ON WHAT SIDE OF THE CAGE IS FREEDOM?

Although there is a huge commotion about these behaviors, considered the evils of modern times, this type of reaction has always existed; the difference is that now it happens in a hyperconnected world, where we are constantly available and overwhelmed. In the past, cutting off long-distance communication was quite easy: You just stopped responding to letters, which in turn took months to arrive. Now that there are dozens of ways to reconnect, it’s still a painful event, but with greater exposure.

Not responding to a person is proof that you’re struggling to express your emotions, and it’s also a betrayal of the responsibility you assume when you begin a relationship of any kind.

A person who disappears proves that they’re not open to having an honest conversation about their decisions. With the excuse that disappearing hurts the other person less than confronting them, what they’re really doing is getting rid of the bad feeling of having to take responsibility for their decision. These cases only prove that person’s refusal to reach a higher emotional level or to recognize that future commitments, such as starting a business or a new relationship, will depend on more concrete actions, making pacts the phantom will not be willing to undertake.

They do it because they feel that it’s a better alternative than showing their faces. Under the guise that this way they won’t hurt the person they’re ghosting, they leave the ghosted with an endless sense of sorrow because phantoms can be everywhere and appear when you least expect them. Ghosts haunt you incessantly. They keep you awake at night, worrying that you might run into them, yet they still haunt you while you sleep.

An increasing number of people are suffering from mental disorders after being subjected to this type of emotional punishment, which is an endless torture because instead of executing the victim, the executioner hides among memories and possibilities. Beyond the specific wound of loss, the rejected person feels a deep sense of abandonment that takes its toll on their self-esteem. Not knowing the causes of a breakup will make the person be more suspicious of the things they do, of how they behave, of being authentic. On the other hand, there will be a sense of not even deserving an answer, a feeling of inadequacy and disregard.

I’m addressing this topic here because there are already too many cases of people who have been subjected to this form of contempt, and many of them stop their progress. If this is your case, don’t let the cowardice of others silence your roar.

PHANTOM PAIN

Ghosting shows a total lack of empathy because it stems from a culture that sees reality as a video game that can be turned off when the game goes sideways, and you can avoid defeat with the restart button. In addition to a lack of empathy, these actions demonstrate emotional immaturity issues and a poor ability to identify one’s own feelings, which are easier to abandon.

NOT EVERYONE DESERVES THE PRIVILEGE OF BEING MISSED BY YOU.

To avoid having to go through the discomfort of telling a person, face to face or through virtual means, that they’ve decided to end the bond they have, they disappear, like spoiled and cruel children who flip the board if the game isn’t going their way. In a move that has been widely criticized on social media, a Philippine congressman filed a bill to make ghosting punishable as an “offense that causes a sense of rejection and abandonment.” Although I sympathize, I can’t imagine how such a law could be enforced. I think it’s only possible to eradicate these practices if we learn to have relationships based on empathy. This goes beyond feeling the pain of others; it’s also the understanding that other people have an identity and feelings that are different from our own.

Those who suffer from being ghosted tirelessly go over each word and each event searching for a reason that in most cases doesn’t exist. It’s a continuous suffocation, a cycle that never ends, an open wound that is not allowed to heal. Although it can happen in any type of friendship, family, or work relationship, it is particularly complex in the case of romantic ones because it denies the rejected person a closure that would allow them to freely begin again. What’s more, these wounds affect the future perception of how to approach love.

Failure to overcome ghosting can have consequences when approaching any new opportunity. You’ll be afraid of making the same mistakes, without knowing what they were. Don’t worry, getting out of this type of situation is possible, and I’m going to give you a series of actions that you can put into practice. First, take care of your inner dialogue. Go back to the self-awareness exercises earlier in the book. Keep in mind that what the other person did is entirely about them, not you. It’s a problem rooted in their wounds and insecurities. Avoid trying to find the reasons in your actions, in your omissions. Don’t fall into a mortifying evaluation of things that did or did not happen. While you may have made mistakes, none of them justify the other person’s actions.

I WILL LOVE MYSELF FOR THE LONG TERM.

