June 12, 2025 • 48 mins
Lots of people, especially these days, have experienced ghosting - when someone in your social or business circle just vanishes without explanation, ending all communication. And that can be more scary than a literal haunting. Using her own experiences, past and recent, Liana talks about why people may ghost you, why it can hurt so much and how to move on.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. Hello hoisters
around the world on radio, streaming and podcast services. This
this is not therapy. I'm Leanna Kurzner, and I am
(00:30):
not a therapist, but I am your source for navigating
the madness of mental health using my top ten sayings
for going good crazy. And this week, if I sound
a little windied or wheezy, the wildlow smoke is really
getting to be so apologies for that. The show must
go on. This week, we're going to talk about ghosting,
an extremely lousy thing to do to someone that everyone
(00:54):
experiences and most people do. Ghosting is a colloquial term
that means a ending all communication, avoiding contact with another
person without any parent warning or explanation, and ignoring any
subsequent attempts to communicate. Someone just vanishes. Hence ghosting makes sense. Okay,
(01:17):
kind of lengthy description of someone just vanishing off the
face of the earth. Right, no block, no anything like that,
just gone. Now. Some people count blocking underghosting. I don't,
But this is not important. The important thing is is
I always say on this show, the exception to everything
I'm about to say is situations of abuse. If someone's abusive,
(01:40):
you are under no obligation to talk to them. In fact,
you're under no obligation to talk to anybody. In fact,
it's often better if someone has a tendency to be
abusive that you go no contact. Now. To be clear,
this isn't an excuse to exaggerate and claim that hurt
feelings equal abusive behavior. Abuse isn't about never hurting someone's feelings.
(02:04):
It's about being told to stop and not stopping, or manipulating, gaslighting,
and robbing someone of choices they otherwise would have. If
you ghost, you have to expect that to be permanent,
no takebacks if you change your mind, unless you're prepared
to hear about it. Which is why fine abuse of situations.
(02:26):
Everything else like not so much. Ghosting someone as punishment
for upsetting you, is in itself potentially a form of abuse.
This is a slippery slope don't assume someone who ghosts
is deliberately punishing you. More common reasons for ghosting are
that someone is avoiding direct conflict. They don't want to
(02:47):
deal with your hurt feelings, they're just overwhelmed, and you know,
the one everyone's afraid of. You're just not important enough
to them to have the tough conversation, and that's the
one that gets people now dead. Last one not the
most likely thing. It's usually a combination of these factors,
(03:07):
which is why ghosting, even though it sucks, is so
common now. It's also very common to feel rejection, guilt, grief, shame,
and anger when you get ghosted. We'll talk about these later,
but I'm giving you permission right now, if you stop
listening right now, to treat the person who ghosted you
(03:29):
like they're not worth that pain. They treated you like
you weren't worth the conversation, So you can go right
ahead and treat them like they're not worth the anguish.
Easier said than done, though, right, it's not fair. You're right,
it's not fair to just get ghosted. No one likes it.
So you know, if it were a fair circumstance, people
(03:51):
wouldn't do something that they don't like to other people.
But unless again, you were abusive, ghosting probably is not
about you. Another big reason people ghost is that they're
a chronic people pleaser, like really bad people pleaser, and
there's a certain point after which they can't keep up
(04:13):
the act. And some people might attempt to blame you
for that, but the other person's people pleasing is not
on you. I really wish we'd stop calling this behavior
people pleasing, frankly, and because I'd prefer to call the
really toxic stuff what it actually is, manipulation via acts
of service or complete lack of boundaries. And Okay, I
(04:37):
wasn't intending to go into people pleasing this show, but
let's do it briefly, because ghosting makes a lot more
sense than the context of what I'm about to tell
you now. People pleasing isn't a formally recognized term. You
can't get diagnosed as a people pleaser, even though therapists
use the language to communicate with clients. It's generally understood
(04:59):
people pleasing as chronically putting other people's needs above your own,
to the point that it's an act of self harm.
So people pleasing isn't just being nice, you know, if
you're being nice for the sake of nice and don't
expect anything in return, that's just being nice people pleasing
as being nice at the pleaser's own expense, often to
(05:21):
stave off some perceived disaster, you know, get people to
be super nice to them back, or they claim they're
terrified the other person will harm them if they say
no or don't do what they want. So I say, now,
this is the thing. Right, is that true? It's hard
to tell from outside the relationship now that idea, Oh,
(05:42):
someone will harm me if I say no. Right, that
could be true. It could be an assumption that ends
up being what I call manipulation via acts of service,
you know, same as the whole, you know, putting people's
needs above their own, your own detriment. Now it's a
(06:03):
little easier to explain why that whole, you know, being
nice to get something out of the other person, you know,
and it gradually draining you. That's easy to see the
manipulation in there. Right, you're being nice to get people
to do something you want to control their behavior. In
(06:23):
this case, you want them to be nice back instead
of just being nice for the sake of being nice,
And you might be sitting here going but wait, everyone
does that. Let me give you an example. Okay. Scenario one,
someone work buys you a coffee once a week and
remembers your order. You know, in that situation, you're more
inclined to think positively about that person, and you'll want
(06:47):
to work with the more you'll think of them when
it comes Hey, who would you like on this project? Right?
That person is associated with positive things, simple thing buying
a coffee once a week. Scenario too, Someone buys you
coffee every day and you think, wow, that's really nice,
above and beyond. But then you notice they start becoming
(07:08):
passive aggressive, and then they stop buying a coffee and
they start making surly comments like it'd be nice if
someone brought me a coffee sometime, And then you make
sure you buy them at least one coffee because well,
you know, not so subtle hint taken. But you're not
(07:28):
more inclined to work with them, now, are you. You're
less inclined. You know, you may describe them as moody
or difficult. You're like, what's going on? That tends to
be where people pleasing as opposed to just being nice
ends up because someone is giving way away a lot,
(07:53):
you know, expecting a desired effect or expecting to get
it back. Then they start at aggrieved when they don't
get that desired effect, even when nobody's done anything wrong.
The people pleaser doesn't have good boundaries in that situation
and expects people to mind read. This is why it
(08:16):
backfires and the people pleaser ends up more unhappy. The
people pleasing system only works if other people people please
right back right. That's why you buy that coffee. Under duress,
you have to shower people pleaser with attention, and that
makes the people pleaser, you know, reliant on something outside
(08:40):
of their control. Even when other people do pay or
bad people please their attention. Because it's under a certain
amount of duress, it feels off and isn't satisfying for anybody.
And in these situations and these situations of people, one
(09:01):
or both parties will at some point just drift away,
never having the conversation about what's wrong, you know, sometimes
because they don't have the words for it. And often
the people pleaser can't see that they're being manipulative because
they truly believe they're being nice, and so they get
(09:23):
offended at any suggestion they're being coercive in any way,
and so the person on the other end of that ghosts.
We have ghosting. You see how it works. Now, the
first scenario I talked about about that fear, right, that's
(09:44):
harder to tease out. That's a balancing act to show
where manipulation can occur there because the fear some people
pleaser's experience is real, it's just not rouited in the
person it's being directed at. So let's take a break
and come back with that. Do you have a story
you think would be good for the show? Are you
(10:06):
interested in sponsoring the show? Leanna at Nontherapyshow dot com.
Not Therapy Show is the not Therapy Show dot com
is the website at non Therapy show on social media,
how your people pleasing might be leading to ghosting? On
It's Not Therapy When we come back.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
No Radio, No Problem stream is live on SAGA ninety
six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
in It's Not Therapy. I'm still not a therapist. We're
still talking about ghosting. I am still Leanna Kerzner. Got
(10:55):
my intro mixed up. Uh, smoke stuff, yeah, wildfires anyway, ghosting,
all the stuff that leads up to it and the
fallout from it. Right before the break, I was talking
about how, you know, the manipulations inherent to people pleasing
result often in ghosting. I'll have to do a whole
(11:19):
people pleasing episode soon. That's its own thing, right, But
before the break I promised to talk about another particular
type of people pleasing based on a fear of a
person's negative reactions, and how that leads to ghosting. It's
not the intent of the extremely frightened person to be manipulative,
(11:40):
but it does end up denying other people around them choices,
and that, you know, that's essentially the end result of manipulation.
