The Effects of Ghosting Someone | The Zero Dot Podcast #13

If it is a pet that's gone, if it's a friend that's gone, if it's just like you said, you
move from somewhere to somewhere else.

If you let yourself feel those feelings, they get to happen.

And that's part of the reason why it's really important to me to have this episode is
because with ghosting, nobody tells you it's time to move on.

Nobody says, hey man, I can tell you've been kind of fucked up that Tim left a while ago
because nobody fucking knows.

Because you don't talk about it.

Because it's a weird shame thing.

For some reason, there's shame around ghosting.

And by some reason, I mean like 40 reasons.

Welcome again, ladies and gentlemen, to the Zero Dots.

I'm Sam, this is John, this is Daniel, and we are here for another week, and it has been
another week, hasn't it, gentlemen?

It surely has.

I looked down at the old calendar.

Seven consecutive days.

Would you believe that?

Yeah, spill what?

wouldn't, personally.

Personally, I wouldn't.

seems a little bit suspicious of you.

There's a skepticism here that I don't typically feel.

Huh.

podcasts record episodes in rapid succession and then tell their viewers it's seven days,
but we would never do that to you, Zero.

No, it's weird though, because it does feel like it's only been a day.

Hmm, it does.

I'm wearing a different shirt.

um And that means it's been, like, I only change shirts once a week.

So, no, no.

That's how you can tell it's different.

And you can trust that.

That's our promise to you.

grows at exactly this rate within seven days and I haven't shaved since.

Three months from now, some guy in the comments is be like, hey, hey, that's different.

You established in episode 13, this is what you do and now you're not doing it.

uh Zero Dot is all about making the magic happen in whatever way we can make it happen.

So I'm happy to make it happen with you both.

So thank you.

I love, I love, okay, two things.

One, when somebody says, like, the magic happens, I immediately whisked away to a simpler
time watching MTV's Cribs, just without even a second's hesitation.

Second of all, I am just, newly dedicated to this concept of a guy who tracks your facial
hair length, and is like, hmm, a millimeter, that's a little longer than normal, but okay,

I'll keep notes, hmm, And I want that person to be my friend more than I've ever wanted
anything in my life.

What a beautiful soul.

John it's been a week seven days as we joked I mean absolutely said the truth absolutely
true we truth god that just made me want to vomit a little bit yep you you said it John

it's been a week give me something good

So I was I was thinking of phrases that I don't get to say as often as I would like and
one of them uh would be sweet cuddly mayhem and then perhaps sky full of stuffies and we

can I've got a few more to toss out here but let me introduce to you a concept there is a
uh young woman goes by Gabby and created Gabby's acts of kindness which is a

charity organization from her hometown in Pennsylvania, Hershey, Pennsylvania, where she
collects stuffed animals to give to children in need.

And the method of collection that they're doing is absolutely insane.

It brings me so much joy.

There's a video, and I'll tell you what happens, and then I'll maybe roll the video for 10
seconds.

uh When the hometown hockey team, the Hershey Bears, uh scores their first goal, the game
immediately stops, and people just start throwing teddy bears under the ice.

And the last time that this happened, which was, I can't find the actual date for it, but
it was recently, there were 91,000, 81,000, a mere 81,000 thrown onto the ice.

So the entire hockey rink is just covered in a wide variety of flying, well, very briefly
flying, uh colorful stuffed animals, which are then collected and given out to the local

children, which I think is both like sweet.

It's a nice little gesture.

It's a fun thing.

And like imagine just kind of the pop off you get if you're the hockey player, pop it in.

Boom.

Stuffed animal avalanche.

It is.

And I like that they don't like do it after the game or like during a period transition.

They're just like, all right, there it is.

And like you can you can feel the audience just going nuts.

And also just like what a cool fucking teenager to just be like, you know, be sick this
and like she just made herself like a whole thing about it.

She has a web page.

I found hers on Facebook, Gabby's acts of kindness.

If you watch it without sound and you're a creative type of person, you can briefly
imagine the hockey team is under assault by a very ineffective method of weaponry and

they're like hiding in the middle of the ring together.

They probably are there because it would be hard to like get one all yonder.

And it would be really sad to be like, yeah, Jenkins is out for the game.

He got a teddy to the eye.

But I just, I think that's amazing.

I love that that happened so very much.

That's beautiful and that's good.

That's nice, soft and cuddly.

I know at least one of our Patreon members likes stuffed animals and stuffed plushies of
some kind, so that there might be some joy there as well.

I could see that individual yeeting, if you will, to use a millennial term, something that
far and having just the merriest of times.

The last thing I wanted to mention about this is since this started in 2001, they have get
about 650,000 stuffed animals to give to the community via this format, which I think is

just this.

John, that was lovely.

That filled my heart with joy and beauty and good.

That's so nice.

I think it's time though.

Actually, no, before we do that, because you said this isn't Hershey, right?

So Hershey is not very far from me here in Philadelphia.

um I just learned about this today.

This is not our segment, but I think it just happened last night.

um

Turns out police say a Pennsylvania man carried out a calculated months long series of
burglaries at a historic cemetery, repelling onto mausoleums, prying open underground

vaults and removing human remains dating back more than a century before selling them
online.

ah I won't name the person, but we're looking at 500 criminal charges, meaning they
investigated this individual's house and they had over 500 skeletons in their house.

that were from a grave, meaning this person's a professional grave robber.

And it just happened in Lancaster County, which is not far from Hershey.

So I blow my mind, you you get the good and the bad and just, wow, that's wild.

uh

I was just pulling this up as you were talking about it.

Yeah, local man Sam Kirk, I'm so sorry.

I couldn't, I should have thought about that.

No, but to go back to this person, like, what a choice.

What an amazing choice.

I know that it's probably not great to rob the dead.

And if you're a pro robbing the dead person, you know, let me know.

I'd like to hear about your opinion and probably everything else about you, because you
sounded very interesting.

um But just like, you like you're meeting somebody new, you're going on a date and I'm
like, you know, like.

I don't have a whole lot of skeletons in my closet, but I used to do that.

I have several skeletons in my closet and basement and bedroom and closet again and
kitchen.

Like what a fun human.

And then what is the black market of this?

Who is who is buying this?

Where are you?

I don't know.

I have a lot of questions.

I would like to be involved in this community more.

I'm realizing

Yeah, I mean, that's the question I have.

It says selling to online, but who is the market?

Who's buying this?

What's the purpose?

Do I even wanna know?

I don't know if I do, but yeah.

So, mm-hmm.

serial killers where you don't want to know.

But you do want to know.

Right, you're curious, you know the moment Pandora's box is open.

You know that when that happens, you're a different person.

You're a different person.

Well, John, thanks for that refreshing take of goodness.

But I think it's my turn to kind of bring us back to reality and talk about something
that, well, we might not be paying attention to.

