Re-release: Who Ghosts and Why? Understanding Personality Disorders and Ghosting

Narcissists. Sociopaths. Psychopaths. In this episode, Denise M. Dudley, Ph.D., explains specific personality disorders as they relate to ghosting behavior. Gretta and Denise also touch on other possible reasons why people ghost, and how personal issues can lead to ghosting. This episode answers the question, "How could someone ghost?"
Aaaand, as a reminder, when you're ghosted, it's not your job to analyze your ghost. It's your job to take care of yourself. Knowledge is power, and this episode can help you identify unhealthy relationship dynamics.

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Coping with Ghosting offers high-value 1:1 coaching with Vogue-featured expert Gretta Perlmutter, delivering evidence-based strategies that transform personal betrayal into a powerful catalyst for change. Gretta’s platform empowers individuals from diverse backgrounds to heal, build renewed confidence, and experience breakthrough personal growth.

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Denise Dudley is a professional trainer and keynote speaker, author, business consultant, and founder and former CEO of SkillPath Seminars, the largest public training company in the world, which provides 18,000 seminars per year, and has trained over 12 million people in the US, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. Denise holds a Ph.D. in behavioral psychology, a hospital administrator’s license, a preceptor for administrators-in-training license, and is licensed to provide training to medical professionals in the United States and Canada.

Music: "Ghosted" by Gustavo Ramos

Disclaimer:  This information is designed to mentor and guide you to cope with Ghosting by cultivating a positive mindset and implementing self-care practices. It is for educational purposes only; it solely provides self-help tools for your use. Coping With Ghosting is not providing health care or psychological therapy services and is not diagnosing or treating any physical or mental ailment of the mind or body. The content is not a substitute for therapy or any advice given by a licensed psychologist or other licensed or other registered professionals. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding Personality Disorders and Ghosting
• 11:11 Navigating Relationships With Personality Disorders
• 19:29 Identifying and Understanding Sociopaths and Psychopaths
• 28:15 Identifying Psychopaths and Avoiding Ghosting
• 37:20 Navigating Relationships and Overcoming Ghosting

Transcript

Gretta: 0:00

Hi, it's Gretta. Happy New Year. I'm taking a short break this week and resharing one of my most popular episodes on personality disorders and ghosting.

Gretta: 0:36

Welcome to Coping with Ghosting, the show that provides hope, healing and understanding for anyone who has been ghosted. I'm Gretta and today's topic is ghosting and personality disorders. I have a returning guest, the brilliant Denise Dudley, who holds a PhD in behavioral psychology and works in the world of conflict resolution and communication. She's also a professional trainer and keynote speaker, author, business consultant and founder and former CEO of Skill Path Seminars, the largest public training company in the world. Denise, thank you for coming back on the podcast.

Denise Dudley : 1:22

Thanks so much. I was so excited to come back. Thanks for inviting me.

Gretta: 1:25

The last time you were here, we briefly discussed personality types as they relate to ghosting, and I wanted to have a follow-up conversation. This is such a juicy topic and I always tell people who have been ghosted it's not your job to analyze your ghost. It's your priority to focus on your healing. You can't truly diagnose a ghost unless you're their mental health provider. And yet knowledge is power and it's good for people to educate themselves on any issues that could lead to ghosting or be a part of ghosting. So, Denise, why is it important to be aware of different personality disorders related to ghosting?

Denise Dudley : 2:11

I guess the best thing to start by talking about is that people with personality disorders are basically to us, dangerous. They are because they don't operate with the same we'll call it operating manual that the rest of us do, and so we can often become confused and misled by what people with personality disorders are doing to us and around us and even for us. Sometimes people with personality disorders are very generous with their compliments, with their gifts, with things like this, but in this case, when we talk about these three particular personality disorders today, it is all the attention we receive positive or negative is really only circling around how it benefits them. There is no particular empathy or reaching out to the other side when we're dealing with these personality disorders we're going to talk about today. Now there are other types of personality disorders, but we're going to hit three that you're going to start mentioning in just a moment.

Denise Dudley : 3:10

So knowledge is power, and I like how you opened that, because knowing that we are not dealing with someone who is like us is a good thing to know. It'd be the same as knowing that somebody will say is a shoplifter let's just say that and none of the rest of us are and then knowing that they have a predisposition toward taking things that don't belong to them. It'd be good to know that, wouldn't it? So I think the knowledge is power base is the best way to begin this today, saying that we're talking about this not because we want to diagnose people, not because we should even be looking back unless we need to, but at least we're going to be armed with the equipment we need to move forward and possibly recognize these people in the future.

Gretta: 3:53

That's great advice, and I have a list of different disorders and about a zillion questions for each of them, so let's just start with narcissists. So can you define this personality disorder?