People have fewer choices than they would without that manipulative behavior. Now,
situations of abuse again, which is where this type of
(12:04):
fear comes from. An abused person ends up manipulating their
abuser for survival. Now, that's not blaming the victim at all,
not suggesting anyone deserves to be abused. It's just a
statement of fact. It's how it works. If an abused
person was raised since childhood in an environment like that,
(12:29):
they may believe that this behavior is normal or something
everyone does. They might not like it, like they consciously
may go this behavior that constantly plicating abusers. It doesn't
feel good, but it's just the way of the world,
and obviously that's going to cause problems in an otherwise
(12:50):
healthy relationship. You know, over and above the better known
lingering impacts of the abuse, it's this nasty cycle of yes,
you were abused, you did nothing to deserve the abuse,
you were the victim. Now there's big parts of your
own behavior that you have to change. That is hard.
That is a bitter pill to swallow, as someone who
(13:13):
had to do it right here, hence peer counseling. Now
this also applies to childhoods of neglect. Ironically, we tend
to neglect talking about neglect in these discussions. Abuse gets
a lot of attention, neglect gets none. That's direkly funny,
all right, Moving on, It's obvious from the outside that
(13:36):
someone is going to be deeply uncomfortable being close to
anyone who is afraid of them, no matter what they do.
In the short term. The desire to fix someone by
helping and supporting them through their fear can be appealing,
but you know, there's a reason I can fix her
(13:56):
or I can fix him is not healthy or them
non binary inclusive. As recognition dawns that the frightened person
isn't going to be fixed, the fixer starts wondering how
to get out of the entanglement that's formed trying to
fix them without getting painted as a villain. They gradually
(14:18):
realize that's not possible. The minute you try to fix
someone you know in that codependency forms, you try to
pull away, you're gonna be the bad guy because underlying
the expressed fear, or maybe the expressed fear is a
fear of abandonment. But at the core of this person's fear,
(14:41):
the person who's still stuck in an abusive past. It's
often not that you're going to hit them or even
yell at them. Ever had a person go stop yelling
and you weren't even raising your voice. Yeah that's a
weird feeling, isn't it. But for them it's clearly very
real it. That's where the self fulfilling prophecy comes in. Right,
(15:04):
there's a fear there, and it's rooted in something very
real from their past. The problem is it's very hard
to work out what is actually going on because people
in this particular constant state of fear or near constant
state of fear, have a very hard time with anything
that remotely seems like conflict and anything that remotely sounds
(15:29):
like criticism. And you can see at this point where
an honest conversation is impossible because an honest conversation may
sound a bit like conflict, it's probably going to have
an element that sounds like criticism. And at this point,
(15:50):
you know, ghosting might seem like the best way to fail.
So if you are aware that you know you people
please or you do spend a lot of time afraid
in relationships, and if you're getting ghosted again and again
and again, you know, it may be a good idea
(16:11):
to consider therapy to address that fear. The reason I
call this podcast it's not therapy is no podcast in
the world can can do that for you. It requires work.
It's worth it, trust me, I've been there now. Obviously
(16:32):
there's a lot more to this fear based people pleasing
and the manipulation's inherent in it. But you know I'm
gonna leave you hanging. That's not the topic because of
this episode. I'll tackle it later, maybe next week the
week after. For now, the topic is ghosting. And that's
why I brought it up, because when you know people
(16:54):
are eventually gonna go, this person's always afraid of me.
It's unnerving, it's not getting better, and any attempt to
talk about it just leads to some sort of freak
out or meltdown, and so they just fade away. Now,
(17:14):
if you recognize one of these patterns I've just mentioned,
you're probably feeling quite blame, quite criticized right now. I
encourage you to, you know, don't see it as your fault,
see it instead as something that you have control over.
You can change this. Now. It might be hard, but
(17:38):
hear me out. You might find that it's actually not
as hard as you're afraid it's gonna be. Rejection sucks,
no joke, but rejection hurts worse if you assign a
value judgment to it instead of it being something that
just happens sometimes. And that doesn't mean they go, okay,
(18:00):
rejection happens, so it doesn't hurt anymore. No, it doesn't
work that way, it hurts, it's disappointing, but you can
choose to not add guilt or shame to the hurt
and disappointment. It's okay to also be angry, even feel
like you've been mistreated that it's not fair, as long
(18:20):
as you don't retaliate, because we're dealing with ghosting. Retaliating
isn't gonna do any good and may possibly give the
ghoster ammunition to construct a negative narrative about you. If
you suspect that you now there's something going on here.
(18:41):
Reality is going tiny whimy. Maybe they're being punitive. Yeah,
proceed with caution, and seriously, retaliation is so overrated anyway.
You know. Retaliation might feel better very briefly, but there
are always consequences. Retaliation is bad happy math. Setting boundaries
(19:05):
is better. Having the difficult conversation before the person has
ditched good. Trying to have the conversation after the person
is ditched bad happy math. If you set appropriate boundaries
throughout a relationship, either the ghosting happens so early that
(19:29):
you haven't invested a ton of time and it's easier right,
or it doesn't happen at all because you've established parameters
where people talk about stuff. Now, that doesn't mean you're
going to be besties forever, but it does mean that
at least you know what the problem is. Right. A
boundary that I think is a good idea to set
(19:49):
in these cases, especially when someone expresses this intense fear
not of you, but right there is when that happens,
back off fast. It's real simple. There are certain things
you know, call them yellow flags if you like, I
(20:09):
call them red flags. These are red flags for me
in relationships. Something like this happens, then it's immediate, Okay,
we got to have a talk. And the one is
the fear thing when someone goes, I'm afraid of you. Okay,
hold up, what especially if it's on the internet. What
(20:30):
let's talk about this. If they won't back right off.
Other things that are red flags for me. You can
set your own someone telling you their entire mental health
history right when they meet you, socially Nope, backing right
off for me anyway, not right. Someone looking to be
protected as opposed to supported. It's the Samwise Gamgee rule.
(20:55):
I can't carry it for you, mister Frodo. I can
carry you right. Somebody who's expecting you to do it
for them, red flag for me, And I don't do
that for other people either. I don't expect anybody to
protect me as opposed to support me. Right. Another red
flag for me is someone who speaks about relationships either
(21:18):
romantic or platonic, like they're going on a shopping trip.
Someone the six sixty six or the I don't date
guys over you know this high or under this height,
or ident do this, idn't do that, you know when
it's this checking boxes? Nope, we do not have the
same values. Another red flag is like the Carrie Katy
(21:42):
Perry song someone Runs Hot and Cold. I don't even
know the lyrics to that song. You know, the d
is black and it's white, and yet that's all I
know of that song. Right, But that song that is
about someone who is a red flag. Right. I shouldn't
call a whole person a red flag, but you know
(22:02):
what I mean. Another thing for me someone who has
a pattern of getting sullen or unusually quiet and they
won't tell you what's wrong, backing right off, Nope, nope,
we talk. See how it's all about communication, knowing what's
going on. It's not the problem is not conflict. The
(22:23):
problem is a lack of information, right. Another red flag
for me is someone who's had a series of turbulent
relationships where everything is so great, then everything is so terrible,
and they never seem to learn from this. When I
have the conversations with maybe like go slower or maybe
ease up, and they're right in it again, and the
(22:45):
disaster happens again. At some point, it's like, you know,
I'm tired of being in the blast radius. And also
people who repeatedly go on at venomous length about their
abusive ex, terrible former friends, that kind of stuff, you know,
(23:05):
sometimes depending on how they talk about it, even family members.
If you're an adult and you know you're still complaining
about your mom like you're some sort of teenager, I'm
gonna step back. You know. Mentioning this stuff in passing
is one thing, right, Or if it's sort of like, look,
I've been trying not to talk about this, but that's different.
(23:29):
But if it's constant, or if it happened years ago
and it seems like it happened yesterday, big step back.
You know. The reason I say, be the hero of
your own story and not anybody else's is a top
ten phrase is because of this, if people can't save
(23:50):
themselves from their own circumstances, you know, non abusive, non abusive,
like I said, abuses the caveat. But you know, if
somebody is still talking about a relationship that happened years
ago and they don't have some sort of formal diagnosis
that would explain why they're still stuck there, a formal
(24:12):
diagnosis would be a good idea, or get space. Right.