Because again, you know, for my listeners at home, I'm waving just generally at all that
is happening at life.

And it's very easy for us to...

missed some small, really important things that we could possibly have a huge impact on.

That's what the purpose of this show is, to empower you, to give you the abilities to kind
of do something, at the very least be aware of something.

So.

second.

So this just happened, John and Daniel.

uh If you're not familiar with Doctors Without Borders, MSF, not to be confused with the
lovely MSF from Metal Gear Solid, uh they are a nonprofit that literally uh takes

healthcare workers across to multitude of different countries and countries of specific
needs of some kind.

Unfortunately, some of those medical services have had to be shut down, specifically
Haiti, which relates to last week's episode about Dominican Republic, Haiti, which is its

neighboring sector, due to excessive violence.

The violence is getting so heavy in that area, the doctors just they have to close the
clinics because it disrupts too much of their trauma cases.

It stops a routine vaccinations and maternity care, antibiotic administration, chronic
disease, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

It's becoming too much of a risk.

And that is such a heartbreak.

But I don't bring this news to make us doom and gloom.

I bring us this news to remind us of something really powerful.

So what is MSF?

Doctors Without Borders, which is actually a uh French term, medicine sans frontieres, uh
their entire purpose is amid cuts to international aid, which we are seeing more than we

ever have in the times that we are in, help save lives.

Devastating cuts to international aid by the US government specifically endanger the lives
of people caught in some of the world's most difficult circumstances.

Children threatened by malaria, people who need life-saving treatment for tuberculosis.

Tuberculosis is a huge thing if you're a huge fan of John and Hank Green's work with that
endeavor, which we talked about.

earlier episodes ago, and families displaced by war and many others.

So here's the thing about MSF and here's what's really cool.

MSF does not accept funding from the US government.

So on one hand, they don't, they can't get cut from it.

Instead, they work alongside other organizations and communities around the world that are
directly affected by the aid and by the aid freeze.

And they're trying to work amidst all of this weird

federal government shutdown and so forth.

So here's what we can do though.

They do accept aid from individual contributors in the US, just not the US government.

And if you feel the need and you want to donate to this, you absolutely can.

All you have to do is go to the website.

Let me make sure I get the website right.

One second.

says samkurtgraverobbing.com.

Okay, cool.

Good.

the website you can go to is give.doctorswithoutborders.org slash campaign.

And if you go there, it's a very simple, but you can get a one time donation of any amount
that you feel like from one US dollar or its Regency equivalent to up to $500 if you

wanted to.

And you can even make it a monthly reoccurrence that you can.

So again,

In the times that we are in, the times, the agenda TM, all that stuff, when things are
getting cut, it's wonderful to know that an organization like this with such huge benefits

takes its money, not from the US federal government, but from other entities, and we as
individual contributors can help with that.

I think we can all agree it's not a controversial take.

Just like last week we talked about food and famine, people shouldn't be suffering from
significant illness if we can help it.

If there are other...

uh

regions of the world that have their health taken care of and we have the ability to
spread that at little to no cost or even charitably give that cost over to others, we

should be doing that.

So I wanna make sure people are aware of that, that's huge.

My heart goes out to those people that are in Haiti right now that are suffering from the
fact that the clinics have to be shut down.

Perhaps, maybe if enough of us donate some of our funds and our time and just even spread
awareness and kind of share the story across socials and elsewhere that might

reinvigorate things and give MSF an opportunity to reopen things in whatever way they
could.

I do feel like some of the causes that, you know, we share about here are just so like
capital G good.

Like it, it's hard to be mad about getting rid of illness.

The end, you know what I mean?

Like that's, there's not a lot of downsides to that person who's like, well, actually
population control, fuck off.

I don't even have a nice way to say it.

You're weird.

Stop doing that.

I know this is, and I would validate like, um, cause I'm familiar with this, the
organization.

My dad is in the medical field and there's been a lot of nice things to say about this.

So that's a really good one.

If your dollar needs a new home, I can't think of a whole lot of better places.

Absolutely.

And to those that don't have the dollar to expend, that's perfectly fine too.

Just spreading the word and just talking to people about it, that does a lot too.

So it's only for those that have the expendable income, if whatever way you can, that's
huge, that's massive.

Even just a one-time donation.

And once again, we're not sponsoring them, they're not sponsoring us.

We're just telling you, here's an infrastructure that is not being impacted as necessarily
by some of the US federal government cuts, which I know a lot of us are scared of, like

SNAP and other organizations, but they do.

need it from other cross collaborations and we have the ability to literally interface
with that.

So it was bad, but it was something good, something hopeful, something we can do
positively.

and I know that like the dollar doesn't go as far as it used to.

like Sam was getting at, if you don't have a whole lot of them to throw around, that's
understandable.

um But I also tell you, you know, last week when I threw 10 bucks at the cause of the day,
there was a really good feeling.

Those things linger, like it feels nice to be like, okay, I did something today.

I did something to like kind of contribute.

I have a whole thing about value of court and action turns out it's a really big deal and
it's really good for your brain.

Mm-hmm

lean it in when you can.

But anyway, we have a main topic.

I don't know what the main topic is.

Daniel knows what the main topic is to guide us along on what we're going to be talking
about throughout today.

I do.

I do know.

I know exactly what you're talking about today.

Before you know what you're talking about, isn't that fun?

I know.

Yeah, uh-huh.

One with a deck of cards here.

Geez Louise.

We're just playing blackjack, but you're the dealer.

So, Bruce Allman, what if, what if we've got this really good friendship going, right?

This kind of, this little trio, this little thing we've got going on, we like each other.

How would it make you feel if one day I were to leave?

But didn't tell you I was going to leave.

I didn't tell you why I was going to leave.

I didn't tell you where I was going to go.

I just up and left, leaving you with no closure.

This happens a lot in a lot of different circumstances.

It can feel really bad.

I'm talking about not the spooky kind of ghosts, but ghosting people and the effects that
it can have on you, not you specifically, but on people.

Well, I'll answer the question absolutely directly before we dive into it.

Daniel, I would be mortified, I'd be upset, I'd be super sad.

uh I would ultimately, however, want you to be doing well.

And I hope in whatever way, even if I didn't know it, you'd be doing well.

And if that meant you were away from me and that was better for you, I'd be happy for you.

But I would be incredibly sad and I'd feel alone.

And I'd wonder if I did something wrong, for sure.

But John, I'm sure you got more stuff about this, don't you?

Nope, never had a thought about this in my life.

So hopefully you can cover this for rest of the show.

I'm just gonna sit back and relax.

Okay, we're done actually.

All right, it's been fun.

Later guys, have a good day.

darn it!

This is the first time, the first time that I've come to you with a topic and I've struck
out.

That's it.

I've failed.

I've failed the podcast.

I don't wanna say this is why you should go off into the sunset and never come back,
but...

Personally, I feel let down and it's your fault.

