Ghosting - an abusive act

[Bornonthecusp]

I feel for all of y'all on this thread. I feel that everybody comes across ghosting at some point in their lives, a relationship that just stopped, didn't have closure for any reason. I've always considered myself as a person who needs closure, I trace this back to my dad killing himself when i was very young. One minute someone is in your life and you expect to see them and the next, not so much. I think it's a good lesson in not taking people for granted but i am going somewhat off topic. I have been a ghoster and I can say for me, it was not knowing how to approach the person about my feelings in an honest way. This was total fear, fear of them thinking bad of me and fear of hurting them with my words. So i took the silent way out, but silence as we know causes pain too. I know that now, having been on the other end of ghosting from people i considered very good friends of mine. Sometimes, i think it has absolutely nothing to do with the me. I think they had other things in their lives, people, situations and there was no room left. It is sad but i feel like i understand it. What is it people say... your actions are a reflection of you. I don't now if that offers any comfort or clarity but i wanted to share. I hope everyone is finding joy in some way...

Oh and before i forget, I have a possible antidote to ghosting a book called Radical Honesty by Brad Blanton, I'm practicing honesty (I don't always succeed) but i've realised how important it is to be yourself in any relationship and speak your truth. I wonder if that could perhaps lessen the chance of ghosting and being ghosted? Maybe the honesty approach would rub off...

Bornonthecusp - so sorry to hear about your dad killing himself - that's a very traumatic experience! You certainly wouldn't have had any closure there and, as you say, one minute he was in your life - the next minute all that had changed.

We all need closure - whilst I can assure you that the situation with my friend has been resolved and it was all just a misunderstanding (caused by me wrongly assuming I was being ghosted - I was jumping to conclusions due to previous trauma when I was actually being ghosted by other people), I have indeed been ghosted many times so I would like to expand on that.

Ghosting has nothing to do with us (the "ghostees", ie the ones being ghosted) not being honest enough. Being honest doesn't lessen the chances of getting ghosted. And if the other person is not honest, us being honest doesn't rub off on them.

A person ghosts a friend or a partner either because they (the "ghoster") are a downright narcissist, ie abusive, dishonest, manipulative, evil. Narcissists always ghost their victim. Or - and this is something I have only learned after reading the responses in this thread - they might sometimes not know how to approach a situation and so choose to withdraw. Some people might just need a break.

I am not including here situations such as when one is being stalked and one has to block the stalker on social media, or when one has toxic "friends" and the only way to get rid of them is to suddenly cease all contact. That is not real ghosting, that is often simply the only way to deal with abusive people.

Being ghosted is incredibly traumatic and feels worse than if someone had died. When someone dies, we get at least some kind of closure - we know they are in the spirit world, we can visit their grave. When we are being ghosted we have nothing like that - we wonder forever what happened, we worry if the person ghosting us is alright, we wonder if we have said or done anything wrong, we wonder how someone who was a friend or partner could do something like that to us.

The trauma is overwhelming and never really heals. It leaves scars on our souls. When this happens several times, the scars on our souls become too much, and we react in the way I did - I wrongly assumed my friend was ghosting me when in fact he was doing no such thing.

My wrong assumption was no doubt caused by the trauma of having been ghosted many times in my life, I went into panic mode and thought that's it, it's happening again - without considering that my friend is not like these other people, that he is in fact a trustworthy and emotionally mature person, and that I could simply have asked him what the situation was instead of jumping to conclusions. But with my wrong assumption I caused my friend a lot of pain (and myself too) and it is only thanks to my friend's very mature approach and his understanding that the situation was resolved. That's what ghosting does to us.

Therefore one should always let people know if one wants to withdraw - the exception being, as mentioned above, if there is no other way to get away from toxic people (or scammers, and I have ghosted scammers before now), but then that is not really ghosting.

As you rightly say - it is indeed very important to be oneself in any relationship, whether this be a friendship, romantic relationship, or whatever. If one feels one cannot be oneself - then the relationship is not what it should be.

[Bornonthecusp]

Ankhesenamun - It seems like you learned a lot from this experience and i think that's awesome. That shows so much self-awareness and awareness of the unknown world's of others. And also growth. I'm really grateful you could share that with us and I appreciate your words about my dad's death - it certainly helped to shape my being. I don't believe i have had total closure on it, how could I? Sure, I know he's only gone from the physical but i'll know exactly why he chose to kill himself why that day of all days, why have me if he never planned on staying around? But anyways, my point is it's still ghosting, from my perspective. I'm also grateful for the experience as it has given me a purpose, my goal being to help people, young men in particular, by counselling them. Giving them a voice and perhaps helping them to learn that, they have people to turn to.

I think that's my main point here, that there's always a reason for these experiences, and we can choose to make the best of them, to learn and evolve from them. Especially the experiences such as ghosting, that hurt. I think that pain can be a tremendous gift in that way.

[heartsound]

Someone on here taught me a word for those kinda people... Cyberpaths! ..I chuckle when I hear it.. but i see how it can apply to a person online with not so nice intentions....you can practically be anyone you want online and get away with it. Not good..

