HealthyGamerGG - Why It's Your Fault You Got Ghosted

Episode Date: November 1, 2021

Dr K Talks Ghosting, clingyness, and gives some advice! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a post essentially about someone who like starts to form a healthy relationship, gets overly clingy, overly invested, and then ends up driving the other person away. So why does this happen and how do we get out of this, right? So I got ghosted. Now I'm wondering if I know how to be in a healthy relationship. So I'm a 30-year-old guy who feels like he drives people away. I can be while not wanting to be very guarded and secretive. I think this stems from a childhood of being bullied.

by my family for no apparent reason. It was a common occurrence to be told by family that I was an embarrassment. Had the wrong personality was an asshole or a piece of shit. I remember things like being told as a kid to list out loud the people that would come to my hypothetical funeral as a way of proving to me that no one will mourn my death and be accused of lying when I go to spend time with my friends because it was unbelievable that anyone would like me. It was hurtful and confusing. It felt like relationships were guessing games where I was always the loser. I became a loner. Now I work hard to connect with new people. I've noticed that when new relationships don't go well or the way I would like them to, I blame myself. I think a good example of this is a girl I like that I've been talking

to since March. When we first started talking, it was amazing how quickly we clicked. It surprised me. We eventually had less time for me as she got busier in her personal life. When she started to get busy, I got nervous. A lot of people have ghosted me. So I fearfully, and baselessly suspected she was trying to break contact. I never addressed these feelings with her, though. My response was to text her a lot, almost as if to remind her I still existed. I was stuck in a pattern of wanting to talk to her,

but then worrying about giving her space or doing something wrong until I would convince myself to text anyway. Soon my texts grew longer, hers shorter. This would continue until she suddenly blocked me a couple of days ago. Friends have been telling me not to blame myself in that I did nothing wrong, But shouldn't I blame myself? I feel like I drove her away. I genuinely really liked her, even loved her, but I feel like I was stuck in my head, never including her. I also feel like this relationship was burdened by my slowly obsessing over her without paying enough attention to her as an actual person. I feel like I ruined things. Dr. K, how can I have healthy relationships with myself and others going forward? Why do I become guarded and obsessive in relationships? How do I deal with my surprise when women like me back? Let's upvote this.

All right. So this is a great post. So I like this post for a number of reasons. The first reason I like this post is because the person who posted is an absolute boss. Okay. So let me compose my thoughts. So this is a post about someone who enters into relationships with people, is guarded, generally speaking, had a very traumatic upbringing. and then something happens in the relationship where they click right away,

they get along really well, and then as circumstances in life cause the person that they're talking to to kind of pull back, they become very, very clingy, and then end up driving the other person to block them. Okay? So like if you're, if this is a post essentially about someone who like starts to form a healthy relationship gets overly clingy, overly invested, and then ends up driving the other person away.

so why does this happen and how do we get out of this right so how do we stop being creepy people that women have to block so the first thing to understand is that this is all about understanding the evolution of your needs throughout a relationship okay so to begin with we have a history of a traumatic upbringing and so like this is one thing one question i would ask for this person is when this person was treated traumatically or abusively, what did you, how did it make you feel and what did you do? Okay. So this is really important because sometimes when we're treated like abusively, like emotionally abusively like by parents and other people, we feel responsible for making them feel better and liking us. Right. So like if this person is being mean to me,

that's not on them, that's on me. And we see the current of self-blame throughout this kind of thing. Then something else is interesting is happening is that this person's, when they go to their friends, right? They're saying like, hey, this situation happened. I started texting this person more and more stuff and they weren't responding to me and they blocked me. Is it my fault? And then your friends do what? They reassure you. And they say, no, man, of course it's not your fault.