Yeah, that's our new show's called.

the once was enough to get me gone.

That's fine.

No, this is a topic that I, it turns out, very much am passionate about and wanna talk
about it.

Not passionate about ghosting people, I don't know if I can buy it.

No, it's a thing that like, so sometimes you go to therapy school, you know, just show up
to that, you just go to therapy school, and you learn some stuff.

For instance, you learn things like don't ask why questions.

Why did you do this?

Inherently bad therapist question.

Don't do that, it's front loaded and it blames the person inadvertently whether or not you
mean to.

You can do little ones.

They're like, ooh, why'd you pick this guitar over that guitar?

Cause like, no, that's more fun.

um But then there's a lot of shit you learn as you go that isn't really covered in books
and not cause it's like magical woo woo stuff, but because like it's scenario specific.

So I think that I've witnessed time and time again, cause I will have a client come in who
is just fabulous human being doing fabulous work.

And then they'll either have as a central point or it's like a thing that comes up later,
a story where a person in their life, a very close friend leaves and they don't.

give any context and they don't say why and they're just gone.

And this is one thing if it's, and this sucks if it's this, but like you're talking with
somebody on like an online dating app and they're like, they're gone.

That's a bummer.

But that relationship was a baby relationship.

It was very new.

It hadn't formed yet.

When it's someone with whom you have substance and then it just ends, it's kind of like
you're watching a movie and then it's just over.

Black screen, we're out.

Shout out to the Sopranos.

People don't like this as it turns out as per the ending of that series.

It feels bad.

And I would talk about a couple of things.

So humans form pretty much all of our stuff around relationships.

We're very relationally based.

If you are completely alone, you know it's a thing.

It's a thing.

We're the protagonists.

We forge a path.

We got our armor, shield in one hand, the sawed-off shotgun in the other, and we take on
everyone.

We don't need nobody.

What?

terrible that by the end of your thing I was like, will play this video game.

Cause it sounds cool, it sounds fun.

It's also magic bullshit that doesn't work in real life.

There's no such thing as a lone soldier.

And if you are, have, I'm not a military guy, but I feel like not a lot of guys would be
like, you know what we really need is like one dude just to go John Rambo it a little

because like it turns out not very, we're a team.

of Doom, which is fantastic.

It's a great video game, but it's not real.

It's true.

And as I recall, Doom guy, not a human, um, per the lore, I think per the lore-ish lore.

Uh, yes, absolutely.

I have, I have takes about Doom, we'll save those for another time.

Cause I, I don't know.

Anyway, um, we're a team and we're supposed to have, you know, have team members and it's
part of like feeling safe.

It's part of like feeling you're part of something.

Um, and it's part of feeling good about yourself.

The things we talk about, like, you know,

donating your time and your efforts to charities, organizations, it feels good because
you're like, I'm helping the team.

I'm part of team human and it feels good.

So when you have a team member who leaves, that's sad.

If you think about like, know, sports, you have a person who gets traded to another team,
there is often a sadness in the fandom, on the actual team.

And this is like the player gets traded in the middle of the night and nobody knows and
you never see them again.

They're not on another team as far as you can tell.

But we get to do this now in an even different way.

So historically,

dear youths, the internet wasn't always as around as it is.

In fact, some say it wasn't around at all for the majority of human history and ending
connections and maintaining connections was very different.

But now, this sounds like I'm on a rant about a thing.

I'm not just, this isn't, this isn't the whole rant for me, but like you can block people
on the internet and you can therefore erase your existence and the primary modality that

we see each other.

If I have blocked you on my phone and I've blocked you on my social media app and I've
blocked you on insert other two or three things here, I'm gone.

And this is devastating.

So what I would ask you first is, well actually I'd ask you really first first, earlier
than first, have you ever experienced what's called a double bind before?

What a double bind is?

I talk about them sometimes.

Perhaps to myself in my sleep.

A double bind is a thing where you have option A, option A is bad, you don't wanna do
that, it's gonna hurt.

And you have option B, which is bad and it's gonna hurt.

And then your brain goes, oh, that's probably not good.

And it sure isn't.

If you put kids in double binds like before the age of 20, like the...

odds of schizophrenia developing goes way up.

It's like, it's really fucking bad for your brain because brains are built to be like
problem solvers and connected.

And you can kind of see where I'm going with this.

When you can't connect with somebody and you can't get the data about what led to their
departure, your brain begins to invent reasons for it.

uh And so many of them are, I am bad.

What did I do?

And the thing that I really excited to talk about today, one of the cool parts about being
me is as a therapist, I have a sample size of talking to more people than most people do.

and intimate conversations.

So, I mean, you know, everybody talks to a lot of people all the time, but like, I've
known so many people who have been, this is the interesting part to me, whatever the fuck

we're on, on both sides of this.

I've known people who have been the like, yeah, where the fuck did so-and-so go?

And then I've also known people who've been like, yeah, and then I never talked to
so-and-so again.

And it's a really sad thing.

So before I ramble further, because I can feel the ramble a-brewing, you have a thought on
any of have a thinking face.

Mm.

I appreciate that.

mean.

You said a few things and the one thing I want to call out is when someone leaves your
life, what you're effectively losing is a mirror into yourself because we use our

friendships and our relationships and our environment as feedback loops of how we're
doing.

Like, how am I doing in this ecosystem of life?

So regardless if the friend was a good friend, not a good friend, an uh acquaintance or
not, that person's gone and they've gone unexpectedly.

We're losing that mirror.

When we have that feeling of ghosting, it's really just like I'm losing an additional data
set of who I am on this earth and on this planet.

And why did that happen?

Where did that come from?

And as you said, the brain is really good at a few things.

And one of them is if I don't have enough information, let's make up a conclusion.

And it's pretty predictable what the brain does in that conclusive space, what the brain
does to try to come up with that stuff.

we see a little kitty.

My listeners at home, we have a nice floofy-doof kitty.

Coming up.

For my viewers at home, can see the screen.

So enjoy your superiority yet again.

It's okay.

The viewers though, all they saw was a void.

Just a black void of nothingness.

Yeah, for sure.

And um compared to the listeners, that's still an infinite amount of things.

So I'll celebrate their victories and achievements.

the point is, you lose your mirror, and then...

For those that might have experienced this and never done the other thing, which is you've
never been the one to ghost people, both sides don't feel great about it.

Both sides have an anguish and a pain and a feeling.

It is not a, I'm ghosting you because I hate you and now I feel infinitely better about
it, although sometimes in really toxic situations that can be the case.

In many cases, there's an anguish on both sides, but I'm sure you're gonna get to that.

I am, and you said that very well.

I do want to really quickly just acknowledge that last piece and I will hopefully circle
back around to that.

um But the person who left didn't usually do it to be cruel to you or because they hate
you or because of whatever.

And we'll come back to that.

I would kind of do a half seg into some general grief stuff.

