Ghosting: What Is It and How Does It Affect Your Mental Health?

Several factors affect our mental health. The widespread use of technology and social media platforms has been shown to have some adverse effects on mental health. Ghosting is an emerging social media trend, especially in online dating.

Ghosting is the sudden stoppage of communication with another person without any warning, reason, or explanation. It affects both parties. Although commonly associated with ending of a romantic relationship, it could apply to friendships and workplace connections.

In the past, ghosting was more of avoidance and social exclusion. There could be a reconciliation through talking or mediation by others. However, social media entails closeness and in such a situation ghosting tends to have an immediate effect. Those who have been ghosted by another person go through severe emotional and mental anguish.

Ghosting someone is an unhealthy way to end a relationship. It causes enormous pain and leads to anxiety, insecurity, and self-esteem issues in the person ghosted out.

It could be said that ghosting is the result of a fear-driven choice as the individual chooses the easy way out and does not prefer to address their issues with the other person in a matured and well-adjusted manner.

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Mental Health Effects on the Ghoster

Although it might seem that people ghost others to move away from abusive or uncomfortable relationships, those who cut off communication do undergo mental distress. The act of ghosting is an unhealthy problem-solving approach, and it indicates a passive aggressive mindset. Here are a few more effects on the ghoster.

1. Prevents the Development of Communication Skills

When someone decides to ghost another, they are denying themselves the opportunity to reach out to the other person and discuss their issues in an open and frank manner. It could slowly slide into the habit of recklessly ending relationships due to social anxiety.

Ghosters do not develop good interpersonal skills. They become uncomfortable when they need to articulate their thoughts. Thus, they could soon become socially isolated.

2. Lowers Mental Resilience

Socializing and developing relationships with others depend to a large extent on our ability to accept differences and be tolerant of unfamiliar behaviors. We should also have the mental resilience to speak up when we are uncomfortable in a relationship and seek an amicable solution. Even ending a relationship needs to be handled with civility.

Ghosting does not build the resilience muscle as it makes a person just walk away from a relationship—no discussion and just shutting out. It makes people hypersensitive and they seek escape from the uncomfortable situations that are an unavoidable part of life.

3. Affects Self-Esteem

Ghosters are not heartless monsters who do not feel emotions; rather they are individuals with underdeveloped communication skills who suffer from low self-esteem.

By ghosting someone, they take the easy way out of a relationship, yet they feel helpless at their inability to spell out their grievances. This affects their self-image as they feel small and guilty in stopping all communication with those they have ghosted. Thus, they end up feeling depressed and lonely.

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Mental Health Effects on the Ghosted Persons

Being ghosted by a person can cause significant emotional pain. The ghosted individual often feels rejected, which can lead to overthinking and anxiety.

Another fallout of being ghosted is that he or she may not have adequate coping mechanism to get over the pain, which may cause difficulties in moving on and building new relationships.

Individuals who have been ghosted also find it difficult to trust other people in the future. This situation is capable of impacting every future relationship the person will have in their life.

1. Feeling of Abandonment

The nature of how the relationship ended can leave the ghosted individual feeling confused and frustrated while leaving them wondering if they did something that caused it to happen.

The sudden loss of a relationship can leave the ghosted individual feeling abandoned and without a valid reason.

This makes them second-guess all their existing relationships. They either start clinging to these people in an unhealthy manner or withdraw from the existing relationships themselves so as not to go through similar pain.

2. Poor Self-Esteem

Being ghosted often causes the individual to overthink their decisions and thoughts. They start to question what they might have done to cause the other person to abruptly end the relationship.

They begin to doubt themselves and often end up wondering about what they could have done differently. These doubts about their actions often lead to insecurities that impact the person's self-esteem.

3. Mood Dysregulation

Being ghosted causes individuals to suffer from mood dysregulation, which impacts their mental health. Feelings of anger, sadness, and betrayal ring through their heads.

Without any closure, they have no way of processing these emotions in a healthy manner.These feelings can get pent up in an individual and lead to problems related to regulating emotions and thoughts if they are not resolved by activities like journaling and practicing gratitude.

Journaling is the practice of maintaining a record of thoughts, insights, feelings, and thoughts for various benefits. Practicing gratitude involves expressing appreciation for the positives found in one's life and it has several benefits.

According to a study, ghosting can cause immense pain to individuals. If this persists without the individual learning to cope with it in effectively, it will lead to mental health problems.