|

We’ve all been there, spending weeks, months, and sometimes even years texting someone and then all of a sudden ..BOOM.. nothing.. nada. It’s like the person never existed. They’ve literally become a ghost. And it hurts. It’s so hard to process this situation as it usually happens suddenly and unexpectedly. A lot of the time it can leave us stumped and stupefied as to what happened or what we did wrong when the majority of the time we’ve done nothing wrong at all! Today, we are here to show you what has helped us and many others to overcome the painful experience of being ghosted.

End all contact

The very first step you need to do is cut all contact. All of it, delete their Facebook, block their Snapchat, hide their Instagram, hell, you can even unfollow their LinkedIn! You need to remove all evidence of this person from your life! Purge it, and we mean really purge it! Out of sight means out of mind, and this can allow the process of healing to begin. While it can be hard to get rid of someone out of your life, it, unfortunately, it has to be done. And it’s ok to have a longing to text them, but the important thing to do is to replace this longing with something more positive. There’s no point shooting messages into the dark. They’ve ghosted you, and now you need to begin the clean up before you can move onto the next stage which is healing and processing the situation.

Don’t take it personally, it’s not something you said or did. Never, and I mean never, blame yourself!

We often spend so much time second-guessing every single message we sent, re-reading and replaying situations in our heads, trying to figure out where we went wrong, when a lot of the time, it’s not our fault at all! This does nothing but prolong the negativity and the pain of dealing with the situation. It’s so tempting to review and reread conversations, but it does very little to help. There’s nothing wrong with you, don’t leave self-doubt to creep in, because someone wasn’t ready to commit and be with you. You are a wonderful person and what’s meant for you won’t pass you!

Tell a friend

You remember the old saying “a problem shared is a problem halved?” Well, this works too with sharing your feelings. Being ghosted can lead to a lot of self-doubt and anguish and this can burden our minds. Sharing your story, and more importantly, your feelings with your friend are so important. They may have been in the same situation as you before and may be able to recognise what you’re going through. Having a good ol’ rant to your friend is always helpful. They may even be able to help you recognise some of the less pleasant features the other person had that you may have previously overlooked with your rose-tinted view of the relationship.

Give yourself time!

One of the hardest things to deal with after being ghosted is dealing with, or rather mourning the hope you had for the relationship. A lot of the time it is a loss of a friendship or someone we felt we could trust, and as a result that makes the process of overcoming the loss, take time. The biggest thing to do here is to take time to process your feelings. No one is asking you to forget or to move on, but we need to learn to take time to deal with what happened so that when the next person comes along, we are ready to commit. Cry, scream and yell, do whatever you need to do to help yourself overcome the feelings of loss and hurt, but remember, eventually you will need to begin moving forward, slowly but surely, and begin to build yourself into a stronger more powerful version of you!

Unfortunately, ghosting is becoming more common and it is a sad and hurtful thing to have to happen to you. Remember to be patient with yourself, it is ok to be sad or hurt! Cry about it if you need to, but remember, you then need to park it and begin to rebuild yourself back up, because there’s no point wasting tears on a ghost. Work through the grief, build your confidence back up, chat to your friends and most importantly, believe in your own self-worth. You deserve better and you will eventually get better!

 

If you would like to support us and the work that we do,  you can donate below ❤


Supported By

Our Pro bono Partners

The Shona Project is a company limited by guarantee. Registered charity number: 20206722. Company registration number: 592520.