This is a real basic formula for just any grief, any loss.

This is your favorite team has lost their sport for the year.

Your grandfather passed away or you moved away from your old hometown and you missed the

the mom and pop malt shop you used to go to.

I'm old timey today, I've decided.

The things you do are as follows.

One, is you participate in any rituals you need to do.

This is a fun one.

this is, humans, are a little bit like magic enthusiasts.

When you go to a funeral, the person who died isn't less dead, but you as a community come
together and you get to feel things and it helps your brain go, okay, we can put a lid on

this.

I, I haven't told you guys this story before.

My great aunt passed away and we all went to go to see her in the hospital one last time.

She was in and out, but I remember holding her hand and telling her I loved her.

And my mom, who is by far the healthiest person in my family emotionally, my mom is just a
fucking absolute rock star at mental health, didn't go because she couldn't because she

was on a conference to Hawaii, which was a fun time.

And guess who was by far the most fucked up in our family?

My mom.

because she didn't get to say her goodbyes in any capacity.

The ritual stuff matters.

If you are a person who is going through something like this and you want to go to
whatever the service is or the funeral, I strongly recommend it.

Those things aren't for the people who've passed, they're for the people who are still
here, and it's a part of how we say goodbye.

Similarly, when people come to celebrate somebody's life, somebody's anniversary, they're
passing like that, same thing, rituals.

Whatever you need to do on those days, you deserve it and that's okay.

It's important to let yourself feel these things.

because it's how your brain heals.

So the reason I bring that up first in one of the stages here with grief um and the
ghosting piece is because you don't get to fucking do this.

When somebody leaves your life like this, there isn't a let's say goodbye because you
can't say goodbye because they left without giving you the opportunity to.

um I would give a shout out to one of my clients who is just the fucking man.

I hope he listens to this because I think he would be very, he would want this story told.

he had a dad and his dad was like a American dad, you know, the traditional American dad
is a TV show.

realized, uh, too late indeed hyphen the generalized one.

Um, and then one day his American dad was, uh kind of a piece of shit and started to cut
him out of his life for reasons that we will describe as judgmental, uh, and unable to be

reasoned with.

And he tried and he.

kept going to family holidays and he kept doing it and he just was like, I don't think
this is going to work.

And the conclusion that he reached, I think this is kind of beautiful, is he was like, I'm
going to have a fucking funeral for him.

And he went to a local bar and he told people that he'd lost his dad.

And for the people who asked, he would be happy to tell them, this is the actual details.

He wasn't trying to be fabricating anything.

um But people, turns out when you do that, give you an outpouring of support.

You go with your friends.

You tell your story.

um And he made it a positive thing and he claimed it and he took the chance to have the
kind of rituals and make this a thing.

So spoiler alert, that's part of the territory with this too, is you get to make these
things and you get to give your brain what it needs.

A couple more stages of grief for the losses and how they apply to this.

One is um you have to analyze the changes and what's happened once that thing has changed
or left.

So in the case of my family, uh when my father

passes on from this realm, though he, the immortal emperor, shall never do so.

I will be the last Merrick man.

The end.

It's me.

And that's a weird thing to consider for just family get-togethers, holidays, stuff like
that.

Once again, these are all things that happen naturally in the context of grief.

And you are deprived of it yet again when somebody ghosts you because you're like, I don't
understand when to begin exploring this.

Or, and this is the other thing, there's a certain finality with things that make some
things easier to work through, right?

So if I'm like, man, I sure love going to Chuck E.

Cheese.

And then they're like, sorry, Chuck E.

Cheese is closed forever.

You can't ever go.

Don't worry.

It's still around.

um contrary to the success of Charles Entertainment Cheese, there isn't a, okay, it's done
with ghosting.

Cause maybe they'll reach out later.

Maybe they'll answer it this time.

Maybe I'll be able to get ahold of them through Timmy.

Maybe I'll, and there's this really undignified, just ongoing wondering and hoping and
doubt.

And that's.

Hope is good for your brain.

We've talked about this before.

It's really important to have some hope.

This is not quite the same.

This is like, you're hoping a thing will happen and it may never happen.

It leaves your brain in this of waiting phase.

Brains don't, it's that.

It's that.

um Closure is really, really good.

Closure psychologically is when you've been able to say, okay, this is at rest.

I can be done with it now.

And that is ultimately the biggest piece of this whole ghosting thing is without any sense
of closure, your brain, it's just, it's like a wandering nomad.

It's just trying to find somewhere to be.

And it can't.

So the final um step with handling traditional grief and loss is you begin to re-implement
normal behaviors in the new context.

You've done your rituals, you've acknowledged the changes of what that may be in your
circles or status.

And now you're like, okay, and now I'm going to go back to movies again.

And I'm going to go do whatever again.

And as you can tell, this one also impacted by ghosting because you're like, okay, well,
I'm gonna go back to my favorite pastry spot where I used to go with Tim back when we were

friends.

What the fuck?

And like, it just kind of sits there.

So the first thing about ghosting.

and perhaps you figured this out and it's part of why this is on our list of shows to
have, you need to talk about it.

You need to talk about it.

If this has happened to you, you need to talk about it.

You are owed a chance to talk about it.

And if you do it with your therapist, phenomenal.

This is our bread and butter.

We are happy to talk about this with you.

But also you talk about it with your friends.

Another thing I wanted to bring up is the frequency with which this happens.

This has happened to fucking everybody.

I know it's happened to me.

I've had people that in my life who were really important to me and then they just were
gone.

And there maybe was some occasional, there'll be like a, hey man, I won't be around as
much or like a cold goodbye one time.

You know what I mean?

Like there's not like those stories like, you every single time, but you'll have a thing
and it's gone and you won't know what happened.

And it makes you, and this is another thing I wanted to do and Sam stole my thunder very
well, my thunder stealing.

It makes you reflect on yourself.

Cause humans, slightly egocentric creatures that we are,

are like, well, if this person's gone, what did I do wrong?

And if you have any form of like anxiety, trauma, you know, whatever else, this is gonna
have a field day.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you'll start playing with things.

So things number one, the tenets of the day, ah it is not your fault if someone does this
to you.

The end.

It's just not.

And I say that, done, bye.

But I say that because

I realize this is a big thing, but here we go.

ah It's a powerlessness thing, Powerlessness is very, it's very challenging for the human
mind to have.

There's times that it's very freeing, but it's not freeing until you realize it for what
it is.

So let me go down another path really quick.

We're talking about heavy things, which is often also related to this.

uh Alcoholism.

So there's a group called Alcoholics Anonymous.

We're not gonna talk about them anymore because that's not the point.

There's a called Al Anon, perhaps you've heard of Al Anon.

Al Anon is a support group for family members of alcoholics.

And when you go to those things, um the main tenant is the person's behavior that's been
disruptive to your family, not your fault.