It's easy to ignore your gut on these sorts of things, though.
You know, I have friends that you don't do one
of these things. But if there's more than one of
these things, no, usually not. It's easy to get roped
(24:32):
in though, right, because people have their reasons. But remember
this is an episode on ghosting. It's specifically if you're
tired of being ghosted, right, the best way to reduce
the ghosting is to get, as the Manisphere says, more picky, right,
(24:54):
I prefer the term more discerning or set better boundaries.
But no matter what you call, if you practice gently
rejecting people, sparing their feelings like saying no, saying not now,
saying I can't, you know, being gentle, being considerate, but
(25:14):
being honest, if you practice that skill. When someone ghosts you,
it's easier to deal with because you're treating people better
than the ghoster is treating you right now, right, But yeah,
learning to spot people pleasers and reducing your own people
(25:35):
pleasing These to me are the best two ways to
get ghosted a lot less and avoid the superficial people.
For God's sakes, I shouldn't have to say that, but hey,
even with all of that, though, even with the best boundaries,
ghosting still happens. It still happens to me. It happened
to me recently. Why does it suck so much? Right?
(25:59):
And what to do about it? If we've been ghosted
and we're working through the awful feelings that it inspires?
More on that after this break. Questions, comments, concerns Leanna
at nontherapyshow dot com, not therapyshow dot com as the
website website website at not Therapy Show on social media ghosting,
how to Recover from It on It's Not.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Therapy stream us Live at SAGA nine sixty am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back in.
It's not therapy. I'm still on on a curson. I'm
still not a therapist. We're still talking about ghosting. What
(26:51):
to do with what happens to you? Well, it's easy
to say just get over it or just move on.
It's very hard a lot of people to move on
without answers regarding what went wrong, which is exactly what
ghosting denies the ghosted, which is you know why I
(27:16):
spent so much time on the connection of people pleasing,
because even doubt assume the ghoster is a people pleaser
who just couldn't keep up the act anymore. They couldn't
say no, so they became a nonentity. But any time,
under any circumstance that a person is there than not there,
(27:38):
whether they move away, whether they you know, they die
God God forbid. You know, there's a feeling of loss,
and ghosting is no different. That person was in your
life and not they're they're not there anymore. You know,
there's a feeling of loss, a feeling of grief. Loss hurts.
There's no completely avoiding that. In life. What you can
(28:03):
avoid is the self blame. You can avoid telling yourself
a story that it was somehow your fault. Now, being
conscientious and wanting to improve, that's great. But ghosting is
a situation where the ghoster deliberately did not want to
(28:24):
tell you anything you can improve on. So it's real simple. Now,
hear me out, honor that intent. Seriously, They deliberately did
not tell you what the problem was, so there's no problem.
Don't think anything more about it. It wasn't you, it
was them, because no amount of wishing it were otherwise
(28:47):
is going to get you an explanation. And trust me,
if you did get an explanation, it would not be satisfactory.
Learn from my experiences. Okay, this is a hard thing
for people to get their heads around because they think
I'm cool and they're not, and it's not true. I'm
not very cool, Like honestly, that's why I do this.
(29:10):
I'm not cool at all. I've just been through a lot.
So learn from my experiences mistakes and struggles, you know.
And it's a struggle the idea that someone you like
didn't think you were worth an explanation. It feels dehumanizing
(29:31):
and devaluing, right because it is dehumanizing and devaluing people. Somebody,
for whatever reason, you just weren't worth it. And that's
why it's about the ghoster, not the ghosting. That's why
ghosting is a lousy thing to do, you know, because
(29:51):
in and I mean maybe some people would be I
just wouldn't. I wouldn't want to know, all right, fine,
you know, and sometimes maybe that does make sense. The
relationship is like not that deep, okay, fair whatever, But
for deep friendships, for romantic relationships, even dating sites like
(30:12):
please have the courtesy to send someone a message to just
close the door now. Some experts suggest if you've been ghosted,
if you're the ghost ye, they suggest sending the ghoster
a message actively closing the door, like, hey, it's been
great talking to you, but I'm going in ato the
direction peace. Thanks. Yeah, no, I one. I don't find
(30:34):
that helps because you do that a part of it.
You's like what if they're like, no, don't go. It
was a mistake, right, That's what you're hoping for when
you do that, right, So don't especially these days when
the ghoster can show all their friends they're friends. Air
quotes that message I'm refer to. It is creepy or
(30:55):
a pathetic or just don't silent best. If they're not
treating you like you're worth communication, they're not worth communication either.
Real simple, you don't owe them anything, but you do
owe yourself better treatment than the ghoster gave you, and
(31:16):
that is within your control. You can treat yourself better
than the ghoster did. So find a new social activity,
spread some positivity somewhere, play a favorite video game, listen
to music, go to a movie right, Pay some people
on as compliments. Engage in good energy, not the negativity
and dehumanization, devaluing inherent and ghosting in fact, continuing to
(31:43):
work on your socializing. You know, even when your social
group's pretty good, you're pretty happy going out every so
often and just meeting new people. That's a great way
to make ghosting hurtless. When you have other people to
focus on, when they're sort of social hope, then that
one person who disappeared means less. It really does work,
(32:07):
and you know, if you are stung, it's okay to
reach out to friends. You know, talk about the situation actively,
ask for some words of support. It can mean a
lot to be reminded of why your friends value you.
That can really help offset the devaluation that comes from ghosting. Right,
(32:27):
But if you're still stuck and you've been ghosted, this
might be time to work on your self esteem and
how you talk to yourself. Sparing yourself a necessary emotional
brutality is a really good goal to have. Beating yourself
up isn't motivating. Trust me, and assuming things are your
(32:50):
fault leads to false positives. Trust me right, and false
positives in assumptions lead to bad choices. Now, this might
feel like you're letting yourself off the hook at first,
but take it from me, you're not right in this case.
You're just accepting reality that you're never gonna know what happened,
(33:16):
and speculating isn't gonna help. That's not thinking positively, that's
thinking realistically. If there's something that you feel after this experience,
you're gonna do differently for your own good, that's useful.
All those red flags I mentioned earlier, that's where they
came from. Like, no, that was on me. I saw
that brain went itchy, itchy, and I ignored it. Right,
(33:41):
But trying to mind read someone who ditched is just
gonna make you bad crazy. It's nice to be wanted.
It is, we're wired, you know, wanna be wanted. Social
acceptance is one of those things humans, right, But sometimes
people we like, even people we've done a lot for,
(34:02):
there's a lot of history there, right, Sometimes they ghost.
I've been ghosted by literal family members and then had
third parties tell me that, you know, the ghoster, they've
been talking about me and they'd really like and that's
when it comes Oh, i'd really like you, she'd really
like you to meet her daughter, and she'd really like
(34:22):
to work it out. Blah blah blah. Yeah, but they
never reach out themselves, and as sure as heck, don't
reach out to them, right, because let's face it, you
do that, the likelihood is that these people will just
ghost again, and I choose not to be treated that way.
Top ten phrase. Other people don't have to like your boundaries,
(34:44):
but they do have to respect them. Every time one
of these third party conversations comes up, I'm like, yeah,
they know who I am because they're the ones not
reaching out. Oh, they're all always mean to third parties,
but they don't send a text. I know how simple
texting is. I can do it right. It's about them,
(35:07):
it's not about me because okay, that entire scenario with
my family, it's ridiculous, right, but I swear to you
it's totally true, and that one's been going on for years.
Literal family members will talk about me, not to me,
and other people think this is total's okay, now you're
(35:28):
in my shoes, right? Would you think this person was
serious when they keep telling third parties that they'd like
to reconcile, but they never reach out themselves. Okay, here's
the thing. In that moment, I actually believe they mean it.
In that moment, they're just too cowardly, maybe guilt ridden
(35:49):
to actually take the step to actually be an adult
and do anything about it. There's something there that's in them,
and they're going to third parties because they want someone.
Remember I said red flag someone trying to be protected, right.