Tell that being crying within you, “They decided to leave.” “They didn’t have the courage to talk to me.” But never accuse yourself with an “I failed” or an “I scared them off.” If this is the way you speak to yourself, note that these aren’t phrases that come out of nowhere. You must ask yourself what’s causing you to express yourself in this way. Do you feel you can’t be loved? Do you think it wasn’t worth it to stay by your side?

If your wounds of abandonment and rejection are still alive, encouraging your feelings of contempt, it’s time to work on them to heal them once and for all.

Then you must follow this with another fundamental action: closing the cycle on your own. Don’t look for this person to “put an end” to the situation, because that encounter can become an excuse to reestablish contact. Putting an end to it is something you must do alone, as decided by the person who couldn’t show their face. Did you close the door but still hold the doorknob in your hand? When you close a circle, check to make sure you’re not within the circumference.

Avoid anger. You may feel sadness, but it can turn into a persistent anger that can reflect on you, on what you feel. So deactivate the triggers that make you succumb to remembering and connecting with those feelings that caused you pain. You may think that deleting their accounts from your social media is as childish an action as the one that person has taken, but minimizing notifications, hiding and limiting their posts, if they haven’t blocked you, will reduce the triggers to think about it all again.

Also, be prepared for their return. You should know how to react when the person reappears, because they probably will. These reappearances, often referred to as zombieing (from zombie, a dead person who suddenly comes to life for strange reasons), can occur through direct contact or with approaches through social media or other digital media. It’s essential that you prepare for their return. You must know what to do when this happens. If your decision is to talk to them, come up with a script of what you’re going to say and follow it rigorously. This will make it easier to forgive and make the moment more bearable.

Put yourself first. That action sums up all the rest. You don’t need anyone in order to pursue what you want, or for your life to have value. As we’ve seen in this book, even in the most complex situations you can find a way to get back to who you were before that wound.

Finally, talk to people you trust. Don’t keep that pain inside or pretend that you’re fine or that the situation doesn’t affect you when the opposite is true. If you feel that you’ve reached a point where the damage is overwhelming, seek professional help. It’s so normal to have an “I don’t care” or “I’m fine and strong” reaction when it’s not true. Doing this goes against the previous point’s principle because you’re putting yourself last, you’re proving something that’s not true, and believe it or not, that only sinks you deeper. Do the things you like, but do them for yourself, not because you want someone else to see them.

THE “SEE YOU SOON” IS ALWAYS LATE.

And if you’re the one playing the ghosting game, I ask you to think twice. You may have valid reasons for ending a relationship, but if you’ve come to this decision unilaterally, you need to let the other person know so that you can end the situation responsibly. Remember that no matter how disappointed you are, everyone deserves to know there’s an end. Roaring also means taking responsibility, no matter how difficult that may be. If you’re going to become part of someone’s past, do so without becoming an unreal future.

STIGMA

Strong and great are those who, knowing that they can hurt you, choose not to. The more love you put in your heart, the more room there is in it. Love doesn’t fill the heart, it enlarges it; but it’s also easier to give to those who have expanded hearts because they have more room.

So don’t spend your time on something as petty as hatred. Hate doesn’t create, it only destroys, but faith and hope will always win. I already said it in Inquebrantables: “Above those who run are those who fly and above those who fly are those who heal broken wings.” Love so much and so extensively that you have no time or space left to hate anyone.

By all means, seek to eliminate and deactivate hatred from your life. If you continue in that vicious circle, you’ll create a hole in your soul that is impossible to fill. You’ll see an empty world without realizing that what you’re looking at is merely a reflection of what you carry within you. Let’s return to the theme of coming back to you, of not turning moments of grief into a show where you say that you’re fine when it’s not true. As I write these lines, there’s a popular challenge on social media that invites people to show “a photo where you were devastated and no one knew it.” I’ve seen dozens of posts with this title and I’ve discovered smiles, parties, scenes of immense joy. I myself see some of my photos, and it hurts to accept that many of them have a cry that is not heard, but that calls out, “Can you see me?” “Do you love me?”