And there's nothing you can do about it beyond holding certain boundaries and offering the
little bit of advocacy where you can.

And at first that is outrageous because you're like, well, what the fuck?

No, this is super bad.

And then eventually it's incredibly healing because it's, okay, this isn't mine.

I don't have to feel bad about this.

I don't have to, I'm not doing something wrong.

didn't fail at getting them back on the right train.

This isn't mine.

And that part is what I wanted to kind of shine a light on with ghosting.

If somebody does this, you have your good old value of court and attempt at reaching out.

You can be like, Hey, are we good?

Hey, what happened?

Hey, how have you been?

I don't know, two, maybe three of those tops.

And you have, you have done your job.

And at that point you get to choose to grieve, which is the other.

Next big point that I wanna get to, choosing to grieve is fucking weird.

It's a weird thing to do.

You wake up one day, you're enjoying your lovely breakfast sandwich.

Perhaps you're like an eggs person.

I don't know, whatever you're having, it's fine.

And then you're like, I'm gonna be real fucking sad for a few hours.

I'm just gonna go be super sad about some stuff.

I don't wanna do that.

That seems kinda tough.

But the reason that, and we've talked about this before too, the power of sadness.

The reason that I want people to do this is because sadness is a pay it and you're done
thing.

There may be installments, you may have to pay more than once.

But if you pay your sadness bill, you get to be done with the thing that's hurting you.

That's true.

If it is a pet that's gone, if it's a friend that's gone, if it's just like you said, you
move from somewhere to somewhere else.

If you let yourself feel those feelings, they get to happen.

And that's part of the reason why it's really important to me to have this episode is
because with ghosting, nobody tells you it's time to move on.

Nobody says, hey man, I can tell you've been kind of fucked up that Tim left a while ago
because nobody fucking knows.

Because you don't talk about it.

Because it's a weird shame thing.

For some reason, there's shame around ghosting.

And by some reason, I mean like 40 reasons.

But it's a lot of that self-blame piece from earlier.

So this is my encouragement to you, dear listener slash viewer, slash reader, if you're
ever transcribed somewhere.

um I want you to challenge yourself and just tell somebody you're sad that something has
left you.

And I would tell you, much like our last episode, I feel like you will be surprised if you
put some trust into somebody.

how well they can handle this.

Because you don't really need whoever you're talking about with the ghosting to go get
so-and-so back or to relieve you of what you did that you made them leave, because also

you probably didn't necessarily do that.

um But you need to begin initiating the process of grieving things.

If my car, my car's very honest, um if it has a problem, a little light goes on, goes,
hey, I have a problem.

The ghosting light doesn't go on or exist for that matter.

But when people leave like this,

something's wrong, something's amiss, But it manifests as like a silent wound that just
lingers indefinitely.

A lot of the time in Therapy Town, I'll have people who like, they come in for issue A, we
work on issue A, it gets solved, and then they're like, and also this thing happened a

while ago, like this happens all the fucking time, where, and then we get to, and then
this person left.

It's really, really tough.

I have a lot I can feel still bubbling behind this, but I would like to pause to allow my
co-conspirator, Samathy Kirkule, to offer any thoughts he has.

You said trust and I just want to piggyback.

If you haven't seen our episode last week, we talked about trust and why it's in your best
interest to know that trust, at the very least, even if you don't want to trust people, it

is a choice you have.

So we encourage you to make that choice the positive one more times than you can.

So when John speaks about that, I feel that very deeply.

Yeah, John, know, human beings were trying to figure out the world and the universe around
us and

You wake up every day and you're told the sun's always gonna come up every day, but like,
we don't know if that's actually gonna happen.

Like scientists say, yeah, probably it won't die in the next 10 billion years.

It won't become a supernova and destroy us, but we never know.

So we like to hold onto the things that seem consistent.

And to realize ghosting can sometimes feel like you're going into your car using your
metaphor and hey, your radio's gone.

You noticed it.

And you feel crazy pointing out that there's a thing that's not there anymore, but.

There's a feeling that's going, well, the car still works.

I can still go about things.

I can not go on my drive without music.

But then like, what's the point without music?

And I miss the music.

And the music was a tune that I could, I knew the song and I could dance to it every time.

And so there's a, there's a feeling of like, you almost feel bad that you feel bad that
this has happened and you have, and you're not resilient towards it.

I have, I have some questions and thoughts about a kind of an unintentional ghosting.

that is probably specific to something John knows a lot about, is ADHD ghosting.

But before we get into that, those are my thoughts on

Well, I really like the way that you said that.

Sometimes I have a fucked up problem where I have a very, my face has an outdoor voice.

So if I hear a thing, I make a face about it.

I'm not very good at hiding that.

Unless we're like playing a game about social deception, like a bang the dice game in
which cause I'm extremely good at that.

But I smiled real broadly there, listeners, when Sam was saying that because the feeling
bad about feeling bad, that was really well put.

And I would also add that it will psychologically the experience of it.

is it's worse because it's feeling bad about feeling bad about feeling bad about feeling
it just will spiral all the way down.

So surprise, surprise therapist thinks talking is good.

uh I think that the way you, I'll say it, I'll say it talking useful.

Thank you, thank you.

I know all of these monks and their fucking vows of silence is the new trend these days,
but I don't think it's good.

I'm against it.

It's not monks, monks you do your thing.

You have it, you do what want.

But I feel like in general.

opening about what we're feeling there is so important and it disrupts the kind of shame.

I have two things that I need to make a quick note of that I want to say because you
inspired me with your thoughts.

So I am going talk about this one because it is incredibly poignant to me and I bet that
if we make this a YouTube short it's one of the higher hitting ones.

But ADHD ghosting as it turns out is a significant phenomenon with no real crime involved.

Like no one's the bad guy at ADHD ghosting.

except for the biological brain of the person with ADHD.

And that's not their fucking fault!

I am this person.

So I have this thing.

So to the ADHD homies, first of all, please don't feel, feel seen, but not judged.

Because I'm to bet someone who watches this or hears it will have experienced the
following.

You get a text, it's from Carl.

Your person might not be in Carl.

You're like, shit, I gotta get back to Carl.

But currently I'm playing a video game or at school.

or at work or talking to someone else or whatever.

And you're like, I'm gonna leave that unread.

So a little red dots there.

And then I'll remember to go back and get it.

And you open your phone or your discord would have you're like, I have 48 little red dots.

I can't possibly do this.

This is too much.

So what you do is one of two things.

One, which you probably do first is you go, I'm gonna live with those there.

I'm gonna just have 48 red dots.

And I'm just gonna go about my day.

And that does make you feel bad and you feel neglectful and shitty the whole time.

But you're like, but I'll get to it.

Bad news on that.

You probably won't.

We'll talk about a way to handle that later.

But the other thing you do is you go fuck it and you go click, click, click, click, click,
click, click, now they're all gone.

No more little red dots and no more reminder of that person that you care about who was
talking to you.