Denise Dudley : 4:08

Certainly, and I'm going to give a tiny bit of background very quickly and say that there is something out there that clinicians, psychotherapists, clinical social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists, we all use something that's currently called the DSM-5. It means it's the fifth edition and actually this year, in about March, something came out that's actually called a TR, a text revision on it. So there's a little bit of a revision on the DSM-5, but the three personality disorders we're going to talk about today are legitimate disorders. They appear in the DSM-5. By the way, as a quick aside, which I think is hilarious, if you ever ask a clinician including if anyone out there has a therapist and you go well, what does DSM-5 stand for? Everyone, including me, pauses and we go oh, d-s, diagnostic S, social what are they it?

Denise Dudley : 4:58

literally is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but we all just call it DSM-5, then we forget what it ever meant. So I just think that's kind of funny. Before I went on this show, I even had to look it up like wait a minute, dsm-5, what does that even stand for any longer? So in the DSM-5, though, it's just this mumbo jumbo collection of all these definitions about how would we diagnose somebody who's schizophrenic, bipolar? Well, starting with narcissism, how do we diagnose narcissism? Even though there's a manual that describes this, you will still hear variation in the opinions of very professional clinicians who've been at this for their whole lives. So I'm going to give you a thumbnail sketch of what a narcissist is. I'm going to give you a little bit of detail about it, but also know that it isn't like diagnosing a broken arm, like if you came in with a broken arm, I'd take an x-ray, I would look at the x-ray and then I would say oh, diagnosis, you have a broken arm, we need to put it in a cast. Or if you came in and you said you were feeling a little funny and I did some kind of a PET scan on your stomach, I could go oh, ulcer, we need to treat an ulcer. So these types of diagnoses are not like that. These are and I'm going to just say it, even if it's going to disappoint people who are clinicians out there. We are making some good guesses. I just have to preface it that way.

Denise Dudley : 6:22

But now that I've said all that, a narcissist is someone who is so into themselves and believes that they are so superior to the rest of us that they do not have to follow the rules. They don't actually have to think about you, whoever you are out there, in regard to how their lives operate, what they need in their lives, it's all about them. Narcissism literally means self-love, and self-love is an important thing to have. But narcissists, in the clinical definition, take it beyond that. It's all about me, it's all about my needs. So when you meet a narcissist, some of the symptoms, some of the things you're going to notice, will be that they talk about themselves incessantly. All about me, all about me. And if you're around them among other people, they're going to tell stories about themselves. Then you're going to hear that same story again the next time a new person walks in. Then you're going to hear it about themselves the next time another new person walks in, it'll, over and over and over again, be about me as they interact with you. Even if this is on an online dating site, it's going to be a lot about who I am, what I've done.

Denise Dudley : 7:31

It can be grandiose. It can also be untrue. Narcissists are very good at making up stories about themselves in order to make themselves seem more important or more beneficial to you. They're very, very clever at figuring out who they need to do. They are good at figuring out people who seem vulnerable. They're good at figuring out people who buy into their story and, by the way, if you tend to not buy into a narcissist's story, they're gone. They're out, because they really don't need to interact with people who don't buy in. They need an audience. They need people to admire them. They need people really to worship them.

Gretta: 8:14

Wow, okay, I'm sure listeners are thinking about people in their life that fit that profile. I know I certainly was the whole time.

Denise Dudley : 8:28

Yeah, it's a kind of a. When we get to the other things we're going to talk about today, the other diagnoses I will talk, I'm going to have to go back to narcissists, because the next two personality disorders always have a narcissistic component, always. So, yeah, I mean it's good we're starting with narcissists, because narcissists aren't necessarily dangerous, as in physically dangerous. Later we're going to get to people who are, but but they are psychologically dangerous because, again, we just have to remember, they're not like us. The things they're saying and doing have nothing to do with your welfare or benefit. They have 100% to do with their welfare and benefit, no regard for other people.

Gretta: 9:17

Wow, yeah, I know that they often love bomb and I wonder about that. The other, the other questions I have are just what do narcissists feel or not feel when they ghost, and what is narcissist discard and narcissist abuse?

Denise Dudley : 9:37

So all right. So narcissist discard. We'll start with that. Luckily for your listening audience, if they were just sitting there going, if you're all out there in audience, land making a guess about what narcissist discard is. It's what you think it is.