She's a total B word. Like, it's totally like, I can't believe she was so cruel to you. Like, you're not doing anything wrong. You're doing everything great. And this is where I got to say if people, if you find yourself, in a pattern of like people blocking you, maybe you need to take some responsibility. And this is why I think this person is an absolute boss, because like they're asking this question in a very authentic way, right? They don't want to continue doing this. They're recognizing

that there are things going on and that maybe they need to change them. So I would actually say that does this blame lie with you? At least 50%, is what I would say. Because remember that in any relationship, you have a contribution. The good news is that the blame does lie. with you, you also have the power to change things. Right? So you can't have agency without responsibility. Responsibility doesn't come without agency. If it's my response, if I have the power to win, then I also have the power to lose. And so if I get credit for the win, I also have to take credit for the loss. So now let's try to understand what's going on here. And I think the key thing to understand here is the evolution of internal needs as you get cling gear and cling gear. So in the

first phase of the relationship, you meet someone. You'll click right away. So like, you have some emotional needs. They're not very powerful at that point because it's early stage in the relationship. And on the other end of the relationship, they're not really powerful as well. Like, you know, you guys are kind of like, you're kind of chilling, you guys like each other, you hang out a little bit. It's a low investment relationship that feels really natural. And then what starts to happen? So like, things were fine until this person got busy in their personal life, right? So the girl that this person is talking to starts to get busy. So due to a circumstance in this person's life, they start becoming less available. Now, how does the poster respond to this? This is where things get really interesting,

because they start to get anxious and they start to get clingy, right? They start to, like, even though in their head, they understand that, like, this person is busier now, so they can't text as much as they used to. That's not the way that you respond emotionally, right? You start to get really, really anxious, you start texting more. Okay. So now you are adding another need into this relationship. And I don't know if this is going to make sense. But now your anxiety, you are actually looking to the other person to fix. So when you send a text, like a long text, what you're looking for is for them to send an equally long text. Because now you're worried, you're like, oh, what if this person doesn't like me? What if they're drifting away? Let me like do something big in the relationship.

let me send a big text. And if they send a big text back, then I will be soothed. I'll be like, oh, thank God. They really do care about me. Or if they apologize or they say, oh, like, I've been really busy lately. I'm sorry, I haven't had time for you. Like, that's going to make you feel good. So now you're adding a new need and an emotional need into the relationship where you need this person to tell you, hey, I still want to be your friend. Hey, don't worry about it. You're looking for reassurance from that anxiety as this person is starting to pull away. And where does that anxiety come from? It comes from the fact that people pulled away from you in the past, right? It comes from the idea that, like, you haven't, you've been taught that you're like not a worthy person, that people don't want to be your friend. And so now what happens is when you like grow up in a situation where like literally your parents traumatize you by saying, who's going to be at your funeral, ain't no one going to be at your funeral because no one wants to be your friend. So that some scar, that psychological trauma is carried in your mind. So then when this person starts to pull away because of like work-related stuff or other things going on.

her life, that fear in your mind activates. And it's like, oh my God. I know in my head, logically, that this person is just busier. But what if what my parents told me all along is true? That this person, that they're, I'm not, they really don't want to be my friend. So to alleviate that anxiety, you send a big text, right? You send a frequent text. And this person, I mean, this is why I think this person has done a lot of introspection. So I want you to look at this. when she started to get busy I got nervous so what is the nature of that nervousness

a lot of people have ghosted me so I fearfully and baselessly suspected she was trying to break contact this is important it wasn't baseless

this isn't baseless right because it's happened to you before you need to often you need to validate that feeling and so here's the thing so yeah so my response was to text her a lot

almost as as if to remind her, I still existed. And this is the key thing that you need to work on. Because at this point, you feel internally that you don't exist in the relationship. So you are trying to get her to tell you like, hey, you exist in this relationship. You exist in this relationship. Right. So now your emotional needs are creating a situation where you are asking something of her

without her realizing what you're asking because you have never told her. so you're looking for a sign from her that you still exist in the relationship. But she doesn't know that, right? So, like, now what's happening is you're feeling all of these emotional needs, like, you're feeling like clinging and you're feeling like, don't pull away, like, hey, please remember I exist. Please remember I'm your friend. Like, say something to me. And as you put all of those needs into your text messages, like empathically between the lines,

like reading between the lines, like, there's something like desperate in those text messages. she gets confused because she's like, what is going on here? Right? And it makes sense because you haven't actually explained to her how you feel. You're just like sending these really long text messages that she's not reciprocating.

