Don’t think you’re crazy if you feel upset about being ghosted. Ghosting—when someone suddenly cuts off all communication without explanation—tends to stir up intense feelings, even if the relationship wasn’t long or especially close. In fact, the distress this experience causes is tied to several well-documented psychological mechanisms.
Ghosting isn’t painful because of the silence alone. It’s painful because it disrupts your fundamental psychological need for connection, understanding, and control.
I wrote about being ghosted several years ago. That post remains one of the most popular on this blog, and my YouTube video on the same topic receives more views than any other video I have published to date.
Obviously, being ghosted concerns and upsets us. That’s why we go searching for a way to understand and heal from this experience. With this in mind, I decided to revisit this topic and offer a slightly different perspective on why this experience is so upsetting. (My next blog post will provide more tips to help you heal.)
The Reason being Ghosted Upsets You So Much
From a psychological perspective, there are at least seven reasons why being ghosted causes so much pain and upset.
1. It’s a Violation of Social Expectations and Norms
Humans are wired for social reciprocity. You expect mutual acknowledgment, which means you assume your friends feel the same way. You presume that when you recognize and validate another person’s feelings or perspective, they will do the same. And you expect the other person to treat you with respect, in the same way you treat them. This social reciprocity fosters trust and respect.
When someone vanishes without explanation, it violates the basic social rule: communicate. In fact, there is no communication. No reason for the abrupt “break-up” is provided because there is no conversation.
Additionally, ghosting is an unpredictable event; as such, it can activate anxiety within you. Your brain goes into fight-or-flight mode because it craves coherence, predictability, and patterns. You become obsessed with understanding why this person abruptly ended the relationship. Their action doesn’t match any typical relationship patterns, happened suddenly without warning, and doesn’t follow any logic or normal codes of conduct.
2. It’s a Rejection and Threat to Your Self-Esteem
You can blame your brain for your obsession with why you were ghosted. It is acting on overdrive. And ghosting triggers the same neural pathways as physical pain, so it is trying hard to get you out of harm’s way—or to understand why this happened so it can avoid the experience in the future.
The other person’s abrupt silence often feels like personal rejection, even if it isn’t. Without an explanation, your mental chatter fills the never-ending pause with negativity. You ask yourself questions like, “What did I do wrong?” Or “What’s wrong with me?”
Constant rumination on self-blame—all the things you could have done to cause the person to ghost you—leads to lowered self-esteem. And that results in feeling as if being ghosted is your fault or there is something wrong with you.
3. It’s an Ambiguous Loss
Psychologist Pauline Boss coined the term ambiguous loss for losses without closure, like when someone is missing but not confirmed dead. Ghosting creates an ambiguous loss—the relationship feels gone but not definitively ended.
That ambiguity prevents emotional resolution. It leaves you stuck between hope and grief. “Maybe they will come back,” you think as you simultaneously grieve for the lost relationship.
4. It Creates Cognitive Dissonance
When someone’s actions contradict their previous words or behavior, it creates cognitive Dissonance, which is the psychological discomfort experienced when you hold two or more conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. It is also the upset that comes from your—or someone else’s—behavior contradicting your beliefs.
Ghosting causes cognitive Dissonance because someone you know and like disappears after previously showing affection and connection. You believed they liked you and wanted to continue the relationship; instead, they suddenly cut off all communication and ended it.
Then you, the ghosted person, struggle to reconcile the conflicting signals given by the other person. This leads to confusion and obsessive thinking. Your thoughts continually focus on that person and what happened.
5. It’s an Attachment Activation
As humans, we become attached to other people. Ghosting strongly activates attachment systems.
For example, you may tend toward anxious attachment, which is a pattern of insecure attachment characterized by a strong desire for closeness and intimacy coupled with a fear of abandonment and rejection. If you do, ghosting might cause you to panic, feel abandoned, and over-analyze the situation.
On the other hand, you may be someone with avoidant attachment, an insecure attachment style characterized by discomfort with emotional intimacy and a strong need for independence. In this case, being ghosted may cause you to feel angry or to withdraw, but you still experience distress. Even securely attached people feel shaken, because ghosting undercuts the basic sense of relational safety. You became attached to the other person on some level, and they detached themselves from you. Now, you fear others will do the same.
6. It Causes a Lack of Control and Closure
When you are given no opportunity to ask questions, get answers, or say goodbye, you feel stripped of agency. You cannot control the situation in any way.
The other person has removed themselves from your relational sphere. You can’t bring them back into it because you can’t speak to or reason with them.
Ghosting also causes upset because it leaves you without closure on the relationship. You weren’t able to say goodbye, nor did you have a conversation in which you and the other person ended the relationship. These facts make it hard to let go of the experience because it feels like unfinished business.
Humans regulate emotions partly by making sense of experiences. Ghosting denies that process, because the relationship ends suddenly with no discussion, explanation, or conclusion. That leaves you stuck in an unresolved emotional loop. Closure closes the loop.
7. It Impacts Your Social Identity and Causes Shame
In close relationships, our sense of identity is partly co-constructed with other people. We have a sense of we-ness that connects us.
Therefore, when someone ghosts you, it can feel like part of your identity is suddenly erased. You are no longer part of the we. You are rejected and alone and unsure of who you are without the other half of the we.
That’s why ghosting can also make you feel ashamed. You fear that others now see you as not worth befriending or associating with. If this other person ghosted you, there must be a reason, and that makes you feel ashamed of who you are and your actions—even though you don’t know what you did to the other person.
Yet, you believe others see you negatively, and, like a leper, you feel outcast. Your brain says, “Something must be wrong with you,” and you fear others think the same thing about you.
You’ve Got Good Reason to Be Upset
Understanding why you feel so upset about being ghosted can help you avoid self-blame. Place the fault with your human psychology, not yourself. It’s only human to feel upset when someone ghosts you.
And realize that being ghosted says more about the other person than about you. What type of person would disappear and end a relationship with no communication? What characteristics might make them act that way?
Your brain tries to help you deal with the experience by creating narratives that aren’t true, like “It’s my fault.” This causes you to feel as if you are a bad person who doesn’t deserve a caring relationship or to be treated with respect.
When someone leaves you without explanation or closure, it’s natural to feel hurt, betrayed, and confused. But you can move through this experience and trust people again. You can feel confident in your relationship decisions, proud of yourself, and secure in your identity and behavior.
Know you aren’t crazy. What you feel after being ghosted is normal. Most human beings would have the same psychological and emotional response to being ghosted. It’s in your human nature.
Truly, that’s what makes ghosting such a mean-spirited and punishing action. It is bound to cause upset and pain immediately and possibly long-term.
Why do you think you are still so upset about being ghosted? Tell me why in a comment below. And please share this post with those who may benefit from reading it.
Image courtesy of monstarrr.