Denise Dudley : 9:50

Narcissists are very, very quick to discard us when we are no longer valuable to them and they discard without looking back and without personal regard for how we might feel about it, without looking back and without personal regard for how we might feel about it. So narcissist discard really as hard as this is to face up to. At the point that a narcissist discards us, they have jettisoned our relationship with them because quick and dirty analysis they've done you are no longer useful to me. Now that could be because I used you to get something I wanted, like a promotion at work or the entree to meeting someone else I really wanted to meet because they were your friend. Or I'm discarding you because you no longer give, discard you because they don't want to be questioned, they don't want to be challenged back. So narcissists discard us quickly when we're no longer of interest to them or when we start to challenge their power. So that's narcissist discard. And then the other thing you mentioned love bombing and I want to challenge their power. So that's narcissist discard. And then the other thing you mentioned, love bombing, and I want to mention go back to that that, yes, narcissists will often love bomb us. I was mentioning when we first started this show that when these three personality disorders are interacting with us, we'll stay on narcissist for a moment.

Denise Dudley : 11:20

Narcissists are very good at figuring out who you are and what you want. Now they don't mean it when they tell you how beautiful you are or how smart and talented you are or how remarkable you are. They understand the script they need to share with you in order to bring you in. Also, I know we're going to talk about this at the end, but if everyone's listening out there and they're feeling like they encountered a narcissist who ghosted them, my God, how could you possibly have known? These people are really good at it. So we just have to forgive ourselves if we've ever been sucked in by a narcissist and I have, and I'm sure you have too. I have, most of us have because they're hard to read, they're hard to figure out. They're good at it if they're good narcissists, yeah.

Denise Dudley : 12:11

And the third thing you asked about was what was the third thing Narcissistic abuse.

Denise Dudley : 12:14

Oh yes, narcissistic abuse, thank you.

Denise Dudley : 12:16

So narcissistic abuse is when, after they've love bombed you and they've been with you for a while and they've been been talking to you about how cool you are, if they start to the tarnish, comes onto the relationship, even if it's an early-on relationship, narcissists will start to abuse us by putting us down, by telling us we're not quite as good as they were saying we were in the past, or pointing out our foibles or comparing us to other people.

Denise Dudley : 12:44

Suddenly, so suddenly, you'll start to get this feeling that, wow, I'm being compared to somebody else who the narcissist is now holding in higher esteem than me. They're doing it on purpose. They're doing it to knock us down a notch, and usually that's because they need to be the person who is in control on top and we'll just call it the biggest dog in the yard. So how can I be the biggest dog in the yard? By bragging about myself or by knocking you down a little bit? If I knock you down a little bit, then I'm back up on top again. So narcissistic abuse is generally where our narcissist person is putting us down in ways that lower our status, we'll say, in our relationship with them.

Gretta: 13:30

I have some choice words and I'm not going to say them, but yeah, what is no contact? And why is this important in relationships with narcissists?

Denise Dudley : 13:41

Narcissists. If they discard us, let's just say we got discarded or we figure out that this is a bad relationship for us and we terminate it never by ghosting, of course, but by saying I'm sorry, this isn't working out for me, it's not a health producing relationship and I need to go goodbye. That's how we should be terminating our relationships, which, Gretta will tell you all day long is the best way to do it. But let's say that either I terminated a relationship with a narcissist or they ghosted me. And now they see me out there on social media, they see me doing stuff, they see me wherever they run into me downtown.

Denise Dudley : 14:15

Narcissists will also be often so narcissistic that they don't like it that we moved on, that we actually were able to survive without them, and they will do their best to suck us back in again because that serves their image of themselves as the all-powerful, all-knowing, god-like person who none of us can stand to not be with. So the no contact thing is important, because narcissists will be very good at trying to suck you back in with whatever the power was they knew they had when they first got you in there, and again they're good at it. So we're not dealing with just one of us out here who are sincere and honest and would tell you the truth. They're going to say anything it takes to get you back. So the no contact thing is important. It's going to be in the next two categories as well, but cutting it off, not having contact, will protect you from accidentally believing them if they come back into your life.

Gretta: 15:19

Yeah, I've heard of the gray rock method or the. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Denise Dudley : 15:24

No, tell me Okay.

Gretta: 15:26

I think it's called the gray rock. It's basically when they do try to come back into your life and they ask you questions, just act as like you're a rock, like don't entertain them on any level, Don't reply to them. Let's say you bump into them at a coffee shop and they're like oh, how are you? Just be like okay, and just don't give them anything beyond just short, brief responses.

Denise Dudley : 15:53

Good, I love that. I've never heard it called the gray rock, but I would be saying, you know, engage without engaging would be what I would call it. Gray rock is a better way to describe it, because if you don't give them anything back, you are not an interesting play thing any longer. So it's, it is a very good idea to don't give them anything that they can, that they can latch onto. And even when we talk about assertiveness, training and communication outside of dealing with narcissists, if we are really trying to not engage with someone who is not good for us they may not have that diagnosis, but they're just not good for us we always talk about don't give any more information than was asked of you.

