A tale of two ghosts

Hi, today's post was written by my friend Ehiane
about something she has experienced recently. Enjoy while you read!

       The dictionary defines ghosting as the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by, suddenly and without explanation, withdrawing from all communication. This is an experience I am quite familiar with because I have been ghosted not once, but twice.

        Ghosting can be quite damaging to a person. It puts one in an awful psychological state of mind. The person that got ghosted begins to doubt themselves, they might even develop self-esteem issues, and the list goes on and on. Ghosting can be quite tricky especially when the relationship is not quite defined, so it leaves you even more confused because you ask yourself “what were we actually?”. When I say relationship, I mean it in the broad sense because ghosting does not just happen in romantic relationships. It occurs in platonic relationships too. The thing about ghosting, according to my friend, is that it is not outright rejection, it is basically them saying “you are unimportant to me” and “I do not respect you.” Ghosting is an emotionally immature thing to do and, if for some reason, a person decides to stop talking to someone, whether a friend or a potential partner, let them know instead of ghosting. If you are someone that regularly ghosts people, you need to self- reflect and ask yourself why you choose ghosting as an option and then, make some improvements in your life.

       When I got ghosted the very first time, it took me about two months to get over it. Granted, I was still young, not emotionally mature, and not used to being ghosted. This was someone that met me at an event, approached me, put in the effort and talked to me for months only to suddenly disappear into thin air. I was devastated. I wondered what went wrong for months and I asked myself unending questions.

       The second time I got ghosted, I ended up going to therapy. This was someone I met at a time when I was open to meeting new people, someone I liked and someone I considered a friend. I was sad for months and even though we were not in a relationship, I felt like I got my heart broken. I could barely sleep, I had a panic attack, I developed mild anxiety thinking about what would happen if I happened to run into them. I was in a funk for days. I felt like an idiot because romantics aside, I genuinely liked this person as a friend. So, imagine getting excited about a new friend and having a great connection with them only for them to disappear? It hurts. I felt so disrespected and embarrassed. I made a promise to myself to never let myself experience something like that again.

      Getting ghosted made me feel stupid. It made me feel like I did not matter. It made me doubt my own sanity because I kept wondering if anything about the period I knew this person was even real. I kept going back to the last conversation I had with them and tried to figure out what went wrong. I blamed myself for the ghosting and I thought that surely, something had to be wrong for me to keep getting ghosted. The funny thing is I do not hate the people that ghosted me, in fact, I am quite thankful for them because now more than ever, I know not to expect anything from anybody. My friends were surprised at the fact that I had no negative feelings towards the people that ghosted me. Truth be told, I was more upset at the whole situation and mad that I was the one in the situation. I also tried to rationalize things. Maybe they were going through a difficult time, maybe they just did not like me, maybe this, maybe that. But all the maybes in the world could not excuse the fact that they ghosted me. I also made myself believe nobody owed me anything, not even an explanation. While that is true, it is also true that we owe each other common courtesy, especially if you have been friends with someone for a minute. In the moment, ghosting can make a person feel unhappy, but after you realize that you have given this person a lot of your time, energy, and mental space, you get some clarity. Now you know where you stand, no mixed messages, and no room for misinterpretations.

       My little friend group gave me all the emotional support I needed. I am not a naturally expressive or emotional person, so this was a new experience for my friends and me. It took me a while to even share what had happened with them because it takes me months to process things. They had never seen me in a situation like that and even though they did not know how to help me, they provided listening ears. They stayed on the phone with me and listened to me when I went on and on about my situation and were there when I tried to make sense of it. They knew the right things to say when I was overwhelmed with emotions. They called and texted me non-stop to check on me. They also understood when I did not want to talk to them about anything and needed to be alone. One of my friends made me go to her apartment every weekend so I would not get more upset staying in my room by myself. Another sent me multiple articles and videos to make me feel better. Having a strong friend group that can provide emotional support helps. 10/10 would recommend.

I am also very self-aware, so I was able to identify what was wrong with me and realized I needed help. I noticed that after I got ghosted, I stopped taking pictures because I did not feel beautiful anymore. This was easy to figure out because I am usually a very vain person. I decided to go to therapy and that helped me a lot. I stopped waiting around for closure because firstly, I do not believe in it, but also, I knew it would never happen. I knew my questions were never going to be answered because I believe people know what they are going to do before they do it. So, for this person to have ghosted, means they did not spare me a thought. I was not going to let them validate why they did me wrong. One thing I am grateful for is the fact that I am a proud person, so no matter how much I like someone, I can never beg for their attention. Of course, when I did not hear from them, I called a few times and sent a few text messages, because I was genuinely worried that something had happened to them. After I found out they were good, and I was being ignored, I stopped trying to contact them. So, if you ever find yourself in this situation, cry, be angry, do what you need to do, but do not beg. I learned to accept what happened and I stopped waiting for them to come back into my life.

Getting over being ghosted is not easy. For people that believe in closure, the lack of closure is crazy. You must make a conscious decision to get over it. You need to understand that it is not your fault, and that it is more about the person that ghosted. There is a sense of shame and embarrassment that comes with being ghosted, but you need to realize that how other people behave is not on you. Cut your losses, move on, and place this person firmly behind you. Do not beat yourself up about it because I can assure you that the person that ghosted you is living their very best life and is not bothered at all about what they did to you. Accept the reality of the situation. Take off your rose-colored glasses and see things for what they are and not what they “could be”. Someone told me that the reason I was still sad about what had happened was because although it hurt me, I was leaving room for the person to come back and make excuses for why they did that. Which meant I had already accepted, forgiven, and was now waiting for this person to come back into my life. That was my moment of realization. I realized that I needed to stop waiting. One major thing I realized is that people do not care, people can and will do things to you and go on about their lives not even slightly affected by what they did, and you cannot do anything but move on from it. My experiences with ghosting helped me adjust my expectations. I know I am still quite young, but I am 100 percent sure that I will never allow anybody else break me again to that extent.

I realized that people are allowed to put themselves first and that is fine. This person did what they had to do, and that’s that on that. My experience taught me to never do this to someone else. I would never want anyone to go through what I went through. I learned to protect myself and my heart and be content with myself. I learned to enjoy my own company regardless of how good a relationship is because I am responsible for myself and my love. If someone wakes up tomorrow and decides to leave me without any warning or problems, I need to be okay with it because people are allowed to be selfish, and that is fine. I realized that this person was only a season in my life, and just like seasons, people come and go.
-Love, Ehiane.

Twitter- @o_ehiane.