And then the next step, dear viewer slash listener that I know a lot of you've had because
people talk about this all the time is, well, then I didn't talk to so and so and so long

and now talking to them would be awkward.

and I don't want to do it.

And this rift was just born into this relationship and no one did anything wrong.

A person took too long to respond and now they feel bad.

So once again, I am positively riddled with ADHD.

I cannot get it out of me.

Positively just dripping with the stuff.

And I would tell you my experiences.

So if you go up to a therapist, AKA me in this case, and we talk about this, the spoiler
alert, I'm skipping a lot of the actual therapy stuff.

that I'll hope you can get to is a, let's see what my values tell me.

And if your values tell me I value that person once upon a time, it's worth reaching out.

I'll tell you what happens.

You say, hey dude, hey friend, hey whatever.

I'm so sorry that I didn't respond to you for a little while.

You know how the ADHD is, hopefully they do.

And they almost always go, oh, no big deal, how are you?

Occasionally they go, yeah man, that kinda hurt.

That's not bad though, we want that to happen.

Because that way they're sharing a feeling with you and your job isn't to feel bad, your
job is to be there for your friend.

because then you can go, I'm sorry, dude.

I can totally tell that would hurt.

And then that relationship is strengthened.

Conflict when healed respectfully makes the relationship better.

And it can really interrupt the whole ADHD ghosting process.

Dear ADHD have-er who's watching or listening to this, you're not bad for having this
happen to you.

It's not your fault.

It's biological chemistry.

You're just going along with the things your body is doing to manage stress.

But I implore you to consider a couple of things.

One is you don't have to go answer 84 red dots.

That's insane.

Don't do that.

But what you can do is you can go answer one today, two maybe if you feel up to it,
because this will start to relieve some of that burden.

um Also, dear person who has ADHD friends, and maybe you're one of those sweet, sweet
neurotypicals with that good brain, um I shouldn't say that because we shouldn't imply

that there's, but you get my point.

um That's just the thing of me being technical.

But if you message your ADHD homie and they don't respond,

A of all, if you can, do a little reframing.

Don't make it personal.

And B, if you have the spoons and you want to message them again, ho, they might be so
relieved.

Sometimes I'll have a friend be like, hey dude.

We go like, hey man, you good?

I'm like, yeah, yeah, sorry about that.

And then like, I can get back to them.

And that is a really nice thing for both of us.

So I'm really glad you brought that up.

If people have thoughts on that specifically, I would love to hear them because this is
actually another unto itself a paradigm.

yeah, no.

As someone who tries to navigate that for my homies, I think about a story of a very good
friend that I had.

Very good friend.

We would text each other all the time.

This friend got me a job at a bar as a mixologist, bartender, showed me the ropes.

This guy, which we'll talk about another episode, did one of the most coolest things ever,
which is he sponsored me, meaning he endorsed me.

When everyone else at the bar thought I was a piece of shit, nobody.

He's like, no, this guy knows his shit.

Give him a shot.

And finally they gave me a shot at running the bar one night all by myself.

And it was, it was amazing.

It was incredible and super successful.

And he's like, see, I told you, like he's, he's, he's one of my advocates and he's one of
my best friends and we're gamer buds and all that stuff.

And we have very similar opinions about things and, uh, we used to text each other.

And then at one point I wasn't getting texts from him anymore.

Hey, how you doing?

Hey, Steve thinking about you.

What's going on?

Hey, what's going on?

Heard nothing for six months.

And I remember the feeling of going like, man, what the...

Is he cutting me off?

Is something going on?

I didn't know.

Now, I'm the kind of person that likes to respect boundaries.

I also am weird in that I just assume that you will communicate to me if something is
wrong.

However, with the ADHD, with any kind of brain that's not that, that's not always true,
right?

So what I did after having not seen him for over six months,

I said to myself, speaking about your piece of closure, I'm like, well, this could be the
end of our friendship and that'll be really sad.

What do I need in order for me to achieve closure in this friendship?

Because I don't know.

I'm like, well, one of the last conversations we had is him talking to me about one of his
favorite games of all time, which is Jet Set Radio Future on the Xbox, the original Xbox.

Beautiful game, great game.

And I'm like, I don't think he has an Xbox anymore.

I don't think he has the game.

So I went to the game store.

No, I went to a rummage sale and they had an Xbox and then I picked up a copy of the game,
made sure it powered on.

I got component cables for it and everything, which by the way, fun fact for our nerdy
friends, Jet Set Radio Future is one of those few original Xbox games that does not

actually work with a component cable.

Like the moment you plug in a component cable, it does not turn on anymore.

It does not give you visual.

It's a weird bug in Xbox code.

It only does AV composite.

So, but anyway, did all that, got him two controllers in case he wanted to play with his
girlfriend and play co-op with him.

And I'm like,

I think he's, let me just go by the bar, which I'm not working there anymore.

Maybe he's working and if I'd see him, I'll say, hey man, it's good to see you.

I have something for you.

I want to give this to you.

And then that'll be it.

And then our friendship could be quote unquote done.

I came by, I said hi to him, talked to him and he was happy to see me.

And then like within moments, John, he was like, I am, I am so sorry.

I, I, and he got emotional and I got emotional.

I just.

I need to be a better friend.

just, I see the message and then I don't respond.

Then I feel bad.

And you know, he says he suffers from ADHD.

I'm like, it's okay.

It's okay.

It's all right.

I'm I said the most important thing is that you're okay.

was concerned something had happened to you.

And we bonded, we connected.

I'm like, it is okay.

You don't owe me that.

It is fine.

And then I said, Hey, can I show you something?

I brought it in my car and I took it out the trunk.

He's what is this?

last time we talked, this is what you were saying.

You wanted to play and I don't think you have it.

No, I don't.

I want to play it again.

Like, here you go.

It's yours.

And he was overwhelmed, I don't deserve this.

I'm like, yes, you do.

You're my friend.

I thought of you.

I wanted you to have this.

And as a result of that, we've been much better at communicating.

And I say that as someone, if I had not taken the reframe to go, okay, I need to find
closure for my...

What would make me feel good if this truly is the end of our relationship?

How can I make a last effort that means something?

And how can I stretch myself a bit further to give this person an opportunity to reframe
it for himself and myself?

Because I don't know what's going on.

I don't know why he's ghosting me.

If I hadn't done that, if I hadn't even broken my comfort level, which is, hey, I don't
want to...

bug you while you're working.

I don't want to like intercept you in any way.

I want you to come to me.

If I hadn't done that, then that wouldn't have happened.

And I'm really grateful for that.

And I think about that quite often whenever I'm, I talk with other people that suffer from
ADHD or neurodiversity and they have struggle with that, that rabbit hole that John just

described, which is, okay, I got the message.

I'll respond to it when I have a free moment.

Eight hours later, shit, it's too late to respond to it.