(36:10):
They want somebody to make things one hundred percent safe
for them. They want to have people come to them
so they can feel special and safe with no negative
consequences for their behavior, because of course, if you approach them,
you have to be nice. Right. Thing is that doesn't
help them in life. That's not the behavior of a
(36:30):
full grown up. And that's why every expert on the
subject of ghosting says, again, ghosting is about the ghoster,
not the person who got ghosted. You see it in
that absolutely absurd example from my own life. Now, if
you need more persuading after that, try to put yourself
(36:53):
in the situation that happened right before the ghosting, Right,
would you have just disappeared without a word? Maybe you would,
because it's trendy some days. Like I said, a lot
of people do it because yeah, sometimes the other person
does not worth it. But accept what you're doing there.
I know I've been told the ghosting is what you're
supposed to do to be polite in some professional and
(37:18):
social circumstances. To me, that's a marker of toxicity. You know,
I don't like somebody messaging again and again and again
and you know, having hope because you know, I really
appreciate people's you know, tenacity with that and they deserve
to be rewarded with an answer, even if it's a
negative one, because you can give a little reassurance, you
(37:41):
can give a little motivation in the answer, give them
an honest reason why it's not going to work out
right now, right, you want your mind blown. Some of
the people who advocate ghosting. Some of the people that
have ghosted me their licensed therapists, and does that make
(38:02):
them a bad therapist? No? No, of course, not therapists
are human. Most humans ghost. So in our final segment,
I'm gonna give you some alternative reasons for ghosting based
on real experiences. Again, to give you an alternative too.
I just wasn't worth a response because even though sometimes
(38:25):
that's true, it might not be true and you'll never know.
You get to pick, You get to pick what you
believe when there is nothing right. So I'll get to
those alternatives so that you can be happier and good
crazy instead of bad crazy. After the break, questions, comments, concerns,
suggestions for another topic le Ata at Nottherapyshow dot com,
(38:49):
Not Therapy Show dot Comments, the website at not Therapy
Show on social media. When we come back. Last segment
on ghosting, and It's not Therapy.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
No Radio, No Problem. Stream is live on SAGA ninety
six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
in as not therapy. I'm still in a cursorer. I'm
still not a therapist. We are still talking about ghosting,
why it hurts, why people do it, and what to
(39:33):
do about it. I give some motivations off the top
of the show. You know, people avoiding, conflict, overwhelm, fear,
dealing with other people's negative emotions. Now those motivators what's
happening inside the person lead to manifesting as a large
number of behaviors that you can observe. That I can observe,
(39:54):
the people can observe right and hearing alternative reasons to
that dreaded I just wasn't worth it to them can
help you see that. You know, framing things in the
most negative possible regard as not doing anything for you,
telling yourself alternate stories what if, using that one if
(40:15):
brain for good instead of evil? This can help you
see why there's no need to blame them yourself when
there are many many other options. This is a technique
that's an alternative to thought stopping. It's using that fact
that we do like certainty even when it's not real.
So if you're like, oh, they hate me now they
thought I wasn't worth it. Okay, what else could it be? Right?
(40:39):
Because there are many many other options. One, a big one,
a very common one, is plain old anxiety and depression. Now,
someone can fake well for short periods of time, but
that person could be so depressed and anxious that they
have trouble sending and responding to message even leaving the house.
(41:03):
You'd be amazed at how often somebody does want to
stay in contact with someone, but they just can't send
the text or the DM or whatever. Right, it's not
even a call anymore. And you because, oh, maybe that
means I should reach out. No, they have to learn
for their own sake. They have to learn to do this.
(41:26):
They have to address that crippling anxiety depression. It's not
your responsibility, it's not you be the hero of your
own story and not anyone else's. You cannot save them
from that. Another one that's connected but not quite the
same is catastrophic thinking and low self esteem. Now, even
(41:46):
if somebody can communicate, they'll be in a relationship and
it's going great, and suddenly they get intrusive catastrophic thoughts.
They start thinking about past relationships that didn't work up,
so they ghost before they can make mistakes that make
you hate them. And I know this sounds bizarre, right,
(42:08):
it makes no sense, but it's called disordered thinking for
a reason. Take my word on this. This is what
people have said why they they bailed out of perfectly
good relationships. Right. Another one is plain old guilt, right,
(42:30):
And that's something different than overwhelmed. When I was in
high school, I got overwhelmed once. I remember this one guy.
He was a super nice guy, but I was just
like super overwhelmed and I don't even know what brain was.
And you know, he was actually somebody that I reconnected
on Facebook. It's like, hey, I was lousy to you
there because it was no one's fault, right, And that
(42:53):
was just I didn't know what to do. I was
really freaking young. Home life was a disaster. I was
frankly a afraid of anybody being exposed to my father.
And you know, I don't think I ever told anybody
that until this moment. There you are confession and it's
not therapy but guilt. I mean, maybe there'd be an
(43:15):
element of guilt there, right, because if he started abusing
them the way he abused me, I was the one
that brought them into it, so I kept my distance.
You know, whatever is going on, there's something in that person,
they can't bring themselves to tell you, and so they
just get distant, they disappear. And again, you know, based
(43:37):
on my own example, that's not on you. In my case,
it wasn't a resolvable issue at that time. Sometimes it is,
but either way, that's a them problem, that's not a
you problem. In a true case of abuse like I
was in, nobody could save me from that. In that moment.
(43:58):
The people that could, you know, weren't doing it, and
nobody outside of direct witnesses had any power there. Right,
them problem, not a U problem. Now, this is an
example of you know, an overlapping reason. Back then, I
wasn't capable of really being a complete friend, right, I
(44:24):
wasn't dating anybody because I couldn't. Like it was just no, okay,
it was high school. Who cares in retrospect, you know whatever,
but it it It wasn't right, and stepping back is
the right call there. And I wish I could say
I made that consciously, but it was more instinctive. Right, No,
it'd be nice to let you know when somebody's doing that. Yeah,
(44:47):
But like I said, I didn't really have the thoughts there,
I didn't have the words. Some people can't admit it
to themselves, so they just disappear, you know. And it's amazing.
I've actually people have come back after disappearing and I said, look,
you know, I get it. I really would have appreciated
a short message just to let you know what was
(45:09):
going on. And they blast me with I was working
on my mental health. Oh, I did what I had
to do for my mental health, and clearly they had
not worked hard enough based on the reaction, right like WHOA.
And because of all these experiences I've just shared with
you on this program, I've developed the thinking that unless
(45:30):
someone tells me I'm the problem, I'm going to actively
assume I'm not. You recognize that in the top ten phrase,
don't let problems that aren't your fault lead to mistakes
that are also Again, be the hero of your own
story and not anyone else's. I wasted so much time
(45:50):
in the past being afraid the problem was me, and
even when the problem was me, it wasn't for the
reasons I thought right, No matter how much I worried,
no matter how much I stressed, I was caught completely
off guard by what people ended up accusing me of.
It's impossible to predict what's going on in other people's brains,
(46:14):
and mature adults give you the chance to correct your
behavior before it's a point of no return, before you
can't fix it. And if they don't, I can't say
this enough. That is on them, not you. They made
the choice not to tell you, so all you can
(46:36):
do is get on with your life. Ironically, even if
they did think you just weren't worth it, that means
they're not worth the agony. They're not worth the second
guess saying okay, okay, okay, but what if you just
absolutely are stuck on this idea of worth. Okay, let's
(46:59):
say they're right, you just weren't worth it to them.
That doesn't mean you don't have worth to other people.
In fact, I guarantee you that you have worth to someone,
and those people are worth more to you because they
(47:20):
stuck around. All right. This idea of worth can be very,
very subjective, and we can end up in a reinforcing
spiral of misery when we get stuck in letting other
people define our worth for us because we're afraid of
arrogance or folly if we, you know, take that step
(47:43):
to decide for themselves yourself that they're wrong. You do
have worth. You were worth that conversation. Just because they
didn't do it doesn't mean that you weren't worth it. Right,
you were. They made a mistake, they messed up. No
matter what you did, that wasn't the way to handle it. Right.
(48:05):
I'll leave you with that. Questions, comments, any feedback whatsoever.
Leanna at Nottherapyshow dot com. Not therapyshow dot com is
the website if you can't remember how to spell my name,
or at not Therapy Show on social media. Thanks for
taking this journey with me. I am not ghosting you know.
That's why I do a send off. Remember you're crazy
is only a problem if it's hurting you. See you
(48:27):
next time.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Stream us live at SAGA nine six am dot CA.
