Ghosting for NLDers and Neurotypicals
Today’s episode is going to be about the effects of being ghosted by friends and people that both neurotypicals (NTs) and NVLDers have experienced. I want to talk about how ghosting relates to NTs and NVLDers today. It happens more to NVLDers because of not being able to read social cues, being more naive and innocent. Also having an issue with believing that anyone will have any reason to hurt you. I will share my experiences of being ghosted and have some friends both NTs and NVLDers share their own experiences.
Songs “Never Alone” by Jesse Bonnano, “Now” Mallory Hope, “Beloved,” Jordan Feliz, “Haterz” Todrick Hall, “Flashlight,” Hunter Hayes, “I Do” Astrid S. and Brett Young, “Not Over You” by Brett Young, “Problems” by Arizona, “Breakups” Seaforth, “the best thing I never had,” by Beyoncé, and “I’ll be there,” Jess Glynne, “Fade Out,” by Seeb and Olivia O’Brien and Space Primates. Also please listen to “Enough Love” by Super Famous Mike.
I know that the song “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” from the movie Frozen is about death and loneliness. I feel like it captures some of the feelings one would have after being ghosted. I’ve been ghosted 4 times. I’ll tell what happened overall with each but not too many details and I won’t be naming anyone because my goal isn’t vengeance. My goal is to make NVLDers and NTs feel included, not alone. So here are my stories of being ghosted.
Here’s a Definition of it from “What Does It Mean to Be Ghosted?” “Ghosting is when someone who used to be friendly or even romantic with you suddenly cuts off all communication without explanation. While most people think of ghosting in a digital context, meaning a friend or dating partner stops responding to texts, emails, calls, etc., it can happen across all social circumstances.”
The first time it happened was with a girl that I knew from a math class in college. We had always hung out in class and outside during homework together. The next year when we didn’t have a class together and I was trying to hang out with her she never responded to my messages because she was in a club that kept her very busy. Eventually, I decided to stop reaching out to her because I realized she would never respond.
The second time was with a guy that I was chatting with through a dating app and he never got back with me to try to see if we wanted to go out with each other. So I realized that he was ghosting me. It didn’t hurt as much as the first one with the second one because I wasn’t close to the guy. And I wasn’t close to the girl either but to her because it was the first time it happened.
The next two were friends from church. The first one didn’t hurt as much as the second because I was closer to the other girl. With each one, I thought I had close friends with these girls. But I was wrong. And was not gauging the scale of other relationships or friendships correctly. I think that happens often with people who have NLD. Because they are hungry and eager for relationships and they are willing to connect and reach out more than NTs.
Ghosting happens more to people with NLD not only because of their naivety and innocence but because they can’t read social cues very well and because like I said before they are hungry and more eager for relationships. Also if they lose relationships more instead of keeping and nurturing them then they are going to have that hunger and eagerness increase rather than decreasing.
Instead of using articles about ghosting, I reached out to several of my NLD and NTs Friends to share their own stories of being ghosted, and here are their stories they have introduced themselves at the beginning of each story so you know who they are. And I will try to share how I relate to them after each one.
I can relate to Chloe because I do the same thing as she does (rejection sensitive dysphoria). I always go to the worst-case scenario when someone doesn’t respond to me even if they’re not ghosting me. Because I wonder if they’re okay, alive, or thinking badly about something I said to them recently. When it may not have anything to do with me it just maybe them and that they’re busy or had a bad day. It’s better not to do the worst-case scenario and maybe ask a friend of that person or loved one to see how they’re doing so you don’t have to worry too much.
With Lauren’s, I can relate to hers because I remember her when I was in Girl Scouts the girls were making fun of me and I also know that once I quit it because of that I didn’t hear back from some of the girls that I thought were my friends. So I guess that could also be counted as ghosting. I only have one friend that was from Girl Scouts now. And no it wasn’t from one of the girls that made fun of me.
I can relate to Ellen’s because I know how difficult it can be to read social cues, empathize, and sympathize with people. I’ve gotten better at empathy because I’ve gotten better at reading social cues and facial expressions. I can also identify with her stories because I need direct feedback and communication to know what someone means otherwise I might be reading too much into the situation. I also know that talking to neurotypicals is hard because you can monologue too much sometimes without realizing it. This can be discouraging to talk because if they don’t respond then it’s like what’s wrong with me.
I can relate to Megan‘s. After all, I agree with her that they should be able to communicate more before it comes to ghosting because I am more sensitive because of that happening to me. And I also sometimes think about what is wrong with me and realize there is nothing wrong with me, it's more of them than me usually. Because maybe something is going on in their life that they’re not telling you about.
I can relate to Kathryn's because I know what it’s like to work on trying not to take something personally and how hard that can be to do sometimes. And also trying to learn coping skills to be better at certain things in life. And sometimes those coping skills work and sometimes they don’t. And sometimes you just have to wait for yourself to heal from something that affected you and realize that that’s OK and that you have to be gentle with yourself. That’s what I’ve been doing since I’ve been ghosted. And it’s been a slow process of healing. Music has something going worse-case being helping though and talking with my family and friends.
But there's one thing I’ve learned in life is that all the things that you struggle through are stronger and I think that doesn’t knock you down and also makes you stronger. I’ve struggled through many things and they have made me stronger and I’ve never given up on myself.
I can relate to Geoff L. experience because I was ghosted by someone on a dating app too but we hadn’t gone on any dates but he did stop responding to my messages. This has happened to me more than once. I send a guy a message and they either don’t respond or they stop contacting me.
Allison did a great job with her video because she was able to explain how ghosting affected her over her whole life. I hope she isn’t as affected by it later in life too because it does hurt. Like she said I didn’t know either why I was ghosted for any of the times and I’ve had to learn to be okay with that and not to take the ghosting so personally which can be hard to do sometimes.