Denise Dudley : 16:34

So, how are you? I'm okay, I'm doing pretty well now that I'm back from my vacation in Mexico. No, no, don't say that Now they've got something to grab. Oh, you're in Mexico, what were you doing? Oh, did you see so-and-so? Oh, how are they doing? And now we've gone off down a road, and so we try to make sure that we answer all questions as if they could be answered with yes or no, and we do not give more than that. Very good advice, good one, Gretta .

Gretta: 17:04

Hey, it's Gretta. I just wanted to take a quick break and remind you that, no matter what you're going through right now, healing is absolutely possible. In fact, I believe that being betrayed or ghosted can be a catalyst for real change and growth. As a certified PBT coach that stands for post-betrayal transformation, I'm here to help you navigate a proven, research backed path to healing. So if you're ready to stop obsessing over past hurts and build emotional strength, trust and boundaries, cultivate new healthy relationships, including romantic and platonic ones, and feel worthy, valued and respected, then it's time for us to work together. Sign up for coaching today at copingwithghostingcom or click the link in the show notes. You deserve healing and the life you truly want, so let's make it happen. Let's move on to sociopaths. Last time you were here, you mentioned that they're likely to ghost. Can you define this personality and the associated red flags?

Denise Dudley : 18:13

where we place this on the DSM-5 or anything, it's just, that's not important. But we're moving from a narcissist who can hurt us in a psychological way and can make us sad and can make us be confused. We're moving from that into a more dangerous personality type when we talk about sociopaths and eventually psychopaths. So not all narcissists are sociopaths or psychopaths, but all sociopaths and psychopaths have a narcissistic component to their personality disorder, and let me just say that again. So you can have a narcissist. They might not be a psychopath or a sociopath, they could just be a narcissist. But if you get yourself a genuine dyed in the wool, sociopath or psychopath, and you're dealing with them, they will always have a narcissistic component, which is part of where the red flag comes from, because you're going to see this talking about me, stuff. I'm more important. You'll see all that. But now let's say what gets added. If I'm a psychopath, it's like sociopaths. Sorry, we're starting with sociopath. What gets added? If I'm a psychopath, it's like sociopaths. Sorry, we're starting with sociopath. In this case, with sociopaths, we have someone who lacks any kind of guilt or remorse component. They simply don't care. With a narcissist, it's possible that when they hurt us they might feel a little bit of regret Possibly not, by the way, doesn't mean that they will, because, again, we can't really jump into someone's head and know what they're experiencing. But with a sociopath, it's our belief that there is no, or perhaps very little, guilt or remorse. There's no particular regulator that the rest of us have about ethics and morals. They're just, it's just not there. I'm going to say anything I need to to get what I want. I'm going to tell as many lies as I need to to get what I want, and so now we've got a component where we've got a lot of lying, a lot of coverup, a lot of deceit.

Denise Dudley : 20:21

Sociopaths are likely to be the people who are telling you that they are one thing, but they're also being several other things. We come across aliases with these people. We come across, if you're in a relationship with them. They're the ones where you find out they're having affairs or, if not literally sexual affairs that they have this other life on the side where they're pretending they're this other thing. It doesn't really matter to them whether these truths or lies, in this case, even match up and when caught, which they can be caught, because sociopaths are more impulsive when we get to psychopath much more thought out, much more methodical. Sociopaths tend to have tempers, they tend to do things on the fly, on the impulse, and they also, by the way, if we come to come I work with law enforcement people too Sociopaths are more likely to get caught in crimes than psychopaths, because they don't think it out as well. They just say what they need, they do what they need to do in the moment, and they often do not cover their tracks as well.

Denise Dudley : 21:20

So, sociopaths going back to a good thumbnail sketch for these people, you're going to get someone who's very attractive, who has an attractive personality, very charming, says lots of stuff that could be sort of like wait a minute, could you really be the CEO of Google? I think I know that guy's name and it's not you, but they may say it anyway because it just might get you to pay attention to them and want to be around them. So you're going to hear a lot of stuff that might not make sense. Fast talking, very slick but very attractive personalities with a strong narcissistic component. As I'm talking, if everyone is listening, they're going to go. Well, wow, how do you even know that it's a narcissist versus a sociopath? Because that sounds really similar. Well, wait till I get the psychopath, it's going to sound real similar too. These are not really distinguishable things, like I said, at best we're making guesses about where to put these people. But going back to a sociopath, we've got a component that's more dangerous than with a narcissist Not that a narcissist couldn't hurt us physically, but a sociopath is much more likely.

Denise Dudley : 22:28

Because they have tempers. They do not want to be challenged, they do not like feedback in the negative, they do not like you telling them what you don't like. They don't like any of that stuff. They want to be dominant 100% of the time. Are they born like this or is it created? Very good question.

Denise Dudley : 22:45

So this is recent research that sociopaths are created in the environment and psychopaths have a genetic condition, and so this is very recent stuff.