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
SAGA nine sixty AM or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. Hello hoisters
around the world on radio, streaming and podcast services. This
this is not therapy. I'm Leanna Kurzner, and I am
(00:30):
not a therapist, but I am your source for navigating
the madness of mental health using my top ten sayings
for going good crazy. And this week, if I sound
a little windied or wheezy, the wildlow smoke is really
getting to be so apologies for that. The show must
go on. This week, we're going to talk about ghosting,
an extremely lousy thing to do to someone that everyone
(00:54):
experiences and most people do. Ghosting is a colloquial term
that means a ending all communication, avoiding contact with another
person without any parent warning or explanation, and ignoring any
subsequent attempts to communicate. Someone just vanishes. Hence ghosting makes sense. Okay,
(01:17):
kind of lengthy description of someone just vanishing off the
face of the earth. Right, no block, no anything like that,
just gone. Now. Some people count blocking underghosting. I don't,
But this is not important. The important thing is is
I always say on this show, the exception to everything
I'm about to say is situations of abuse. If someone's abusive,
(01:40):
you are under no obligation to talk to them. In fact,
you're under no obligation to talk to anybody. In fact,
it's often better if someone has a tendency to be
abusive that you go no contact. Now. To be clear,
this isn't an excuse to exaggerate and claim that hurt
feelings equal abusive behavior. Abuse isn't about never hurting someone's feelings.
(02:04):
It's about being told to stop and not stopping, or manipulating, gaslighting,
and robbing someone of choices they otherwise would have. If
you ghost, you have to expect that to be permanent,
no takebacks if you change your mind, unless you're prepared
to hear about it. Which is why fine abuse of situations.
(02:26):
Everything else like not so much. Ghosting someone as punishment
for upsetting you, is in itself potentially a form of abuse.
This is a slippery slope don't assume someone who ghosts
is deliberately punishing you. More common reasons for ghosting are
that someone is avoiding direct conflict. They don't want to
(02:47):
deal with your hurt feelings, they're just overwhelmed, and you know,
the one everyone's afraid of. You're just not important enough
to them to have the tough conversation, and that's the
one that gets people now dead. Last one not the
most likely thing. It's usually a combination of these factors,
(03:07):
which is why ghosting, even though it sucks, is so
common now. It's also very common to feel rejection, guilt, grief, shame,
and anger when you get ghosted. We'll talk about these later,
but I'm giving you permission right now, if you stop
listening right now, to treat the person who ghosted you
(03:29):
like they're not worth that pain. They treated you like
you weren't worth the conversation, So you can go right
ahead and treat them like they're not worth the anguish.
Easier said than done, though, right, it's not fair. You're right,
it's not fair to just get ghosted. No one likes it.
So you know, if it were a fair circumstance, people
(03:51):
wouldn't do something that they don't like to other people.
But unless again, you were abusive, ghosting probably is not
about you. Another big reason people ghost is that they're
a chronic people pleaser, like really bad people pleaser, and
there's a certain point after which they can't keep up
(04:13):
the act. And some people might attempt to blame you
for that, but the other person's people pleasing is not
on you. I really wish we'd stop calling this behavior
people pleasing, frankly, and because I'd prefer to call the
really toxic stuff what it actually is, manipulation via acts
of service or complete lack of boundaries. And Okay, I
(04:37):
wasn't intending to go into people pleasing this show, but
let's do it briefly, because ghosting makes a lot more
sense than the context of what I'm about to tell
you now. People pleasing isn't a formally recognized term. You
can't get diagnosed as a people pleaser, even though therapists
use the language to communicate with clients. It's generally understood
(04:59):
people pleasing as chronically putting other people's needs above your own,
to the point that it's an act of self harm.
So people pleasing isn't just being nice, you know, if
you're being nice for the sake of nice and don't
expect anything in return, that's just being nice people pleasing
as being nice at the pleaser's own expense, often to
(05:21):
stave off some perceived disaster, you know, get people to
be super nice to them back, or they claim they're
terrified the other person will harm them if they say
no or don't do what they want. So I say, now,
this is the thing. Right, is that true? It's hard
to tell from outside the relationship now that idea, Oh,
(05:42):
someone will harm me if I say no. Right, that
could be true. It could be an assumption that ends
up being what I call manipulation via acts of service,
you know, same as the whole, you know, putting people's
needs above their own, your own detriment. Now it's a
(06:03):
little easier to explain why that whole, you know, being
nice to get something out of the other person, you know,
and it gradually draining you. That's easy to see the
manipulation in there. Right, you're being nice to get people
to do something you want to control their behavior. In
(06:23):
this case, you want them to be nice back instead
of just being nice for the sake of being nice,
And you might be sitting here going but wait, everyone
does that. Let me give you an example. Okay. Scenario one,
someone work buys you a coffee once a week and
remembers your order. You know, in that situation, you're more
inclined to think positively about that person, and you'll want
(06:47):
to work with the more you'll think of them when
it comes Hey, who would you like on this project? Right?
That person is associated with positive things, simple thing buying
a coffee once a week. Scenario too, Someone buys you
coffee every day and you think, wow, that's really nice,
above and beyond. But then you notice they start becoming
(07:08):
passive aggressive, and then they stop buying a coffee and
they start making surly comments like it'd be nice if
someone brought me a coffee sometime, And then you make
sure you buy them at least one coffee because well,
you know, not so subtle hint taken. But you're not
(07:28):
more inclined to work with them, now, are you. You're
less inclined. You know, you may describe them as moody
or difficult. You're like, what's going on? That tends to
be where people pleasing as opposed to just being nice
ends up because someone is giving way away a lot,
(07:53):
you know, expecting a desired effect or expecting to get
it back. Then they start at aggrieved when they don't
get that desired effect, even when nobody's done anything wrong.
The people pleaser doesn't have good boundaries in that situation
and expects people to mind read. This is why it
(08:16):
backfires and the people pleaser ends up more unhappy. The
people pleasing system only works if other people people please
right back right. That's why you buy that coffee. Under duress,
you have to shower people pleaser with attention, and that
makes the people pleaser, you know, reliant on something outside
(08:40):
of their control. Even when other people do pay or
bad people please their attention. Because it's under a certain
amount of duress, it feels off and isn't satisfying for anybody.
And in these situations and these situations of people, one
(09:01):
or both parties will at some point just drift away,
never having the conversation about what's wrong, you know, sometimes
because they don't have the words for it. And often
the people pleaser can't see that they're being manipulative because
they truly believe they're being nice, and so they get
(09:23):
offended at any suggestion they're being coercive in any way,
and so the person on the other end of that ghosts.
We have ghosting. You see how it works. Now, the
first scenario I talked about about that fear, right, that's
(09:44):
harder to tease out. That's a balancing act to show
where manipulation can occur there because the fear some people
pleaser's experience is real, it's just not rouited in the
person it's being directed at. So let's take a break
and come back with that. Do you have a story
you think would be good for the show? Are you
(10:06):
interested in sponsoring the show? Leanna at Nontherapyshow dot com.
Not Therapy Show is the not Therapy Show dot com
is the website at non Therapy show on social media,
how your people pleasing might be leading to ghosting? On
It's Not Therapy When we come back.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
No Radio, No Problem stream is live on SAGA ninety
six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
in It's Not Therapy. I'm still not a therapist. We're
still talking about ghosting. I am still Leanna Kerzner. Got
(10:55):
my intro mixed up. Uh, smoke stuff, yeah, wildfires anyway, ghosting,
all the stuff that leads up to it and the
fallout from it. Right before the break, I was talking
about how, you know, the manipulations inherent to people pleasing
result often in ghosting. I'll have to do a whole
(11:19):
people pleasing episode soon. That's its own thing, right, But
before the break I promised to talk about another particular
type of people pleasing based on a fear of a
person's negative reactions, and how that leads to ghosting. It's
not the intent of the extremely frightened person to be manipulative,
(11:40):
but it does end up denying other people around them choices,
and that, you know, that's essentially the end result of manipulation.
