In Defence of ‘Ghosting’ for Your Mental Health and Safety

“Ghosting” is the act of abruptly reducing off all contact with one other particular person with out warning, of disappearing from their life with out clarification and with no hint. It has been characterised as a merciless and cowardly apply that has a devastating impression on the “ghostee,” however I’d counter that in some circumstances, ghosting is the one method to distance your self from a poisonous and unhealthy relationship and the one method to safeguard your psychological well being when no different presents itself.

Ghosting Has An Picture Drawback

The time period “ghosting” was coined within the early 2000s however turned a cultural phenomenon within the mid-2010s due to a surge in using social media, and particularly relationship apps. These apps made it simpler than ever to finish a relationship by giving customers the choice to “block” different customers, successfully giving serial daters carte blanche to dine and sprint on relationships with out having to cope with the emotional fallout.

From this standpoint, ghosting is at greatest cowardly and at worst abusive. However I imagine herein lies the issue: most, if not all, literature on ghosting is written from the attitude of the ghostee. Little or no house has been devoted to the place of the ghoster him/herself. As somebody who has ghosted one other particular person, I can say with confidence that ghosting will not be at all times a matter of exhibiting informal disregard for different folks’s emotions: generally it is the one factor you are able to do to flee a poisonous relationship together with your psychological well being intact. 

Ghosting Is Typically the Solely Choice

Final yr, somebody with whom I had as soon as briefly labored added me on social media. I accepted the buddy request and politely responded to the non-public message that accompanied it, and we engaged in a fast, pleasant chat about what we had each been doing through the years since we final spoke. There was nothing profound in regards to the dialog, and I believed nothing extra of it till the subsequent morning when I noticed that I had acquired one other message from this person– this one containing intimate particulars of their latest private struggles and claiming that I (a relative stranger) was the one particular person they felt they might discuss to.

I responded with what I believed was applicable recommendation and reassurance, however over the next days and weeks, the messages, calls, photographs, and movies turned relentless. I attempted to reply to them as I used to be genuinely involved for this particular person’s wellbeing, however as a pregnant mom with a busy life, some messages inevitably handed me by, and when this occurred, I used to be bombarded with much more calls and texts, usually in the course of the night time or very first thing within the morning. After three weeks, I used to be exhausted, scared to choose up my cellphone or test my social media accounts lest this particular person noticed that I had been on-line and attempt to contact me for the thirtieth time that day. My husband may see how this relationship — seemingly born out of nowhere — was affecting my psychological well being and urged me to chop off all contact.

I used to be reluctant. I could not do such a factor. Then one night time, my cellphone vibrated itself off the bedside desk after I was attempting to settle my toddler again to sleep after she had been woken by one other name from this particular person, and I made a decision that sufficient was sufficient. My finger hovered guiltily over the “block” button. Then I tapped it. And I’ve by no means seemed again. 

Ghosting and Self-Preservation

This can be a very transient account of the explanations for my choice to ghost someone. It was not a call taken evenly and never one I’d readily select to make once more. Nevertheless, I’d not hesitate to do it once more if I felt {that a} relationship was having a adverse impression on my household or my psychological well being. It is one factor to be there for somebody; it is fairly one other factor to sacrifice your private wellbeing and security for his or her consolation. Within the latter case, ghosting will not be the coward’s trick; it is the survivor’s solely possibility.