Something may be going on with the ghoster (i.e. the one doing the ghosting) but you don’t know because they won’t communicate with you which is the most annoying and concerning thing about being ghosted.
I can relate to Natalie’s recording. Because I have also been sexually assaulted so I know what it's like to need your friends and family the most in desperate times. I remember that for me it was like I went through two traumas: the abuse and all the family drama. Because most of my extended family didn’t believe my story, they minimized it to just show and tell and said it was my fault. No of those things are true. I did get abused and assaulted by my cousin. It wasn’t my fault because I was a child when it happened. And I didn’t know any better. I had to deal with the grief of losing most of the extended family members from the abuser’s family. This wasn’t easy because they turned their back on us. It was like they ghosted because their support, love, faith, trust, and loyalty used to be there but then poof it was gone once they knew what had happened. I know this may not seem to be the same as ghosting but it does have some of the same elements: disappearing support, contact, love, loyalty. All that disappeared when we needed it the most from our family so we made a new family out of friends and some family members that did believe me completely 100%. If you want to know more about this trauma and how it was for me please listen to episode 20 on this podcast thank you.
(Geoff Hoppe) “I was diagnosed with NLD in adulthood. He lives in the Washington, D.C. area, where he works as an assistant cellarman at a local craft brewery. I think my main problem with being ghosted is that it compounds the isolation I already feel with NLD. I've been ghosted before in dating situations, but the most frequent ghosting I experience is from the job hunt. I've applied to more jobs than I could hope to keep track of, and most never get back to me. I don't even get a rejection. I send out applications knowing I likely won't hear anything back. The main problem with this is that I don't know what to improve on if they don't tell me WHY they've rejected me. A lesser problem is the emotional strain. Imagine saying hello to 100 people at a mixer, and 98 of them ignore you and walk away. That's what the job hunt feels like. Since I already have enough trouble communicating when people DO get back to me, it's a one-two punch to not hear back at all. That's where the compounded isolation comes in. The downside is that this is a lot of emotional strain. The upside is that it toughens me up, and forces me to keep trying. Not hearing back from HR also forces me to be creative, and get out of my comfort zone. For instance, after months of unsuccessful job hunting, I started Instacarting to make ends meet. That job turned out to be a good boot camp experience that forced me to improve a lot of the skills that are weak points, thanks to my NLD (time management, executive function, visual-spatial skills). If the job hunt had been easier, I probably wouldn't have had to look outside for an opportunity like Instacart.” (end of Geoff H.)
I can relate to Geoff H. because I also have been ghosted in the world of applying to jobs. I don’t remember how many I haven’t heard back from because I haven’t kept track of them because that can be discouraging if you think about it too much. I can also understand not knowing “the WHY” as Geoff called because it’s hard to be rejected and not know why. It makes you question yourself and probably too much. Since you don’t know why they said no instead of maybe or yes. Rejections do toughen you up because then you learn how to deal with not hearing back from people and realizing why you shouldn’t take things personally. Because if you do it usually doesn’t suit you that well in life at least that well I discovered in life.
Here’s an article about ghosting that I wanted to give you the link because it does help explain how to heal from it and how to help it not happen again: Please listen to and watch the music video of Matthew west singing walking miracles.
I can relate to Laurel’s experience because ghosting can hurt but that depends on how close you are to the person that does it to you. It can feel like you go through grief and the loss of losing that relationship. It helps if you have people to support with going through this which I do, thankfully. But hopefully, you will like Laurel said realize that people leave your life at times in your life. Then that leaves space for you to create new relationships and nurture the existing ones that are going well.
Something I did recently with the people I text frequently is that I asked them if I was being annoyed with my frequency of texts or jumping around too much with the topics. Only the latter was true for most of the people I asked so I decided to let them know when I would change the topic and give them more time to respond to my texts.
Thank you to everyone one of my friends, Geoff H., Lauren, Jonathan P., Anna, Geoff L., Laurel, Megan, Chloe, Allison, and Natalie, who contributed to this episode. I have learned something new about each of you from your contributions and stories. I will always appreciate the new knowledge I have now from all of you and from going through this journey myself.
I’m so grateful that I haven’t gone through this journey by myself but instead with a wonderful support circle of family and friends to help me get through it. It’s never easy to be ghosted. It’s not easy to lose that person that ghosted you whether they were a friend or significant other. It’s often hard to imagine your life without them because of the closeness of the relationship you had with them. Letting go of them may be easier for some than others due to how close you were to the one who ghosted you. Nevertheless, there will be a difference in your life because they’re not in it. That difference may be big or small consequently the whole it leaves behind will be big or small.
If I had to say which times I’ve been ghosted changed my life the most I would say that it was the first one in college with the girl in math class and the current one this year. This most recent one was unexpected so I didn’t think it was going to happen. The one in college wasn’t surprising because of the girl’s other commitments she had: the club.
But at least they both help me learn who will stay in my life and friends circle and who will leave. You may never know why the person who ghosted did what they did and you have to be at peace with that which is difficult. This is more difficult for ones with NLD because they often wonder if they are the reason that person ghosted them. When it could have been a result of something the ghoster was going through personally but didn’t know how to bring it up.
Hopefully, you will be able to not take the ghosting personally and be able to learn something from it so you can move on. And let go of that relationship. As I wrap I would like to remind you my audience that this is one of those challenges that both NLDers and NTs experience. I hope I was able to make someone out there who has experienced ghosting not feel alone by letting them know they’re not the only one who has experienced it. Please comment on this episode with something you learned from being ghosted. You can comment on livingwithnld, youtube, or email me at livingwithnld@gmail.com.
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