Episodes I Love: Why Ghosting is an Ambiguous Loss with Gabriela Vazquez, AMFT, APCC

In this episode of Coping With Ghosting, Gabriela Vazquez, AMFT, APCC, and Gretta discuss why ghosting is an ambiguous loss that causes frozen grief.  If you have been rejected, led on, or abandoned in a relationship - you are not alone. In this episode, we cover why it's healthy and essential to grieve the loss of your ghost. 

Connect With Gretta

❤️‍🩹Free & Private Facebook Support Group | Instagram | YouTube | copingwithghosting.com

Host Gretta Perlmutter, MA, a Certified Post Betrayal Transformation® Coach, delivers evidence-based strategies for turning personal betrayal into a powerful catalyst for growth and healing.

Connect with Gaby

@therapycongaby on Instagram 

Music: "Ghosted" by Gustavo Zaiah

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. 

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Transcript

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Monthly Release Schedule Announcement

Gretta Perlmutter 0:00

Hi friends, I've been recovering from an illness and also pouring a lot of energy into writing my upcoming book, coping with Ghosting in Love, and because of that, this podcast will be shifting to a monthly release schedule starting next month. Thanks so much for your continued support and patience, and I'm excited to bring you new episodes soon. In the meantime, here's one of my favorite shows from the archives Enjoy. Why did you have to leave? Welcome to Coping with Ghosting, the show that provides hope, healing and understanding for anyone who has been ghosted. I'm your host, greta, and today is a Los Angeles-based EMDR-trained therapist who specializes in providing treatment for adults working through difficult life transitions and grieving the loss of time, place, identity and culture. Gabby empowers those struggling with trauma, depression and anxiety. You can connect with her on Instagram at therapycongaby and con is C-O-N, or at latinxtherapycom. Gabby, thank you so much for being here.

Gabriela 1:40

Thank you. Thank you, Gretta, and thank you for the introduction and just sharing my platform. I really would love to connect with those who are struggling with ghosting, so thank you for having me.

Gretta Perlmutter 1:51

It's my pleasure. Can you please define ambiguous loss and explain how ghosting can be a form of it?

Gabriela 1:59

Yeah,

nderstanding Ambiguous Loss and Ghosting

Gabriela 2:00

of course. So I do want to note that research does say that this is the most taxing and confusing type of loss. But also what we've learned from research and clinical work is that ambiguous loss is really a relational disorder caused by the lack of facts surrounding the loss of a loved one, and there's two types. So the first one occurs when there is physical absence but emotional presence, and that can be seen in things like migration, where someone has migrated and they're physically absent, but yet they maintain the emotional bonds and presence with their loved ones back home. And then type two occurs when there is emotional absence but there is still a physical presence. So you can see that in parenting. So maybe a parent is ill, maybe they have a mental illness or a chronic physical illness that causes them to be emotionally absent from their kids, but yet they're still there with them.

Gabriela 2:58

And so with ghosting, there seems to be both phenomenons, where there's both a physical and emotional absence after a one-sided seizing of all communication, right. So sometimes it happens just because that person simply lost interest in the relationship. Maybe it's just convenient for them, maybe they lack communication skills, to talk about what's going on, or maybe they're simply just too afraid of confronting the truth with this person. So, really, there is just this both physical and emotional absence, with an added touch of digital or technological presence that still rings around and unfortunately, this experience has just become way too common, and often the person who's being ghosted is left to deal with a variety of feelings that is tied to the uncertainty of the situation and the lack of answers as to what just happened.

Gretta Perlmutter 3:55

That is really helpful to hear and, yeah, it's such a confusing thing. That happens because you're just like, well, where is this person? Did this person die? Is this person alive? I've, I've. I searched for an obituary of a man I was dating because I thought if he's not talking to me, he must be dead.

Gabriela 4:17

Yeah, and and that's so unfortunate, right, that you're just falling into your own conclusions, because you're just so desperately trying to find closure and just an answer as to why did this happen to me?

Gretta Perlmutter 4:30

So what emotions come up around ambiguous loss?

Gabriela 4:36

Yeah, so there's generally there's there's a range of emotions, but typically you will experience sadness, confusion, anger, maybe a lot of doubt, and then the uncertainty of course, but even feelings of just feeling like you've been abandoned, and then eventually, for those that don't manage their emotions in a proper way, they may find themselves in a great state of depression. They may find themselves in a great state of depression, but with ghosted in particular, what I do see is that there's a significant emotional experience around just the self-doubt and the self-blame. So what I typically hear after being ghosted is that let's say, the victim in this case they begin to turn inward right and they start having a very negative self-perception of who they are and who they were in this relationship. So this will commonly look like what did I do? What's wrong with me? What did I do to cause this? Why is this happening to me?