Denise Dudley : 23:00

In fact, back when I was originally in school and it wasn't a DSM-5, it was a DSM-4, we wouldn't have really talked about it that way. But yes, so sociopaths most clinicians believe have been created, often by abusive original homes, often by parents who were not attentive, and they were children who needed to gain attention any way they could, and so they were actually taught by the environment that to gain attention, I must be grandiose, I must be bigger than life. They also could have come from an environment that was really like a dangerous urban inner city environment where to survive you had to be a hard ass, you had to sort of be the one who had the swagger and the impressiveness. So, yes, the one who had the swagger and the impressiveness. So yes, sociopaths are there's not, a there's no. If we hook them up, you know, to wires and things on their brain, their brains really do look like ours, which will not be the case with a psychopath.

Gretta: 24:03

But with a sociopath it is, we believe, environmentally induced. Wow, this is scary stuff. Do you happen to know what percentage of the population are sociopaths?

Denise Dudley : 24:17

So I knew you were going to ask that. So I sort of thought I'd really go back and see what currently people are saying. I mean, you know researchers and it's looking like maybe about 4% of the population. It seems to vary. Some people say it's a little higher, for it's more men than women. So more men than women. So more men than women are sociopaths. That was true with narcissism as well. More men than women are narcissists, are actual abusive narcissists. But yeah, about 4% of the population.

Denise Dudley : 24:39

We'll jump ahead and say with psychopaths it's about 1%, because that is a much more ominous diagnosis and there are fewer psychopaths, but four percent of the population. So you kind of go yeah, so really, you know, we have a four and one hundred percent chance of coming across a sociopath when we're doing online dating or you know people who might ghost us. But we have to remember that a sociopath is going to see an online dating site or a coffee shop where they stroll up to you and tell you how beautiful you are. They're going to see that as their hunting ground. It's their natural territory for doing what they do. So even if it's 4% of the population, it's my personal theory. Couldn't find any evidence on this before our show today. It's my personal theory, though, that you might be encountering sociopaths at a far greater rate than 4% of those people out there on online dating apps. I bet it's higher because they see that as the place to go in order to find their prey.

Denise Dudley : 25:41

So I'm not saying I love online dating. I think it's a great idea. I think there's nothing wrong with it. I'm just saying that we know about fishing, we know about all these things, and we just have to have our senses I don't even want to say heightened. We just want to be aware, be aware. Dollars, that's all the money you have in the world, and you walk into a flea market and you don't want to get taken by somebody saying this is a very valuable thing, give me a hundred dollars for it. You find out that it was trash. You know it's just be aware, before you do things like go date people on online dating apps, that there could be some bad people out there.

Gretta: 26:23

Right, Thank you for that. Yeah, Such such important information. So psychopaths here we are. Can you please define this personality disorder? Sure?

Denise Dudley : 26:38

So we've almost been it's. It's not the way as a clinician we want to talk about it, but it's the easiest way to talk about it. Let's look at it as a continuum here. So we start with narcissists. Yeah, they can harm us, make us sad, hurt our feelings. They can ghost us and leave us feeling horrible. Sociopaths we add a little bit of a dangerous component to it because they can be angry, they can lash out. They could be physically harmful to us, let alone psychologically harmful. Now we move to psychopaths. Psychopaths are, like I said, 1% of the population. These people are truly dangerous.

Denise Dudley : 27:18

Now there's a little flip here in that with a psychopath psychopaths, like I mentioned earlier, are not impulsive, think things out. They actually cover their tracks, they actually think a little bit about if I'm going to tell you one story and me another. But you and I are best friends that there could be a possible danger that you and I will get together, put our stories together and realize there's a problem. So they will be a lot more careful with what they do. And we have discovered that psychopaths actually can have. They can be CEOs of companies. They can do, they can have families. They can do all sorts of things, because they're very good at being chameleons. They're very good at telling you what you want to hear. They're very good at covering their tracks. It's why, by the way, if we go back to law enforcement, law enforcement people catch far more sociopaths than they do psychopaths, because psychopaths are better at covering things up.

Denise Dudley : 28:15

However, psychopaths are also the people who are literally serial killers. So, almost if we look at the history of the Ted Bundys of the world or all those other names that your listeners might know, many of them are psychopaths. It's also why, like in scary movies not sure why we watch scary movies about psychopaths. I mean, I'd be glad to watch a scary movie about a ghost or something that isn't real to me, but I don't want to watch movies about psychopaths because they are real and they're out there and they can suck us in and they're good at it.

