Ghosting is a dysfunctional relationship behavior at best, severely emotionally abusive at worst.
People who ghost do not know how to handle discomfort.
The second that even the potential of discomfort arises, they go into avoidance mode.
Many people who ghost are intimacy phobic, fear commitment, have huge issues with conflict or are passive aggressively trying to get power.
When someone ghosts us, we go from feeling like someone cared about us to feeling like they don’t care about us at all.
This causes immediate humiliation.
It calls into question how ‘real’ the relationship was. It causes us to negatively question and doubt ourselves.
We feel disrespected and disposable and therefore, it registers in our being as a rejection and as betrayal.
Why is ghosting so painful?
Emotional withdrawal is a form of abandonment and it is emotionally abusive.
The single most important need for a physical human is connection.
Even more so than food or water or sleep, which is why someone in a bad breakup often can’t eat or sleep.
Also, we need to understand why something has happened to really understand what to do about it.
When someone is ghosting as a passive aggressive power move, it is a control tactic. Usually a punishment.
Ghosting is a form of emotional cruelty.
And it is one of the most destructive relationship habits we can do.
A relationship takes two.
This unfortunately means that the power in the relationship belongs to the person who chooses to disconnect and withdraw.
This is one reason why the person who simply walks out of the room during a conflict is the one with all the power in the relationship.
When we feel the need to gain power over the other person in a relationship, ghosting is a strategy we may use.
If we feel justified in doing so because we perceive ourselves to be victimized by the other person, we tend to not care how emotionally abusive this tactic is.
Know that what someone is saying when they ghost you is this: I don’t have what it takes to have a mature healthy relationship with you.
Don’t chase ghosts… unless you want your relationships to be marked by the constant fear that something is wrong with you, intermittent reinforcement, avoidance, emotional abandonment and emotional starvation.
As no matter what the intent is behind ghosting, ghosting creates emotional and psychological wounds.
~ Teal Swan