And so like, then she starts to pull away because she doesn't understand what's going on here because now you've added a layer of needs into the relationship that she's unaware of. As she starts to pull away, it reinforces everything, right? So as she pulls away more, the anxiety increases. You need to remind her even more that you exist

because as her responses get shorter, you start to disappear in her mind. And as you disappear in her mind, the anxiety gets worse. The need for some kind of response gets worse. The reassurance gets worse. So then you send even longer text messages and you inject an even more powerful need

into the relationship. And she gets even more confused because she's like, what's going on here? Like these guys sending me like 14 texts and like, what's up with this? And so then what she does send a shorter response. And as she sends a shorter response, you shrink, right? You become, you start to fade away out of existence, even more. And as you feel that fading away,

the desperation increases. Hey, remember I'm here, remember I'm here. I'm a person. I'm a person. I have feelings. Don't forget about me. Please, please, please, please, don't forget about me. That's what your text start to say. Don't forget about me. I exist. And she doesn't know what to do with that? Because that's not actually what you're saying, right? She's just getting these really long text messages. And then she has no choice but to block you. And so then what happens when she blocks you, you get reinforced, right? Oh, what my parents said all along is true is that people don't want to be my friend. That it's like, it's not that I don't deserve friends. Now another person, I've ceased to exist in another person's mind.

And then your mind will say, this is how it's been all along. This is the truth of the world. You will never exist in anyone's mind, right? That's what it tells you in those dark moments. It's something, it's the voice in your head that you carry with you that now has been reinforced. And then you go to your friends and you say, hey, what's going on here? And your friends say, oh, don't worry about it. It's no big deal.

It's on her. It has nothing to do with you. You're great. You're an awesome person. We like you. And so that can be very reassuring in some way, but you have to remember that if this pattern is repeating in your life, there's a reason it's repeating. Right? Like there's a reason. There's something going on that you're injecting into these relationships where people are ghosting you. And I suspect the main thing that you're injecting is this anxiety, this fear that people are like going away. And this person even kind of says it where they kind of say, you know, I get stuck in my own. head. And this is where the relationship falls apart. Because a relationship is between two people. And if you get stuck in your own head, you're like playing your own tune, right? It's like,

imagine you're like trying to dance with someone. And there's like music playing. But then you've got headphones that's playing a different song. And so you guys are trying to dance in rhythm and they're playing to like the music that's playing and like they're listening to some waltz, okay, because you're at a wedding. And then you've got like headphones on and you're listening to Tupac. And like the the kind of dancing that you're going to be doing to the music in your own head is something that they can't dance to because they don't hear it. So the more you get stuck in your own head, like you're no longer in a relationship, right? Because you're engaging in this relationship with like operating from your own thinking. And if you don't communicate with her, then the other person doesn't understand what you're listening to.

They just see you like convulsing on the dance floor and they're like, I don't know how to dance with this person. And so then they step off the dance floor. So are there things that you can do about it? Absolutely. The first thing is like understand when the music starts playing in your head. Because if you look at this relationship, they're saying at the beginning everything's fine, right? So at the beginning, we're both dancing the same music. And then she starts to get busy at work. And then you're like, ah, your brain is like, I remember this. She's busy at work. Let me put the headphones on and let me start listening to something else. Okay? And then you get stuck in your own head and then you're operating from that space. You're doing all this work. And then you separate from her. right? So she's over here. You guys are together and then you start getting in your own head, but like she doesn't understand what's going on here. So it's like you start to deviate off this way and then she's kind of going this way and then it's like, then the relationship falls apart. So if you want to be successful in a situation like this, the first thing to understand is what are the emotions that arise as this stuff happens? And more importantly, as these emotions arise, how do they influence your behavior? Because if you're being driven by emotions to do particular, things and they are not on the same wavelength, they're going to be taken aback by what you're doing and they're not going to know how to interact with you. Because now you're dancing to your own tune. And they're like trying to dance with you. And it's like, hey, we used to be dancing. And now you're kind of like dancing on your own. I'm confused. How do I participate in this relationship?