I just won't respond.

It'll be awkward now.

And I get that whole paradigm.

And I think about that quite often.

And I'm always trying to see what I can do to alleviate that.

in whatever way I can.

um I'm not always successful, um but I'm doing my best and it's tough on both sides.

And I want people to know if you are the person who feels like you inadvertently ghost
someone, just as John said, it is so easy to mend that.

And trust me, the scariest part's the first little part, but once you get past that, it's
beautiful, it's wonderful, it's healing, and it's fantastic.

I thank you for sharing that.

And I also, I'm so glad you did that.

Um, cause what you did there is kind of proof of concept of a couple of things.

One is that's textbook value, record and action.

You looked in your soul and you said, well, what do I believe in?

This is what I want to do.

And the thing that you didn't say, so I'll, I'll, I'll be your hype man for you.

As you say, I'll do it, whether it works or not.

I'm not doing this because I have to make this work.

You're saying this is what I believe in.

And I'm really glad you had the outcome you did.

Um, if you didn't though, that was still going to be the best thing for you.

because it would say, is how I would try to make this relationship end.

This is my effort to do the right thing by what I believe in and develop what I hope I
can.

And it worked, which is great.

But I can tell you a lot of stories of when people do this and it doesn't work and there's
this wave of fucking sadness, that sadness is the beginning of getting over those.

And there's a courage that it takes to do those things.

And I'm really glad you did because that is what you're doing.

If that works is you're drawing the bridge back.

It's a beautiful, loving gesture.

What you're doing if that doesn't work is the first of the Grief Rituals you'll need to be
doing.

As you're saying, yeah, and that's how I began saying my goodbyes to so-and-so.

And there's a really, I don't know, man, that's very, I admire that.

That's really good.

Well done.

So.

echo that in the sense that, oh

You identify as someone who struggles with ADHD.

I've been tested three times for it.

Negative so far, but who knows?

I'm someone who's trying to interface with my homies who have this, and I do the best I
can.

And we want to, we wanna do good for you men.

If we like you, if we had a good time, you know, just, it doesn't have to be a big deal.

The disconnective tissue can be deleted, which is the meek of jumping to conclusions,
thinking something awful, horrible.

We can easily delete that part.

It's just a filler.

It's just a filler for the sentence.

The sentence is not finished.

I put in my own little filler, but we can delete that, homie.

You tell me how it actually really finishes, and we wanna do that.

Absolutely.

It's very, this is the other thing, right?

It's like, God, I feel like this is such a huge thing to say, but like, I think we've
touched on before, and it's worth touching on again, the difference between pain and

suffering.

um Pain is pain.

You feel it when stuff happens.

You feel it when you stub your toe.

You feel it when somebody goes, I don't like you anymore.

You feel it when, all kinds of things, right?

This is pain.

Suffering is when you come back later and you're like, damn, that guy said that, fuck, and
like you feel it again.

Pain is utilitarian, pain facilitates change.

Suffering does not.

There's a native proverb about the second arrow, which is the idea of like, know, enemy
shot me, arrow one, arrow number two is me, I'm doing it back to myself.

So to prevent that from happening in the case of ghosting, what you wanna do is, if you
wanna do, like obviously feel free to think through your shit, like have your thoughts

about it.

If you can't find answers though, you know, you go ask people who could tell you, if you
can't get answers there, you are deserved the beginnings of moving on, you are deserving

of closure.

um

The thing is, that's kind of the secret theme of the show, is you gotta make your own
closure sometimes.

Every once in a while, plays it like a movie, they come back and they go, my God, this is
what happened.

You go, wow, that's so, thank you.

And we go, yeah, it's weirdly silent, it's uncomfortable, and you don't know what to do.

And if you're feeling this, and if you're feeling burdened by this, this is what the path
we follow is.

say, I'm gonna try X, Y, and Z, and then I'm gonna tell somebody about my feelings.

I'm gonna let myself start feeling sad.

And then I strongly recommend, per my wonderful client who did the funeral service, do
something.

Tell people, go out, get some food, talk about whatever.

It doesn't have to be like fancy or formal or anything.

It can just be a finding a way to like make an event.

So your brain goes, okay, this has happened.

I'm going to do a massive flip, massive pivot.

And this is a bit of a.

John is literally doing a backflip right now.

It's really impressive.

I thought he was gonna break his neck, but apparently he's been doing this a long time.

Yeah, yeah, I know for sure.

True, I don't know if I tell people this story.

Well, by the rules of starting to tell stories, you have to tell them.

A long time ago, a young, much more reckless John was in grad school, and his friends were
like, here are some substances.

Who knows what they could have been?

I took them, and then I said, I can do a back handspring, and I did, and there's a video
of it, and I cannot.

So follow your dreams, kids.

Do drugs, have adventures.

Nothing bad can happen to you.

Don't quote this part of the show.

is, disclaimer, don't do that, that's bad.

um

But, uh okay, total, total, total shift.

Backflip number two.

You should have seen it, listeners.

um This is for the people who have reasons that they have to ghost and can't talk about.

This is a weirder one.

um Yeah.

This is one that I feel like is less.

Okay.

So there are times people will realize they can't have a relationship with someone anymore
for reasons that are valid for them, that are either too painful or vulnerable or raw to

talk about, or sometimes can be like literally biologically too triggering.

So to my beloved listeners,

I'm trying to make peace with you guys.

You made bad choices in your life, but maybe you can learn from me.

I would tell you about myself.

ah So I'm a man, I am tall, I'm 6'1", I'm a relatively large person.

ah When I talk to some people, they have a physical reaction to me that is not related to
what I'm saying or doing.

But I am a large man.

And for some people, a person who is shaped like me,

did something that wasn't very cool to them once or twice or whatever else.

They've had some sort of traumatic experience and through no fault of my own and through
no fault of theirs, when they see me, they go, fuck, I'm going to die and their body shuts

down.

And they would in their heart of hearts love to tell me, hey John, here's what's
happening.

I'm having a really hard time with this.

And when I see you, I think of this terrible thing and my brain freaks out and thinks it's
gonna die.

Guess what would be almost impossible for them to do?

that.

So for their own reasons, they've had to terminate the relationship.

And now other side of this coin, they are wracked with guilt because they did something
that they feel is wrong by disappearing on somebody, but they're in a double bind because

they can't fucking go tell them.

Sometimes you'll see people who are in a romantic relationship and it's just not working.

And the two people, this makes me like, I might cry.

It's so fucking sad because they just

don't work, they try to get together again and again and again.

They are together, maybe they live together, maybe they have a long history and it's just
like, is oil and water, we can't do it.

And each time they try to have the conversation of, we gotta break up, we can't do this,
they just start smoochin', the chemistry hits back up and they're right back where they

were.

And then we spin the cycle around another day and not paradise.

And at some point somebody goes.

I have to stop doing this and we've tried talking about it 45 fucking times and it doesn't
fucking work.

