Grief Ghosting: 7 Things That Might Help You Feel Better
Ghosting. It’s really more of a millennial term used when a less than mature individual chooses to end a relationship by simply ceasing all contact with the person they were dating. SO 8th grade. Unfortunately, it also adequately describes what happens when widow(er)s find the people they thought they could count on suddenly nowhere to be found. It’s a thing. It happened to me and I’m sure, grieving or not, it’s happened to you at some point.
The first time I experienced grief ghosting was when I was going through the divorce from Hubby #2. Someone I thought was my absolute bedrock forever and ever BFF just...disappeared. I will have to give her credit for eventually telling me she “chose to surround herself with healthy people so she could no longer be my best friend” so I guess she didn’t totally ghost me. But it was pretty devastating.
In the interest of owning my own “stuff”, I wasn’t being the best of friends to her either. I was seeking information about my estranged husband and calling her about a gazillion times a day after essentially “ghosting” HER as a result of a long term depression. I just kind of popped back in when I came out of it. Like my husband...she had moved on.
I’ve heard from so many people who have been grief ghosted. Whether it’s their siblings or their friends or even their own kids, being “abandoned” in our time of need is pretty darned brutal. It is so easy to get caught up in hurt feelings and angry retribution in times like that. Here are some ways I helped myself get through the secondary grief that came when I was ghosted.
- Prayer/Meditation - Learning to seek God for comfort instead of looking for it from other people was a huge awakening for me. Prayer was meditative and allowed me the space to calm down and not be quite so reactionary.
- Reading - One of the single most useful books I read in that time after my breakup with Hubby #2 was The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz. Agreement #2 is “Don’t take anything personally.” Nothing anyone does is because of you. It has everything to do with the other person...who they are, where they are in their journey.
- Therapy - There’s no shame in talking with a trained professional to gain some perspective on whatever issues you may be facing, no matter how old or “mature” you are. Talk Therapy and EMDR helped me immensely with many aspects and stages of my grief.
- Exercise - Getting out and walking every day took my mind off the fact I felt so abandoned, on top of the abandonment of the loss itself. It allowed me to focus on my breathing and feel my body as I moved it. The exercise itself lifted my mood by releasing “feel good hormones” which helped immensely.
- Joining In - Joining a walking group (I use 99Walks.fit now for a sense of belonging to a team). Taking a class. Volunteering. Signing up for a Bible Study. Call the local hospital and see if they need volunteer “baby snugglers” or the local animal shelter to see if they need dog walkers. Engaging is far superior than isolating and eating tubs of Ben & Jerry’s.
- Forgiving - This is the best thing you could ever do for yourself when you’ve been ghosted. Truly offering forgiveness from your heart helps free you from the extra burden of feeling abandoned by friends or relatives.
- Take Names - No, not an accounting of the wrongs being done to you. I’m talking about writing down the names of those people who say “call me”. (If any of them are ghosting you, take their name off the list.) I made sure I rotated through the list so I wasn’t leaning too heavy on any one person and “wearing out my welcome”.
Making new friends isn’t easy, but there are so many ways to do so...even if you can’t get out of the house. Facebook can be a thorn in my side, but there’s a group for everything there. And I’ve found a ton of support on Twitter in a relatively short amount of time. Grief Ghosting isn’t a pleasant experience to be sure. But, fortunately, there are things that can help you work your way through it.
❤️
“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 8:38-39 NIV