Denise Dudley : 28:48

So psychopaths are people to be very, very careful of and don't get near them. So psychopaths are, we'll say, at the other extreme on that continuum they now have. They are so remorseless and they have zero regret. And then I mentioned to you already that recent research is saying that this is not an environmentally created disorder, it is a genetic innate one. And when they're incarcerated, a lot of them do give in to us saying, yeah, could we just hook you up to some wires here and see what your brain looks like, certain components in their brains that the rest of us have where they don't have any particular regard for, not only us, but even whether we are alive, whether we exist or not.

Gretta: 29:36

Oh, wow.

Denise Dudley : 29:39

It's scary because we have to remember they, honest to God, are not like us. You'd have to try to think about being a psychopath. You would have to shut down all regard you have for other living beings, including animals, that everything out here is just out here for our men, the psychopath in. That is probably one of the most realistic portrayals of a psychopath that I've seen, because he was so methodical and so calm about it all. So yeah, scary people dangerous people.

Gretta: 30:20

I have not seen that movie, but I'm probably going to be watching it tonight because I'm so curious.

Denise Dudley : 30:26

It's a great performance, for one thing, by a man who's actually really sweet when you see him interviewed. But it's a. It is a. It is a very, very chilling portrayal of what a psychopath is really so how can you spot one?

Gretta: 30:39

Like if I'm on a dating app, is there any way? How can I know? Like I remember, a long time ago I thought I thought I went on a date with one and like he was so into violence and like he loved violent movies, and then I did a little bit of research and it was like the pupils of their eyes dilate when they're watching violent things and I'm like that happened to him. So, but I don't know, like, what are? Like, how can I? How could I know?

Denise Dudley : 31:06

Well, I think, for one thing is I think that's such a good and important question that we, like I said, we have to be super cautious if we're dating, if we meet somebody on a dating app really dating apps do, I think, a good job, as good a job as they can to sort out who might not be real, who might be creating a false profile, all those things. They do their best but, believe me, we're up against professionals when we're looking at sociopaths and psychopaths. They're better at being sociopaths and psychopaths than we are at being us, because we're just us and we're trusting and we believe people and we play by this set of rules. All of us out here who are not sociopaths and psychopaths or narcissists. We play by a set of rules and we assume everybody else will as well. They do not subscribe to the rules. They honestly believe they are above the rules all three of these groups of people. So anything that they put out there, it doesn't matter If I need to say I'm an expert downhill skier or if I need to say that I make more than $150,000 a year, if I have to post the wrong photo, it won't matter, because the rules do not apply to me. They literally do not matter. So things start to usually they're very good at it, so we have to be careful. Things start to usually look a little funny.

Denise Dudley : 32:27

As a rule, when we're dealing with a sociopath or a psychopath, things start to feel like they don't add up. You start to realize that they say that they're somewhere, but they're somewhere else. Or they say that they'll get together with you, but they suddenly can't or they don't. And then the story starts to seem a little fantastic, as in fantasy-like, like wait a minute, I don't think you could have been doing that. So we start to figure out little we'll call it like little chinks in the armor, little things, that little cracks, and we have to watch for those.

Denise Dudley : 33:00

Now, one thing I just have to stop what I'm saying and bring something else up, and that's that I don't want to create a situation where none of us trust one another, because I'm still going to believe that most people, most people who go on a dating app, sincerely want to find romance or partner or love or a mate or whatever it is they say they're looking for. I still, I will never give up believing that most people are good, that most people are honest and truthful, that most people mean us no harm. I will never give up believing that most people are good, that most people are honest and truthful, that most people mean us no harm. I will never give up believing that or I will become a cynic and I won't enjoy my life and I'll withdraw, and I'm not going to do that.

Denise Dudley : 33:37

So we have to be careful and watch, but we also don't want to be so suspicious that we don't allow the good people in. We don't allow the good people in. So what you're asking is a very hard question, because it is a balance between protecting ourselves and being open to the possibility of other people entering our lives, if we want them there, and then also the balance between that and being sucked in by someone who's very good at lying to us, but I would say starting to watch for what doesn't match up, making sure that you can verify to the best of your ability what they're saying about themselves. If we're real people like if I look you up or you look me up right now, you and I are on LinkedIn. I have a Facebook page you will never find some kind of a disagreement between what I'm doing and what it says. I did so doing a little bit of background check, that's okay, thank you for mentioning that.

Denise Dudley : 34:34

Yeah, we don't want to give up on the goodness of people. And also, you and I both know people who've met people both in coffee shops and concerts and at museums and in bars and on dating apps, who've come on to be our loves and they've been the real people and they haven't been lying and most people out out there aren't lying so it's, but it's just in the beginning. Good thing to make sure. Again, going back to this other idea that they are looking for victims and if you don't act like a victim, they're going to get rid of you pretty fast. So they're going to move to the next person. They're going to victim. They're going to get rid of you pretty fast. They're going to move to the next person.

