When Ghosting Is Right
and when it may save your life
Please give some thought to what you believe about "ghosting." Your safety-physical, financial, emotional-may depend on your ability to ghost someone.
I know that if you've been ghosted by a friend, that it hurt. That hurt probably formed your view of ghosting to some degree. You may think, "I don't ever want to do that to someone. It's wrong and cowardly, and people I've cared about deserve better. I won't give that pain to someone the way another gave it to me."
This is understandable and normal—for someone of normal character and emotional disposition. It is not honorable to "ghost" a friend if you're doing so to avoid having a candid conversation about an issue. But there are people we must ghost if we're to avoid serious harm.
You are a normal person, with normal character. You have flaws, and you are not a perfect person. This is most of us.
But there are people who are not like you. They do not have normal character, they do not have a normal emotional disposition.
They are some or a combination of these things:
-Selfish
-Narcissistic
-Exploitative
-Dishonest
-Manipulative
-Sadistic (they enjoy causing you pain, even if they're good actors who conceal that. Your gut knows.)
There are many names for these people. Egomaniacs. Sadists. Grievance-mongers. Parasites. Choose whatever name you think fits best.
What they are, in clinical language, are people with Cluster B personality disorders. Serious, deeply engrained disorders of their very character. Every one of you reading this has known such a person. In your family, at work, at church, among your friends. Even if you don't think you've met one, you have.
There are more people with full blown disorders like this—Borderline personality, Narcissistic, Histrionic, Sociopathic—in society today than ever before. It's real. And frighteningly, they are sometimes the people closest to you.
It might be the person in your life that you think you can't bear to acknowledge the truth about. It was for me; it was my mother. Accepting the truth that my mother's character was so broken that she had never loved her children, and that she was exploiting and hurting them, was the most painful thing I have ever endured. I thought it would kill me. It was many times worse than the pain and fear of my early heart attack at 36.
But what would have actually killed me (I was drinking myself to death and getting close to a suicide attempt) would have been to keep denying that truth.
Your story, your relationships, will be different from mine. But there will be overlap. If you have such a person in your life, sometimes you must ghost that person. Confronting them directly can be dangerous. You might be financially exploited. You might have your reputation ruined by this person in important circles (that may happen anyway, sadly).
With narcissistic people, it is usually best to quietly, slowly, back away. Become "boring." Become less communicative. Taper away, and put up boundaries. Move in different circles. The most dangerous personality disordered people will kill you. I'm talking murder. Or they may rape you. Or they may beat you. Ghosting may save your very life.
I mean this with absolute sincerity; I am not exaggerating to entertain or grab your attention. I have lived this, and I know it's true. Please, do not let your normal human sympathy and compassion make you a fool. Don't tell yourself "it's always wrong to ghost." We must discern when it's right and when it's wrong.
Discernment is hard, but it is necessary.
One of the best things you can do for yourself is to read Gavin DeBecker’s unique and vitally important book The Gift of Fear.
DeBecker goes deep into how to listen to our intuition, and how to detach safely from people who are not safe.
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This probably sounds maudlin because I was only 18, but I was ghosted by a boy I was very much in love with. We even talked about getting married someday. He gave me a ring. We were inseparable.
One day, for reasons I still don't know, he just went away. He wouldn't speak to me, he wouldn't look at me...it was as if we'd never met. He demanded the ring. I gave it back.
30 years later and I still don't understand.
I have a relative who is extremely intelligent, narcissistic and arrogant beyond words. When I first visited him after years, I reacted to comments that were antagonistic and of a lecture type and got into very serious arguments which ended with him raising a fist to me and asking me if I wanted to hit him. (I thought he wanted to hit me.) Anyway, after I kept reacting to his trigger statements, I realized that the only outcome was the one he wanted which was to have the last word and to bring me down to his miserable level. So, ever after, when tempted to engage in a volatile conversation, I simply backed off and quietly said "his name and the word Stop". He took that as an opportunity to escalate and get louder. I just kept quietly saying his name and the word Stop and gently smiled. I said it about 6 times and he knew it was useless and just suddenly smiled and said "Ok". That was weird in itself like a switch had been thrown. We changed the subject. I don't expect any real changes when talking to him. He's very passive/aggressive and I avoid his subversive 'I'll get you back later' payback. So, I just don't engage and try to navigate my visits.