People have fewer choices than they would without that manipulative behavior. Now,
situations of abuse again, which is where this type of
(12:04):
fear comes from. An abused person ends up manipulating their
abuser for survival. Now, that's not blaming the victim at all,
not suggesting anyone deserves to be abused. It's just a
statement of fact. It's how it works. If an abused
person was raised since childhood in an environment like that,
(12:29):
they may believe that this behavior is normal or something
everyone does. They might not like it, like they consciously
may go this behavior that constantly plicating abusers. It doesn't
feel good, but it's just the way of the world,
and obviously that's going to cause problems in an otherwise
(12:50):
healthy relationship. You know, over and above the better known
lingering impacts of the abuse, it's this nasty cycle of yes,
you were abused, you did nothing to deserve the abuse,
you were the victim. Now there's big parts of your
own behavior that you have to change. That is hard.
That is a bitter pill to swallow, as someone who
(13:13):
had to do it right here, hence peer counseling. Now
this also applies to childhoods of neglect. Ironically, we tend
to neglect talking about neglect in these discussions. Abuse gets
a lot of attention, neglect gets none. That's direkly funny,
all right, Moving on, It's obvious from the outside that
(13:36):
someone is going to be deeply uncomfortable being close to
anyone who is afraid of them, no matter what they do.
In the short term. The desire to fix someone by
helping and supporting them through their fear can be appealing,
but you know, there's a reason I can fix her
(13:56):
or I can fix him is not healthy or them
non binary inclusive. As recognition dawns that the frightened person
isn't going to be fixed, the fixer starts wondering how
to get out of the entanglement that's formed trying to
fix them without getting painted as a villain. They gradually
(14:18):
realize that's not possible. The minute you try to fix
someone you know in that codependency forms, you try to
pull away, you're gonna be the bad guy because underlying
the expressed fear, or maybe the expressed fear is a
fear of abandonment. But at the core of this person's fear,
(14:41):
the person who's still stuck in an abusive past. It's
often not that you're going to hit them or even
yell at them. Ever had a person go stop yelling
and you weren't even raising your voice. Yeah that's a
weird feeling, isn't it. But for them it's clearly very
real it. That's where the self fulfilling prophecy comes in. Right,
(15:04):
there's a fear there, and it's rooted in something very
real from their past. The problem is it's very hard
to work out what is actually going on because people
in this particular constant state of fear or near constant
state of fear, have a very hard time with anything
that remotely seems like conflict and anything that remotely sounds
(15:29):
like criticism. And you can see at this point where
an honest conversation is impossible because an honest conversation may
sound a bit like conflict, it's probably going to have
an element that sounds like criticism. And at this point,
(15:50):
you know, ghosting might seem like the best way to fail.
So if you are aware that you know you people
please or you do spend a lot of time afraid
in relationships, and if you're getting ghosted again and again
and again, you know, it may be a good idea
(16:11):
to consider therapy to address that fear. The reason I
call this podcast it's not therapy is no podcast in
the world can can do that for you. It requires work.
It's worth it, trust me, I've been there now. Obviously
(16:32):
there's a lot more to this fear based people pleasing
and the manipulation's inherent in it. But you know I'm
gonna leave you hanging. That's not the topic because of
this episode. I'll tackle it later, maybe next week the
week after. For now, the topic is ghosting. And that's
why I brought it up, because when you know people
(16:54):
are eventually gonna go, this person's always afraid of me.
It's unnerving, it's not getting better, and any attempt to
talk about it just leads to some sort of freak
out or meltdown, and so they just fade away. Now,
(17:14):
if you recognize one of these patterns I've just mentioned,
you're probably feeling quite blame, quite criticized right now. I
encourage you to, you know, don't see it as your fault,
see it instead as something that you have control over.
You can change this. Now. It might be hard, but
(17:38):
hear me out. You might find that it's actually not
as hard as you're afraid it's gonna be. Rejection sucks,
no joke, but rejection hurts worse if you assign a
value judgment to it instead of it being something that
just happens sometimes. And that doesn't mean they go, okay,
(18:00):
rejection happens, so it doesn't hurt anymore. No, it doesn't
work that way, it hurts, it's disappointing, but you can
choose to not add guilt or shame to the hurt
and disappointment. It's okay to also be angry, even feel
like you've been mistreated that it's not fair, as long
(18:20):
as you don't retaliate, because we're dealing with ghosting. Retaliating
isn't gonna do any good and may possibly give the
ghoster ammunition to construct a negative narrative about you. If
you suspect that you now there's something going on here.
(18:41):
Reality is going tiny whimy. Maybe they're being punitive. Yeah,
proceed with caution, and seriously, retaliation is so overrated anyway.
You know. Retaliation might feel better very briefly, but there
are always consequences. Retaliation is bad happy math. Setting boundaries
(19:05):
is better. Having the difficult conversation before the person has
ditched good. Trying to have the conversation after the person
is ditched bad happy math. If you set appropriate boundaries
throughout a relationship, either the ghosting happens so early that
(19:29):
you haven't invested a ton of time and it's easier right,
or it doesn't happen at all because you've established parameters
where people talk about stuff. Now, that doesn't mean you're
going to be besties forever, but it does mean that
at least you know what the problem is. Right. A
boundary that I think is a good idea to set
(19:49):
in these cases, especially when someone expresses this intense fear
not of you, but right there is when that happens,
back off fast. It's real simple. There are certain things
you know, call them yellow flags if you like, I
(20:09):
call them red flags. These are red flags for me
in relationships. Something like this happens, then it's immediate, Okay,
we got to have a talk. And the one is
the fear thing when someone goes, I'm afraid of you. Okay,
hold up, what especially if it's on the internet. What
(20:30):
let's talk about this. If they won't back right off.
Other things that are red flags for me. You can
set your own someone telling you their entire mental health
history right when they meet you, socially Nope, backing right
off for me anyway, not right. Someone looking to be
protected as opposed to supported. It's the Samwise Gamgee rule.
(20:55):
I can't carry it for you, mister Frodo. I can
carry you right. Somebody who's expecting you to do it
for them, red flag for me, And I don't do
that for other people either. I don't expect anybody to
protect me as opposed to support me. Right. Another red
flag for me is someone who speaks about relationships either
(21:18):
romantic or platonic, like they're going on a shopping trip.
Someone the six sixty six or the I don't date
guys over you know this high or under this height,
or ident do this, idn't do that, you know when
it's this checking boxes? Nope, we do not have the
same values. Another red flag is like the Carrie Katy
(21:42):
Perry song someone Runs Hot and Cold. I don't even
know the lyrics to that song. You know, the d
is black and it's white, and yet that's all I
know of that song. Right, But that song that is
about someone who is a red flag. Right. I shouldn't
call a whole person a red flag, but you know
(22:02):
what I mean. Another thing for me someone who has
a pattern of getting sullen or unusually quiet and they
won't tell you what's wrong, backing right off, Nope, nope,
we talk. See how it's all about communication, knowing what's
going on. It's not the problem is not conflict. The
(22:23):
problem is a lack of information, right. Another red flag
for me is someone who's had a series of turbulent
relationships where everything is so great, then everything is so terrible,
and they never seem to learn from this. When I
have the conversations with maybe like go slower or maybe
ease up, and they're right in it again, and the
(22:45):
disaster happens again. At some point, it's like, you know,
I'm tired of being in the blast radius. And also
people who repeatedly go on at venomous length about their
abusive ex, terrible former friends, that kind of stuff, you know,
(23:05):
sometimes depending on how they talk about it, even family members.
If you're an adult and you know you're still complaining
about your mom like you're some sort of teenager, I'm
gonna step back. You know. Mentioning this stuff in passing
is one thing, right, Or if it's sort of like, look,
I've been trying not to talk about this, but that's different.
(23:29):
But if it's constant, or if it happened years ago
and it seems like it happened yesterday, big step back.
You know. The reason I say, be the hero of
your own story and not anybody else's is a top
ten phrase is because of this, if people can't save
(23:50):
themselves from their own circumstances, you know, non abusive, non abusive,
like I said, abuses the caveat. But you know, if
somebody is still talking about a relationship that happened years
ago and they don't have some sort of formal diagnosis
that would explain why they're still stuck there, a formal
(24:12):
diagnosis would be a good idea, or get space. Right.
It's easy to ignore your gut on these sorts of things, though.