Gretta: 35:09

They're going to ghost you.

Denise Dudley : 35:11

They're going to ghost you. They're going to ghost you and they'll do it pretty early on. So making sure that you don't appear to be weak, passive or vulnerable. So making sure that you're not either in a bar or you're online, appearing to be someone who just suddenly meets someone and within two hours you're telling them everything about where you live and your phone number and your social security number and everything else because you now have identified yourself as a mark and you don't want to do that.

Denise Dudley : 35:42

So, to be a good, assertive, independent person, which I hope we all are, if you met somebody, even if you thought, god, I love this person, he's so cool, or she's so cool, it would be a smart thing to basically play it a little close to the vest for a while and make sure that you're not just giving in and with stars in your eyes and and just going for it, because a lot of times then you get pegged as the victim.

Gretta: 36:08

Right, Definitely move slowly, especially in early dating. I mean this person. You don't know them and it's important to take your time and don't create a fantasy about them in your mind either. Be rooted in reality, yes, absolutely Be real. So I wonder what other personality issues or disorders or anything like that can lead to ghosting?

Denise Dudley : 36:33

and why. So there are other people who ghost, who do not even have diagnoses that we would find on the DSM-5 for sure. So there could be some. I'm going to throw one out there really fast. Let's just say bipolar disorder. So somebody, especially when they're stabilized on medication and they're starting to move into what we would call a manic phase, can be really charming. They're verbal, they're funny, they're fun, they're out there, they're doing all their stuff. So you could get sucked into someone. We'll just say it was bipolar disorder, but you're going to know it pretty fast because if they're in the manic phase they're going to come into the depressive phase pretty quickly and you're going to know that you have somebody who's formerly called manic-depressive bipolar. So yes, there could be other diagnoses. But I think it would be more helpful to talk about the non-diagnosable personality types that are not necessarily disorders. They just are types, such as people who are just simply not very socially skilled at communication in general, skilled at communication in general.

Denise Dudley : 37:43

So we could meet somebody who really just doesn't know how to terminate a relationship the appropriate way because that's hard, right, it's hard to sit down with someone and say, listen, it's been fun, I've really enjoyed our time together. I just don't think it's going forward in a way that makes me want to continue to pursue it, and so this is very hard for me to say. But I would like to say that we just need to stop doing this and I need to stop dating you, and so we could say that. But wow, that's hard for me to even role play, because I'm looking you in the eyeballs right now as we're doing this recording, and it's hard to say that to somebody. So what's easier? Well, I think I'll just ghost you, and then I won't have all that personal pain of having to come up with having to say the words, say the right. See your disappointment. Maybe you're going to cry. I don't like it when people cry. So it's avoidance, it's an avoidance personality. That's what it is. So you could come across someone who ghosts you, and it's really no other reason than that they just didn't have the cojones to wait and say what they needed to say. So that's one type of person who could ghost you.

Denise Dudley : 38:49

Another type of person is someone who isn't quite a narcissist, but they could be someone who is a player. We call them a player. You know, somebody who just likes to bring people in, see how far I can get mess around with you, whether that's in person or even still online, and just see how much I can get you to admire and like me. But it was a game. It was. It's actually a game I played with you, so maybe not quite to the point of being a narcissist, but to the point of just being somebody who's really not a nice person, which then leads to another type of person mean people.

Denise Dudley : 39:25

Some people are just damn mean, aren't they? They just have this mean component. Where I like to be mean to people, I like to joke with my friends in ways that put you down. I like to create situations where you are the brunt of the joke because you walked in and you didn't know that you were supposed to be doing it this other way, and now you're the funny person who walked in in the wrong outfit or something.

Denise Dudley : 39:50

So there are some people who are mean people and of course we want to avoid those people. I don't want any mean people in my life and I actually don't have any mean people in my life because I don't want them there. But some people are just mean and so it could be. We see that you know back in the bullying in high school era, you know where there were boys and girls back in our maybe middle schools and high schools who were the mean kids. There's even a movie called Mean Girls. I haven't seen it, but it was all around personalities that just like to torture people. Those are people to be avoided. So we could get accidentally tangled up with any of those categories mean people, people without social skills or people who, honestly, are just kind of using us to see how far they can get as players because that's another notch on their belt. You know they got you to pay attention to them and now they don't need you anymore.

Gretta: 40:43

Yeah, it really could be anything, right, like there's so many reasons why people ghost, and so that's why it's important that when we are ghosted, not to say I know I know exactly why. Right, because that's an assumption, unless they're telling you and they're hooked up to a lie detector. And you know I know exactly why. Right, because that's an assumption. Unless they're telling you and they're hooked up to a lie detector and you know they're telling you the truth, you don't actually really know why they ghosted you. They could be struggling with any of these things.