Gabriela 5:37

And eventually you know that constant rumination, the overthinking, can begin to push that narrative on the person who was ghosted and then, following that, it may turn into anxiety of just, you know, developing new relationships or even sustaining relationships that they already have. They begin to develop just this chronic insecurity and that affects just how they perceive themselves in the formation of new relationships. So what I see is, across the board, that many victims of ghosting end up changing maybe how they initiate other relationships or how they adjust themselves. Just the self-disclosure piece like what pieces of me do I share and who do I share that with, and others just become overall less invested in communicating with potential partners because they've become guarded or scared of trusting anybody else. And, yeah, they just become so uncertain of what to do or how to handle the situation in the future.

Gretta Perlmutter 6:39

It's incredibly stressful.

Gabriela 6:41

Yes, I can imagine, because you're being torn right. It's like a part of you wants to move forward and yet a part of you is wanting to answer what went wrong.

Gretta Perlmutter 6:54

Right, and that loop thinking that you mentioned, just the kind of obsession of like what just WTF?

Gabriela 7:02

Yeah, no, I think you know. Unfortunately, you just get caught in this uncertainty reduction where it's like I just need an answer. Maybe I can go on Instagram find an answer there. Maybe if I see what they're up to I'll find an answer there. Maybe if I see them moving on I'll find an answer. Maybe if I call text, show up wherever they're at. You just need an answer. Right, you're pushing for that answer and again, like it just turns inward, where you feel like you're the one that's been wrong, you're the one that's done the wrong.

Gretta Perlmutter 7:37

It is so complex and just the grieving process in general. Right, Because this is a loss and so you want to grieve it, but you don't have the closure. Could you shed some more light on the complexity of grieving?

Gabriela 7:50

Right, yes, and that's actually the key piece, right, grieving, you've said it yourself. So added on to all of those feelings that you're experiencing now, just turning into the grieving phase. And I know that grief is typically reserved for experiences in which someone has passed away, and maybe that's why it's so complex for many of us to acknowledge it and to start moving into those phases. And so you know, just like there is rituals or practices for people who have passed away, an ambiguous loss, we don't have that, particularly because we don't know if that person is returning, right. So there's no clear indication that they're returning and there's just no verification of death and no certainty that the person will come back or that things will just return to the way that they used to be.

Gabriela 8:42

So, grieving a loss, especially when there is unanswered questions or you're just unsure of what went wrong, it's very difficult and it's different than the grief that has to do with death, because that uncertainty, those unanswered questions, can just rob us of closure. Uncertainty, those unanswered questions can just rob us of closure and it could lead us into sensation of what we call frozen grief. And that really occurs when the emotions and the uncertainty stays. It stays trapped, it's not put out in into the world, right? You don't acknowledge it, you don't face it, it just kind of stays trapped in you. You're trapped in the same behaviors and you're just kind of in that cycle of just ruminating, overthinking and replaying the scenario for yourself, and that just really stems from being unable to confront or acknowledge the loss overall. And I think that's really where knowing or being familiar with the concept of ambiguous loss is helpful. When someone can acknowledge that ghosting constitutes both physical and emotional loss of someone who you chose to be vulnerable or intimate with, then they can begin to acknowledge that there's going to be grieving.

Gretta Perlmutter 9:57

Wow, I wish I would have known about this a long time ago, because just the having the vocabulary, the terminology, the understanding of what this really is is just so helpful and these emotions are just so intense when you go through it. So what are the ways to manage some of the emotions around ambiguous loss?

Gabriela 10:20

okay. So this is the tricky part. I wanna go through some ineffective ways of dealing with those things. So the things that don't work.

Gabriela 10:30

One information seeking, those uncertainty reduction strategies of like I need to find an answer. So let me just call everyone I know related to this person. Let me call this person, let me text this person, let me look on Instagram and try and find an answer. It's not going to help you, it's only going to add to the uncertainty and you may never have the answer from that person who ghosted you. So is it really worth the fight of just moving mountains to find an answer, or is it better to just accept a loss and start moving forward with what you have now? Right? So, information seeking out the window. Number two continuous observation or communication. Again, unfortunately, we just have so much access, you know, at the tip of our fingers. Instagram is readily available to us. So if we're following the person who ghosted us, clearly we're going to have just that inclination to just make that extra click and see what are they up to right, even if we don't follow them.

Gabriela 11:39

I'm sure we can find ways. And again, it's just being able to sit with yourself and say, is it really worth me getting information from this direct source? Will that give me closure or will that just give me more doubt and uncertainty? And then, lastly, you know, just ruminating or panicking about any previous communication or behaviors that you had in the relationship. It's only going to intensify that negative self-focus that you already are experiencing. So just going back to maybe I sent that one text Should I have sent it? Is that what changed everything? It's only going to add to your panic and to your anxiety. And again, I think it says more about the person that's that that ghosted you than it says about you. So it's it's not worth doing that much.