You know, I have friends that you don't do one
of these things. But if there's more than one of
these things, no, usually not. It's easy to get roped
(24:32):
in though, right, because people have their reasons. But remember
this is an episode on ghosting. It's specifically if you're
tired of being ghosted, right, the best way to reduce
the ghosting is to get, as the Manisphere says, more picky, right,
(24:54):
I prefer the term more discerning or set better boundaries.
But no matter what you call, if you practice gently
rejecting people, sparing their feelings like saying no, saying not now,
saying I can't, you know, being gentle, being considerate, but
(25:14):
being honest, if you practice that skill. When someone ghosts you,
it's easier to deal with because you're treating people better
than the ghoster is treating you right now, right, But yeah,
learning to spot people pleasers and reducing your own people
(25:35):
pleasing These to me are the best two ways to
get ghosted a lot less and avoid the superficial people.
For God's sakes, I shouldn't have to say that, but hey,
even with all of that, though, even with the best boundaries,
ghosting still happens. It still happens to me. It happened
to me recently. Why does it suck so much? Right?
(25:59):
And what to do about it? If we've been ghosted
and we're working through the awful feelings that it inspires?
More on that after this break. Questions, comments, concerns Leanna
at nontherapyshow dot com, not therapyshow dot com as the
website website website at not Therapy Show on social media ghosting,
how to Recover from It on It's Not.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Therapy stream us Live at SAGA nine sixty am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back in.
It's not therapy. I'm still on on a curson. I'm
still not a therapist. We're still talking about ghosting. What
(26:51):
to do with what happens to you? Well, it's easy
to say just get over it or just move on.
It's very hard a lot of people to move on
without answers regarding what went wrong, which is exactly what
ghosting denies the ghosted, which is you know why I
(27:16):
spent so much time on the connection of people pleasing,
because even doubt assume the ghoster is a people pleaser
who just couldn't keep up the act anymore. They couldn't
say no, so they became a nonentity. But any time,
under any circumstance that a person is there than not there,
(27:38):
whether they move away, whether they you know, they die
God God forbid. You know, there's a feeling of loss,
and ghosting is no different. That person was in your
life and not they're they're not there anymore. You know,
there's a feeling of loss, a feeling of grief. Loss hurts.
There's no completely avoiding that. In life. What you can
(28:03):
avoid is the self blame. You can avoid telling yourself
a story that it was somehow your fault. Now, being
conscientious and wanting to improve, that's great. But ghosting is
a situation where the ghoster deliberately did not want to
(28:24):
tell you anything you can improve on. So it's real simple. Now,
hear me out, honor that intent. Seriously, They deliberately did
not tell you what the problem was, so there's no problem.
Don't think anything more about it. It wasn't you, it
was them, because no amount of wishing it were otherwise
(28:47):
is going to get you an explanation. And trust me,
if you did get an explanation, it would not be satisfactory.
Learn from my experiences. Okay, this is a hard thing
for people to get their heads around because they think
I'm cool and they're not, and it's not true. I'm
not very cool, Like honestly, that's why I do this.
(29:10):
I'm not cool at all. I've just been through a lot.
So learn from my experiences mistakes and struggles, you know.
And it's a struggle the idea that someone you like
didn't think you were worth an explanation. It feels dehumanizing
(29:31):
and devaluing, right because it is dehumanizing and devaluing people. Somebody,
for whatever reason, you just weren't worth it. And that's
why it's about the ghoster, not the ghosting. That's why
ghosting is a lousy thing to do, you know, because
(29:51):
in and I mean maybe some people would be I
just wouldn't. I wouldn't want to know, all right, fine,
you know, and sometimes maybe that does make sense. The
relationship is like not that deep, okay, fair whatever, But
for deep friendships, for romantic relationships, even dating sites like
(30:12):
please have the courtesy to send someone a message to just
close the door now. Some experts suggest if you've been ghosted,
if you're the ghost ye, they suggest sending the ghoster
a message actively closing the door, like, hey, it's been
great talking to you, but I'm going in ato the
direction peace. Thanks. Yeah, no, I one. I don't find
(30:34):
that helps because you do that a part of it.
You's like what if they're like, no, don't go. It
was a mistake, right, That's what you're hoping for when
you do that, right, So don't especially these days when
the ghoster can show all their friends they're friends. Air
quotes that message I'm refer to. It is creepy or
(30:55):
a pathetic or just don't silent best. If they're not
treating you like you're worth communication, they're not worth communication either.
Real simple, you don't owe them anything, but you do
owe yourself better treatment than the ghoster gave you, and
(31:16):
that is within your control. You can treat yourself better
than the ghoster did. So find a new social activity,
spread some positivity somewhere, play a favorite video game, listen
to music, go to a movie right, Pay some people
on as compliments. Engage in good energy, not the negativity
and dehumanization, devaluing inherent and ghosting in fact, continuing to
(31:43):
work on your socializing. You know, even when your social
group's pretty good, you're pretty happy going out every so
often and just meeting new people. That's a great way
to make ghosting hurtless. When you have other people to
focus on, when they're sort of social hope, then that
one person who disappeared means less. It really does work,
(32:07):
and you know, if you are stung, it's okay to
reach out to friends. You know, talk about the situation actively,
ask for some words of support. It can mean a
lot to be reminded of why your friends value you.
That can really help offset the devaluation that comes from ghosting. Right,
(32:27):
But if you're still stuck and you've been ghosted, this
might be time to work on your self esteem and
how you talk to yourself. Sparing yourself a necessary emotional
brutality is a really good goal to have. Beating yourself
up isn't motivating. Trust me, and assuming things are your
(32:50):
fault leads to false positives. Trust me right, and false
positives in assumptions lead to bad choices. Now, this might
feel like you're letting yourself off the hook at first,
but take it from me, you're not right in this case.
You're just accepting reality that you're never gonna know what happened,
(33:16):
and speculating isn't gonna help. That's not thinking positively, that's
thinking realistically. If there's something that you feel after this experience,
you're gonna do differently for your own good, that's useful.
All those red flags I mentioned earlier, that's where they
came from. Like, no, that was on me. I saw
that brain went itchy, itchy, and I ignored it. Right,
(33:41):
But trying to mind read someone who ditched is just
gonna make you bad crazy. It's nice to be wanted.
It is, we're wired, you know, wanna be wanted. Social
acceptance is one of those things humans, right, But sometimes
people we like, even people we've done a lot for,
(34:02):
there's a lot of history there, right, Sometimes they ghost.
I've been ghosted by literal family members and then had
third parties tell me that, you know, the ghoster, they've
been talking about me and they'd really like and that's
when it comes Oh, i'd really like you, she'd really
like you to meet her daughter, and she'd really like
(34:22):
to work it out. Blah blah blah. Yeah, but they
never reach out themselves, and as sure as heck, don't
reach out to them, right, because let's face it, you
do that, the likelihood is that these people will just
ghost again, and I choose not to be treated that way.
Top ten phrase. Other people don't have to like your boundaries,
(34:44):
but they do have to respect them. Every time one
of these third party conversations comes up, I'm like, yeah,
they know who I am because they're the ones not
reaching out. Oh, they're all always mean to third parties,
but they don't send a text. I know how simple
texting is. I can do it right. It's about them,
(35:07):
it's not about me because okay, that entire scenario with
my family, it's ridiculous, right, but I swear to you
it's totally true, and that one's been going on for years.
Literal family members will talk about me, not to me,
and other people think this is total's okay, now you're
(35:28):
in my shoes, right? Would you think this person was
serious when they keep telling third parties that they'd like
to reconcile, but they never reach out themselves. Okay, here's
the thing. In that moment, I actually believe they mean it.
In that moment, they're just too cowardly, maybe guilt ridden
(35:49):
to actually take the step to actually be an adult
and do anything about it. There's something there that's in them,
and they're going to third parties because they want someone.
Remember I said red flag someone trying to be protected, right.
(36:10):
They want somebody to make things one hundred percent safe
for them. They want to have people come to them
so they can feel special and safe with no negative
consequences for their behavior, because of course, if you approach them,
you have to be nice. Right. Thing is that doesn't
help them in life. That's not the behavior of a
(36:30):
full grown up. And that's why every expert on the
subject of ghosting says, again, ghosting is about the ghoster,
not the person who got ghosted. You see it in
that absolutely absurd example from my own life. Now, if
you need more persuading after that, try to put yourself
(36:53):
in the situation that happened right before the ghosting, Right,
would you have just disappeared without a word? Maybe you would,
because it's trendy some days. Like I said, a lot
of people do it because yeah, sometimes the other person
does not worth it. But accept what you're doing there.