Denise Dudley : 41:10

Yeah, and by the way, just as a quick little interest aside, as an interest aside, interest aside, psychopaths and sociopaths can literally pass lie detector tests. They don't have that component. They don't have the component of remorse or guilt. So if you or I do something wrong, generally our hearts pound, we can feel the cortisol coursing through our veins and also the adrenaline. We know that we've done something wrong. They don't have that. And so literally, a lie detector test might turn up a narcissist, but it also might not turn up a sociopath or a psychopath. So literally, we don't know. We don't know what's going on in their heads.

Gretta: 41:56

Okay, so you never know why somebody ghosted you. Just don't make an assumption. Okay, that's a key message here. Yes, yeah, this is all really heavy material and I wonder if you have any uplifting advice about ghosting.

Denise Dudley : 42:16

I definitely do. First of all, there's so much help, including your amazing podcast, so that if someone's been ghosted and it's just staying in your mind and you just can't quite kick it and it just keeps coming back to you. There's always help in the form of you and your support groups that you have also in the form of therapy or talking to supportive people, always making sure that we take careful care of ourselves, or talking to supportive people, always making sure that we take careful care of ourselves and surround ourselves with people who truly love and appreciate us and that we take care of ourselves by doing good things for ourselves, allowing ourselves to relax, to read a book, to go to a movie, to take a nap, to whatever it is that allows us to know that I am nurturing and caring for myself to the best of my ability. Those are all ways that can help us heal. But going back to our topic of today, I think the best news is that if you go back and you are reviewing narcissist, sociopath and psychopath and everything I've said about them today, and then you ask yourself would I really want to stay In case I have encountered one of those people and your listeners are going holy mackerel. That was a sociopath back there. Well, would you really want to be or stay in a relationship with any of those personalities? Don't even answer, I'll answer for you. No, you don't want to be in a relationship with those people, and so to me, the best news is that you figured it out. They ghosted you or you got rid of them. You have blocked them. Now All three of them need to be blocked and you are moving on and you're not carrying any of their crap forward with you. You are free.

Denise Dudley : 43:53

So I think the best news is that we don't want to get tangled up with these people. It's easy to do so because they're very good at finding victims, but once we are free from them, I think the best news is that we don't want to get tangled up with these people. It's easy to do so because they're very good at finding victims, but once we are free from them, if we have been ghosted by them and that's why you're listening to this well then, thank God, thank God, they are no longer in your life, because you don't want them there. So that's the good news. And then the other, I think, piece of good news is that, when we listen to what I just said today, boy oh boy.

Denise Dudley : 44:21

I hope that everybody listening is so capable of forgiving themselves for having gotten sucked in Because, like I said, these people are better at doing that than we are at being us. We're approaching with openness and kindness. They're approaching with a set of highly skilled tools that they are using on us, so if we've been ghosted by one of these people, we got sucked in, forgive yourself. It's happened to all of us. So honestly, moving forward, leaving them behind, not giving them another thought and being very lucky that they're no longer in your life To me, that's all good news.

Gretta: 45:00

I love it. That's such a great way to wrap this up and just thank you so much for coming on here and discussing all these important things to keep in mind while navigating the dating landscape and navigating coping with ghosting, so this has been great. Can you please share with listeners how they can connect with you?

Denise Dudley : 45:24

Certainly yes. So I have a website and it's under DeniseMDudleycom M for Marie DeniseMDudleycom. And then also I'm on the usual suspects of LinkedIn. You can probably most of us find people on LinkedIn. I'm right there on LinkedIn as Denise Dudley, and then I'm also on Facebook and I'm on Twitter and also on my website there's a contact me link and you can write to me that way, and if anyone is trying to reach me, just say hey, Denise, I listened to the podcast with Gretta and I'm trying to reach you. I am always happy to help anybody with anything. Honestly.

Gretta: 46:02

So I love it. So that's a great resource. If you have a follow-up question for Denise, definitely reach out and listeners. Remember, when you are ghosted, you have more time to connect with yourself and people who have stellar communication skills yourself and people who have stellar communication skills I should say healthy people who have stellar communication skills. You deserve the best and thank you so much, Denise, for being here today. It's a true pleasure.

Denise Dudley : 46:30

And thanks so much, Gretta, for inviting me.

Gretta: 46:32

It's my pleasure. And one last thing as you know, helping people who have been ghosted is my calling. I want to spread a message of hope to as many people as possible, and you can help me do this by leaving a review of the podcast. Somebody asked me how they could do this on their iPhone, so here's how open the podcast app, search for coping with Ghosting and now scroll down past all the episodes until you get to ratings and reviews. You can tap to rate on the stars or hit see all to get to where you can write your review. Thank you, thank you, thank you seriously for sharing your feedback. It's much appreciated.