Gabriela 12:39

Information seeking and with that said, you know some of the skills that do work is being future focused.

Gabriela 12:54

I did read a study actually particularly with ghosting and ambiguous loss, and this was actually a top strategy for participants and it just involves accepting the changes that have occurred due to the ghosting experience and then to be ready to move forward with a new experience.

Gabriela 13:07

Right, so that could be pursuing a new partner or initiating other relationships. But what I think about this future-focused mindset is to sit with the discomfort for a little while so that later you can enjoy other experiences and explore more where you want to have more clear expectations or more clear communication. And so really in all the strategies, just focuses on reducing the uncertainty and in a way that you can increase predictability in other situations, just by developing a more clear understanding of the behavior and what it is you need as a result of what's happened to you. And then two, the positive self-focus, so self-encouragement, you know, talk yourself up instead of talking yourself down and really dwelling in the doubt and in the what did I do wrong? Switch it on to a positive focus and process your thoughts and your emotions in that way. Challenge your blaming thoughts, remind yourself of how important you are and how deserving you are of communication. And I you know it's easier said than done I will say that, yes, but if you find that you need help from a professional to do that.

Gretta Perlmutter 15:04

You know it. I think it's also important to just know is this a good distraction or is this just enabling my avoidance? So are you saying watch one TV show, don't binge an entire five seasons in a night you know, bitch it, but the next day is that the same thing you're going to do.

Gabriela 15:16

You know, it's just a matter of putting everything on a scale. I'm not against binging I do it myself. But I will say like, if binging is a way that you avoid feelings or situations in general, then that's something that you might just need to sit with and acknowledge. Before doing it Got it yeah. Before doing it, got it yeah. But overall I think, like I said, participants rated those as like the most helpful ways of dealing with with um, the loss and the uncertainty of the situation. But I think really what I want your listeners to hear is that there is a way to stand not knowing. We all can do that, we all have to do that.

Gabriela 16:08

There's many situations of loss in which things just remain unclear. Right, and really what's important is that you give yourself time to process and heal from the experience, because I know that typically, you know we don't typically associate grief with non-death occurrences. But I'm here to say and give you permission to grieve. You know, sit with the difficult stages of grief and know that it's not linear, it's very much circular. So one day you may find yourself coming back from anger to then denial, to then, all of a sudden, the depression, the sadness, and then all of a sudden you're, you're at acceptance and you're good for the day and you're moving forward. It. It repeats itself in a circle right and to me I love to say the phrase name it to tame. When you can name and label your experience and the emotions tied to it, it seems to become more manageable. So really just acknowledge how much uncertainty there has been for you and how you can avoid that in the future, but just give yourself time and grieve what you've lost.

Gretta Perlmutter 17:19

Wow, that is brilliant. Thank you for that. It is so wise and clearly. You have such a deep understanding of this topic and I think listeners are really gonna be helped with everything you just said and just leaning into the uncertainty embracing it. It's okay if you don't know what just happened. It's okay to have question marks, as long as you keep your focus on the future and treat yourself really well and give yourself the time and the space to process those emotions yeah, absolutely.

Gabriela 17:55

I think you know a lot of us just avoid the discomfort, um, just for the sake of moving forward. But really what this requires is to sit with the discomfort and befriend it right, become friends with it. Eventually you'll know how to manage it.

Gretta Perlmutter 18:15

That's profound. Is there anything else you want to let listeners know about ghosting in general?

Gabriela 18:22

Yes, you know, sometimes we refrain from sharing because it's embarrassing and maybe it has happened way too many times, but actually with ambiguous loss. Something that's very helpful to people who suffer with this is group support. So, yes, individual therapy is awesome, but having individuals on a mass scale that you can connect with and communicate with and share experiences with and maybe say like, oh, something like that happened to me, it gives you an immense amount of relief, right? So, like things like what you're doing now, the platform that you use on Instagram, the podcast that you use, maybe creating a support group where you meet and you talk and you share experiences that will also be very helpful. And again, there's no shame. You know a lot of people go through this. A lot of people share the same experiences.

Gretta Perlmutter 19:19

You are not alone, and it's better to have those connections than to not Thank you so much, and, gabby, can you please remind us how we can connect?

Gabriela 19:30

with you? Yeah, absolutely so. Like you said in the beginning, you guys can follow me on Instagram at therapy con Gabby, and that's where I share a lot about ambiguous loss, so head that way If you guys want to know any more.

Gretta Perlmutter 19:44

I greatly appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you and listeners be sure to remember when you are ghosted, you have more time to connect with yourself and those who truly appreciate you. You deserve the best.