her! Such people are the scum of the earth. When they contacted me, I knew they were scammers and I played them along for a bit to waste their time before suddenly ghosting them. I'm sure we can all agree that under such circumstances, it is well deserved!

[Anala]

Ghosting, I had never heard of it, but I have experienced it. I felt like someone punched me in the heart. I am sorry you had to experience it. I have a friend who tells me that everyone is just doing the best they can. I am working on pushing out love and compassion to my ghost, whom I bumped into the other day. It made me feel better.

[ocean breeze]

Originally Posted by Ankhesenamun

Very interesting replies on here, thank you!

To start with, I would like to share the wonderful news with all of you that the friend I thought was ghosting me, was in fact doing no such thing, and a misunderstanding has been cleared up and we are still friends. I'm so so happy about that!

Thanks for sharing your positive update.

[Ariaecheflame]

I have cut two people out of my life out of necessity because they were stalking me - they were calling and texting me at least 20 times a day - and at 3a.m numerous times a week.

If I was unavailable to talk they would contact my friends and family and ask why I was ignoring them and if they didn't like the response they would go ahead and try and cause trouble for me and my family (yes they would try and contact them at odd hours of the morning).

I tried numerous times for many years to be frank and tell them that I will simply not respond to their multiple calls, texts and other demands, I started to turn my phone off at night only to be barraged by accusations the next day...

anyway - the only way which I could stop all of it was to cut them loose.

I had to cut all contact, I blocked the numbers and the contacts on social media shortly before shutting down my social media page and I told my family members to block the number and social media contact as well.

It took a few months for the message to get through but it had to be done - I didn't like to block someone out as ruthlessly as that but I had tried for years to be honest and state my needs but all of my requests were ignored and laughed at...

I do not regret my decision at all, those were two extremely unhealthy relationships and my boundaries were not even being slightly respected.

emeraldheart - that is a situation where you are certainly well within your right to cut these people out of your life.

You told them to leave you alone - they didn't get the message. And stalking is serious. You have done the right thing by blocking them on social media and blocking their numbers. Stalking has nothing to do with a friendship or relationship, it's just toxic and disruptive. Glad to see that it has helped to block them.

Just be careful because quite often, stalkers set up fake online accounts on social media and contact their target whilst pretending to be someone else. If you get any friend requests on social media from people who you don't know - it could well be these people. It's difficult because we all like to make new friends and talk to people - get to know someone before you tell them anything about yourself.