I know I've been told the ghosting is what you're
supposed to do to be polite in some professional and
(37:18):
social circumstances. To me, that's a marker of toxicity. You know,
I don't like somebody messaging again and again and again
and you know, having hope because you know, I really
appreciate people's you know, tenacity with that and they deserve
to be rewarded with an answer, even if it's a
negative one, because you can give a little reassurance, you
(37:41):
can give a little motivation in the answer, give them
an honest reason why it's not going to work out
right now, right, you want your mind blown. Some of
the people who advocate ghosting. Some of the people that
have ghosted me their licensed therapists, and does that make
(38:02):
them a bad therapist? No? No, of course, not therapists
are human. Most humans ghost. So in our final segment,
I'm gonna give you some alternative reasons for ghosting based
on real experiences. Again, to give you an alternative too.
I just wasn't worth a response because even though sometimes
(38:25):
that's true, it might not be true and you'll never know.
You get to pick, You get to pick what you
believe when there is nothing right. So I'll get to
those alternatives so that you can be happier and good
crazy instead of bad crazy. After the break, questions, comments, concerns,
suggestions for another topic le Ata at Nottherapyshow dot com,
(38:49):
Not Therapy Show dot Comments, the website at not Therapy
Show on social media. When we come back. Last segment
on ghosting, and It's not Therapy.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
No Radio, No Problem. Stream is live on SAGA ninety
six am dot C.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
The following program is a peer to peer advice show
and does not diagnose mental health conditions. If you're seeking
social services, please call or text two to one one
or go to two one one dot CA. We're back
in as not therapy. I'm still in a cursorer. I'm
still not a therapist. We are still talking about ghosting,
why it hurts, why people do it, and what to
(39:33):
do about it. I give some motivations off the top
of the show. You know, people avoiding, conflict, overwhelm, fear,
dealing with other people's negative emotions. Now those motivators what's
happening inside the person lead to manifesting as a large
number of behaviors that you can observe. That I can observe,
(39:54):
the people can observe right and hearing alternative reasons to
that dreaded I just wasn't worth it to them can
help you see that. You know, framing things in the
most negative possible regard as not doing anything for you,
telling yourself alternate stories what if, using that one if
(40:15):
brain for good instead of evil? This can help you
see why there's no need to blame them yourself when
there are many many other options. This is a technique
that's an alternative to thought stopping. It's using that fact
that we do like certainty even when it's not real.
So if you're like, oh, they hate me now they
thought I wasn't worth it. Okay, what else could it be? Right?
(40:39):
Because there are many many other options. One, a big one,
a very common one, is plain old anxiety and depression. Now,
someone can fake well for short periods of time, but
that person could be so depressed and anxious that they
have trouble sending and responding to message even leaving the house.
(41:03):
You'd be amazed at how often somebody does want to
stay in contact with someone, but they just can't send
the text or the DM or whatever. Right, it's not
even a call anymore. And you because, oh, maybe that
means I should reach out. No, they have to learn
for their own sake. They have to learn to do this.
(41:26):
They have to address that crippling anxiety depression. It's not
your responsibility, it's not you be the hero of your
own story and not anyone else's. You cannot save them
from that. Another one that's connected but not quite the
same is catastrophic thinking and low self esteem. Now, even
(41:46):
if somebody can communicate, they'll be in a relationship and
it's going great, and suddenly they get intrusive catastrophic thoughts.
They start thinking about past relationships that didn't work up,
so they ghost before they can make mistakes that make
you hate them. And I know this sounds bizarre, right,
(42:08):
it makes no sense, but it's called disordered thinking for
a reason. Take my word on this. This is what
people have said why they they bailed out of perfectly
good relationships. Right. Another one is plain old guilt, right,
(42:30):
And that's something different than overwhelmed. When I was in
high school, I got overwhelmed once. I remember this one guy.
He was a super nice guy, but I was just
like super overwhelmed and I don't even know what brain was.
And you know, he was actually somebody that I reconnected
on Facebook. It's like, hey, I was lousy to you
there because it was no one's fault, right, And that
(42:53):
was just I didn't know what to do. I was
really freaking young. Home life was a disaster. I was
frankly a afraid of anybody being exposed to my father.
And you know, I don't think I ever told anybody
that until this moment. There you are confession and it's
not therapy but guilt. I mean, maybe there'd be an
(43:15):
element of guilt there, right, because if he started abusing
them the way he abused me, I was the one
that brought them into it, so I kept my distance.
You know, whatever is going on, there's something in that person,
they can't bring themselves to tell you, and so they
just get distant, they disappear. And again, you know, based
(43:37):
on my own example, that's not on you. In my case,
it wasn't a resolvable issue at that time. Sometimes it is,
but either way, that's a them problem, that's not a
you problem. In a true case of abuse like I
was in, nobody could save me from that. In that moment.
(43:58):
The people that could, you know, weren't doing it, and
nobody outside of direct witnesses had any power there. Right,
them problem, not a U problem. Now, this is an
example of you know, an overlapping reason. Back then, I
wasn't capable of really being a complete friend, right, I
(44:24):
wasn't dating anybody because I couldn't. Like it was just no, okay,
it was high school. Who cares in retrospect, you know whatever,
but it it It wasn't right, and stepping back is
the right call there. And I wish I could say
I made that consciously, but it was more instinctive. Right, No,
it'd be nice to let you know when somebody's doing that. Yeah,
(44:47):
But like I said, I didn't really have the thoughts there,
I didn't have the words. Some people can't admit it
to themselves, so they just disappear, you know. And it's amazing.
I've actually people have come back after disappearing and I said, look,
you know, I get it. I really would have appreciated
a short message just to let you know what was
(45:09):
going on. And they blast me with I was working
on my mental health. Oh, I did what I had
to do for my mental health, and clearly they had
not worked hard enough based on the reaction, right like WHOA.
And because of all these experiences I've just shared with
you on this program, I've developed the thinking that unless
(45:30):
someone tells me I'm the problem, I'm going to actively
assume I'm not. You recognize that in the top ten phrase,
don't let problems that aren't your fault lead to mistakes
that are also Again, be the hero of your own
story and not anyone else's. I wasted so much time
(45:50):
in the past being afraid the problem was me, and
even when the problem was me, it wasn't for the
reasons I thought right, No matter how much I worried,
no matter how much I stressed, I was caught completely
off guard by what people ended up accusing me of.
It's impossible to predict what's going on in other people's brains,
(46:14):
and mature adults give you the chance to correct your
behavior before it's a point of no return, before you
can't fix it. And if they don't, I can't say
this enough. That is on them, not you. They made
the choice not to tell you, so all you can
(46:36):
do is get on with your life. Ironically, even if
they did think you just weren't worth it, that means
they're not worth the agony. They're not worth the second
guess saying okay, okay, okay, but what if you just
absolutely are stuck on this idea of worth. Okay, let's
(46:59):
say they're right, you just weren't worth it to them.
That doesn't mean you don't have worth to other people.
In fact, I guarantee you that you have worth to someone,
and those people are worth more to you because they
(47:20):
stuck around. All right. This idea of worth can be very,
very subjective, and we can end up in a reinforcing
spiral of misery when we get stuck in letting other
people define our worth for us because we're afraid of
arrogance or folly if we, you know, take that step
(47:43):
to decide for themselves yourself that they're wrong. You do
have worth. You were worth that conversation. Just because they
didn't do it doesn't mean that you weren't worth it. Right,
you were. They made a mistake, they messed up. No
matter what you did, that wasn't the way to handle it. Right.
(48:05):
I'll leave you with that. Questions, comments, any feedback whatsoever.
Leanna at Nottherapyshow dot com. Not therapyshow dot com is
the website if you can't remember how to spell my name,
or at not Therapy Show on social media. Thanks for
taking this journey with me. I am not ghosting you know.
That's why I do a send off. Remember you're crazy
is only a problem if it's hurting you. See you
(48:27):
next time.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
Stream us live at SAGA nine six am dot CA.
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