And then since people don't know how to have healthy conversations, right? So like, you know, the right thing for her to do in that situation is, hey, like, you're sending me all these text messages, like, what's going on? Like, help me understand what's going on. Like, you know, like, what, like you seem anxious to me. So ideally she would be able to prompt the conversation. But instead, what we do is we just ghost people, because that's like what happens nowadays, right? So are you somewhat responsible if you're in this situation?

I'd say yes. I think it's time to take responsibility. Are you to blame? No. So I don't blame you for it. I don't think you're a bad person. I don't think it's like, in a sense, or I'd say it's, is it your fault sort of?

but I think it's absolutely excusable. Because your brain has been programmed in a particular way. You have these fundamental needs that have never been met, that allows you to be secure in a relationship. Because this person can't tolerate someone else pulling away from the relationship, even for things that have nothing to do with the relationship, like real life getting in the way, work getting busy. So when someone else pulls away, you can't tolerate that anxiety.

You can't tolerate that distance. And when you can't tolerate the anxiety, it causes you to change your behavior. and when you change your behavior, now you're dancing to your own tune. So all the messages are operating from like a place inside your head, which the other person isn't aware of. So they're like, they get freaked the F out and then they start to pull away. And then they end up ghosting. So I'd say first, understand. As these feelings arise, what are you afraid of?

What's going on? Why do you feel like you have to text her? Why do you, why does she need to know that you exist? Because that's the key thing. What is it like to feel like you don't? exist anymore in this person's life and process those feelings. Because as you process those feelings and you reduce the fuel in that fire, then the behaviors will naturally go away. Right? You have to remove the emotional energy that leads to the clingy behaviors.

It's not sufficient to just not text. Because then what will happen is if you force yourself to not text, you'll force yourself to not text and then it'll be a tension in you. It'll start to build up. Don't text. Don't text. Don't text. Don't text. Don't text. Don't text. Don't text. Don't text. Don't text. And then it'll reach a cresting point. And then you won't be able to control it. And then it's going to be like, it's like a release where you like, you have to text. You can't control it.

Oh, I have to text. And then you feel like, oh, thank God. Okay. Like, notice me now. Notice me. I can't control myself. Notice me. And then she's like, what's happening here?

You're doing all this. You're dancing this whole opera in your head. And she doesn't know how to keep up. And so then she withdraws. So understand the emotions that arise first and foremost. and work on those emotions. Work on those needs. Understand what your emotional needs are in the relationship

and how they evolve. And the only way that a successful relationship is going to work is when your emotional needs can be at least understood by the other person. And then hopefully if you're lucky, that person is willing to meet you halfway and try to do what they can for your emotional needs. Great post.

So then someone else is saying, how do you handle when she is really leaving? You let her go. Right? So this is hard, but someone's asking, how do you handle when she's really leaving? The answer is simple. You let her go. And this is the key thing.

What makes it hard to let her go? Because we assume that the reason she's leaving is because of us. Whereas the truth is that most people in life, when they part ways, they do so because of a thousand reasons that have nothing to do with you. Right? If you think about, like, you know, the friends that I had in high school, why am I not friends with most of them anymore? it's because of circumstance. I went to high school, then I went to college in a different city,

and then I went to medical school in a different state, and then I did residency in the same state, but people went their separate ways. And so I entered people's lives, and then I left people's lives. And it has nothing to do with them, because that's what life is. Life is like a meeting of like different,

it's moments in time where you connect with another human being. And for some people, those moments are short, and for some people, those moments are long. And you have to understand that, like, not everything in the world, people leaving your life may not have anything to do with you. And even in the sense, if it does have something to do with you, that's okay too. Because even if someone says, hey, I don't think we're compatible, like, that's okay, right? You're not going to be compatible with every person on the planet. You're not going to be compatible with every person that you date. That's the reason that you date.