[Nature Grows]

Ghosting is normally done because the person doesn't want tell the other person how they feel or what they really want to say, normally because they feel like it would hurt the person's feelings. So to avoid that and an uncomfortable an possibly awkward situation they vanish, it's not always a mean person your dealing with when someone ghosts but a sensative person.

Bornonthecusp - that's a very interesting point you are making, that it shows awareness on my part that I learned from this experience and that I recognized where I went wrong. That's actually very true, thank you for pointing that out. I had been feeling incredibly guilty ever since all this happened because I realize that I acted very selfishly by thinking my friend could possibly be ghosting me - I know I reacted like that because of previous traumatizing experiences, but that doesn't change the fact that I was in the wrong and that I was terribly inconsiderate. We cannot blame people for what others have done to us, and I certainly was wrong to think that way of my friend. But as you rightly say - I have grown from this, and my friend has certainly shown tremendous understanding. He is a wonderful soul and he understands.

No you haven't had any real closure about your dad. But it's great that you are using your experience to help others - that shows incredible inner strength of a magnitude that not many people have. You have turned a negative into a positive and you are now changing other people's lives for the better too. That also shows tremendous self awareness and empathy.

Indeed everything happens for a reason - this is something I am still struggling with because many terrible tragedies have happened to me and I am still struggling to come to terms with the fact that it all happened for a reason. At times I still feel overwhelmed with thoughts of "why me" and I wonder why I cannot just have an easy life like most other people. But I know there is a reason for everything.

Indeed pain can be a gift because it shapes us, it forces us to think about things we would never have thought of otherwise.


HeartSound - that's very true and I have come across many people who pretended to be something they are not online. Unfortunately this is extremely common nowadays since the internet came about. It never used to be like that before - not even in the days of pen friendships, maybe because even then it wasn't possible to be completely anonymous because pen friends had each other's addresses. Or - more likely - people just weren't that evil in the olden days. Nowadays there are so many pretenders around online it's unreal! One has to be extremely careful - but that's a good word, cyberpaths, lol, it describes exactly what fake people are.

Nature Grows - that is true and I have certainly learned through the responses on here that there can be other reasons for ghosting other than the ghoster being an evil person. I have never experienced that though - as outlined on here, my friend was not ghosting me but it was all a terrible misunderstanding, but I have been ghosted by many people before and all of them were indeed evil. But I don't doubt that there might be sensitive people around who just cannot bring themselves to tell the other person something that might hurt them.

[Ghost_Rider_1970]

I think 'ghosting' has become more common place because of technology and being able to hide behind a screen of some description.

So many communicate purely by social media or text rather than talking over the phone or face-to-face. Especially if there is some physical distance involved too. Therefore expression and intonation are often lost in written words with them being hard to convey sentiment and emotion.

I also think that as with disposable technology, people are starting to be treated the very same way. I believe a lot of this is because of the vast choices that are available to us that take us away from socialising by way of physicality. So we tend to invest much less, by having the freedom to go so easily from one thing to another. This mindset then filters into relationships - where they too become disposable.

I don't necessarily believe that this makes someone evil or a naccassist, but simply shallow and somewhat detached from themselves emotionally. Where in my view it is better to have a few meaningful realtionships than many that are meaningless.

[Khalli]

Not all ghosting situations are done out of meanness.

Among introverts especially INFJ's there is a defense mechanism called the 'Door Slam'. It looks like ghosting, but, is really a protective measure and it isn't used lightly. So unless you know what is going on in a person mentally/emotionally, it is best to let them be.

[Nature Grows]

Originally Posted by Khalli

Not all ghosting situations are done out of meanness.

Among introverts especially INFJ's there is a defense mechanism called the 'Door Slam'. It looks like ghosting, but, is really a protective measure and it isn't used lightly. So unless you know what is going on in a person mentally/emotionally, it is best to let them be.

Thats what i was kinda saying before, its not always about meanness, which OP understands now, iv ghosted and maybe "door slamed" before (not to such an extreme extent i just read about though, i just looked door slamming up) but im INFP personality .. in that test anyway, not INFJ.

Its even possible someone might ghost or door slam you because they like you too and feel like its just a better thing to do.. i dunno, these things are just not so straight forward, its not the same for everyone with there reasons for doing so.

Ghost_Rider_1970 - very true what you say, indeed since the internet and text messaging came about, people don't value their friends as much any more as before. It's also to do with the fact that people don't meet up in person any more - in the olden days, folks used to meet at functions, clubs, hobby classes, work or school - so they knew each other and then they spent time in each others' company. Nowadays with only communicating online, many people don't take the time to get to know their friends properly - and therefore don't care about their friends' feelings. Very sad that is. A good friend is a good friend regardless of whether one is meeting up on person or communicating in other ways - until a few years ago it was popular to have pen friends, and pen friends cared about each other and did not treat each other as disposable.

Very true what you say - better to have few real friends than many but meaningless friendships.

Khalli and Nature Grows - yes I understand this now, I used to think it was only narcissists who ghost their victims because all narcissists do that, but it's of great interest to me that shy or introverted people might also do so - though for different reasons and certainly not to hurt anyone. I'm glad I have learned that as it will help me to understand people better.