And you let people go their way, and you go. your way because at the end of the day, if someone wants to leave you, let them. What are you going to do? Like, pin them down and, like, force them into a relationship with you. You deserve a better relationship with that. The relationship that you want is one where someone wants to be with you and feels comfortable being with you. That's what you really deserve is a real relationship. So it's tough. Yeah, I like you on Netflix. I think it's great. I'm on season two right now. Okay. So do we need shorter text messages? Absolutely. Right? So, like, don't, I don't know how. I don't know how. houses, like, you can't expect someone to keep up with all of the stuff that you're doing in your head.

No relationship is going to work like that. Right. When you're, like, working through bunches of anxiety. There's tons of anxieties floating out there. You try to communicate with someone over text. Like, they're not going to, like, they're operating with, like, 10% of the information where your text is coming from. So that's not going to work. So you have to let people know, like, you either have to process the crap in your head so that you're kind of back on the same page with them.

Or you need to let them know where you are. that you give them the opportunity to like catch up to you. And the more you progress up here, like the more you build castles in the sky or read into relationships or like think that the relationship is more that it is. Check out only fans, for example. The more blindside of the other person is going to be. Like how is someone supposed to participate in a relationship where you've advanced at 10,000 years in your head? Yeah. So someone is saying, someone is saying, I can't avoid being so attached because I can't make friends. Absolutely. Right. So that's the same is this post. That's why I shared it and I thought it was a great post. Because it is the inability

to make friends that makes every potential friend so much more attached. You get so attached to everyone. And it's the fact that you get so attached to them that you kind of drive them away. And so you're kind of stuck in this loop of like, I have no friends and therefore anytime I have the possibility of a friend, I put too much on them because you take all that luggage from the past, and you dump it into this relationship. And when you dump it on them, it's too much for them to handle, so then they leave. And then they, when they leave, they leave you a piece of luggage, too. So now you've got one more piece of luggage.

And then the next person comes along, and you dump ten pieces of luggage on them. And it's like too much for them to handle it. Like, I can't carry all this stuff. And then they leave, and then you have 11 pieces of luggage. So it's really hard. Don't get me wrong. It's very hard. And so that's where I think the solution is to like let go of the luggage.

right? Like you have to work through that stuff. You have to work through what's it like being alone year after year after year. What's it like engaging in relationship after relationship after a relationship? So it's an infinite loop only if that's the loop that you keep doing. Remember, there are other things that you can do. You can offload the luggage, right? You can see a therapist, you can work with a coach. I think group coaching is a really good avenue for this kind of thing because it's like an opportunity for people to form relationships with each other that have very good strict boundaries. So it's like a way to practice talking to each other, communicating your feelings. It's like how to make friends one-on-one. Because in group, we don't let you be friends. So we're going to teach you all of these

skills. And as you start to, as you bring luggage into the relationship and you want to play games with someone, we're going to say, no, no, no, you're not allowed to do that. Instead of playing games with them because you feel connected, talk about how you want to play games with them. vocalize your feelings. Understand what's going on on the inside. Bring all your luggage. By all means, toss it our way. We're ready to take it, but we're not going to give in to it. We're not going to give you the relationship that you want to. What we're going to do is help you unburden yourself of the luggage. So I think group coaching is very good for this. So if you guys have this problem of being lonely and like driving people away and like having difficulty interacting with other human beings, group coaching is literally it's like 12 weeks of training about like how to interact with other human beings. How to live. Listen. How to be heard. How to vocalize your feelings. How to connect with other people. How to understand yourself. How to understand other people. How to step aside from your own biases and really listen to someone else.