I'm just gonna leave.

The person who did that, if you're the receiver of that, all this stuff we've talked about
so far in this episode, super painful, super scary.

But as Sam had mentioned earlier, and I'm gonna be kind of saying a lot for the rest of
the show here, that fucking sucks for the person who's leaving too.

And they are now haunted by their own guilt of I did this bad thing and we couldn't have
done it another way.

I wanna do.

a kind of broad but very genuine validation.

If you have to ever, if you have to end a relationship without closure for the other
person and you need to to be okay, you get to do it.

And that sucks.

And I'm sorry.

I've been the person to do this and I've been the person who's been done to.

I have one story, um and I obviously don't have a lot of details because of the nature of
the story,

so here I am in college, I'm dating a person, that ends.

And then it ends completely and there's no more conversation whatsoever.

And I learned from a friend years later that that person was going through some traumatic
stuff in their life.

I don't know what it was, but I just knew that they didn't have room to tell their angry
mildly long distance boyfriend that they couldn't handle it anymore.

And I wasn't like an angry, scary boyfriend, but I was like, don't break up with me, you
what I mean?

Learning that later with the context I had, I remember it kind of felt weird because I've
been a lot of me's throughout my life and I don't know that current me could say anything

to young me that would make him not feel horrible during that time.

But current me would endorse that person leaving and say that she should have done that.

That was the right choice.

The thing that I want to get to with ghosting that's really important, this is maybe the
most important thing I'm going say on show, so if you're only listening and watching for

one part, make it this part.

If you have been ghosted or if you have ghosted someone and that pain is lingering, that
doesn't have to stay that way.

I know it feels permanent because there's no instant solve for it, but the beautiful thing
about feelings is as annoying as those fuckers are, they do have one very simple method of

locomotion.

They need to be expressed.

You need to share them with a person, if you can, ideally, that's much better than you by
yourself.

I'll fucking say it, you need to share them with a person.

There's this theory that you can do your feelings without, you you need to, you just do.

Finding that person can be hard.

But when you do, they get to process and go away.

I've had clients who had this happen, in frankly some really dramatic cases, for hippie
reasons of course I'm gonna be vague, like, think best friends, grow up together, super

tight the whole time.

Go to college, super tight the whole time.

One weird party, gone forever.

Transfer out of school, nothing ever again.

That sucks, that sucks.

When I met this person, em this had been like 20 years since that happened.

long time.

This person's like a full adult having their whole life.

They got a partner.

They got kids.

They got the whole thing.

And they were just like, yeah, but that fucking that wound never healed.

I remember the person being struck in our session being just like, yeah, and this thing
bothers me sometime.

Waterworks.

Like there was just this whole thing of like, I've been holding this shit in.

And sidebar, your therapist is like super ready for this, like it's okay.

If the ambush tears, that is a safe place for them.

um But I remember not knowing quite what to say at first, because I was like, you know,
like, we'll go talk to them.

But obviously they tried that.

um And that's not what they needed to do.

What they needed to do is what they were doing, was share their story and let their brain
begin to like turn it into a narrative that has an ending.

If you are sports fan, and if you're not, keep that up.

Solid choice.

I am.

uh Sometimes I'll have a sports team that I cheer for.

They're playing, who knows what day it is, but maybe there's my favorite team is playing
this Saturday.

um In the playoffs.

And if they win, my God, such adventures to be had.

And if they lose, devastating, painful experiences.

I've had teams that I loved that lost in heartbreaking fashion.

And then it became a story and then it became kind of funny.

and then it became a relating point for things, then it became a cultural staple, like
things that hurt really bad in the moment become things you can use later.

One of the best fucking things about my life is that if I have a terrible experience,
somebody else did too.

And it will make me better at relating to them as a therapist, as a human, as a friend.

And dear person who is hurt, this applies to you.

Your challenges that you're stuck with right now, your friend has them who you haven't met
yet, and when you can share this story with them, my God, the power in that is insane.

It's really, really beautiful.

So ghosting is the end of a chapter and it's unceremonious.

You go out with a whimper instead of a bang.

But if you'll lean into the cheesiness with me, it's also the beginning of a new chapter,
one that you get to write on your terms.

And that is tremendously healing.

Scary though it may be.

I'm glad you said that because you get to your 20s or 30s or 40s or 50s.

I think the statistical probability of you having to ghost someone for very real, honest
reasons is pretty darn high.

I everyone has to do it at some point.

I can say from my experience, I had to ghost someone not just out of toxicity, but out of
peace for both of us.

the opportunity for rationalization just, we kept, you know, that didn't, it wasn't
possible.

And then a feeling comes up later of going, this person's wondering what happened.

If I were to reengage and try to reopen that wound, that won't do that person any good.

And that is an awful feeling to be in as well if you are the ghost, right?

But you have to reconcile that.

uh Don, you said something and I just want to piggyback off of it.

Not every chord needs to be resolved except for the ones in our mind.

So what's important is what our mind has the narrative for.

But sometimes what the world gives us, not everything has an ending, but we can make one
in our minds that lets us keep moving forward.

Yeah.

Humans, humans are natural storytellers automatically instantly.

Don't let your brain write the story without you consulting as a, as a ghostwriter.

It won't always do a great job.

And sometimes it will write a very dispassionate story or an alarming one.

Um,

the way Sam put that was really excellent.

You get to resolve it on your terms.

Um, also I would talk about, like from a self disclosure standpoint.

I was the ghost her once I was out of a relationship with a person that I had been with
for a while and this person was awesome and probably still is awesome and if she were ever

to hear this I hope she's well but she and I were chatting it up she like popped back in
my life was talking to me I was also talking to somebody else and I began to realize I

can't go down this pathway again right now I can't do the shit we've been doing and this
other person's really cool

And I want to dedicate my energy to that.

And if I'm real honest with you, I didn't have it in me to tell her that.

I don't know that I ever would.

So I just stopped talking to her.

Fast forward my life.

Things are going pretty well.

Me and another person have been together for a little while.

Things are going quite nicely.

And I'm listening and God, I wish this was a cooler song.

I fucking wish it was a cooler song, but it's not.

It was Happier by Marshmello.

And the lyrics to Happier by Marshmello are just very on the fucking nose for this.

um And they kind of, know, I want you to be happier and it's like I would like to say
something to you and I can't because the kind of thing I is not.

Yeah.

shit's fucking sad, And I, in the context of what at the time was a relatively happy
relationship, when I'm just in the car, driving around, just fucking sobbing over this

person that I haven't talked to, who I chose to not talk to by design, to be in the
relationship that I'm in and it's working, you still have the feelings bill to pay, man.

Everyone has the feelings bill to pay.

And the great news is you can pay in installments, you can always afford it.

It takes time, but you can do it.

But sometimes you won't realize it.

Sometimes you will have forgotten it, and that's okay.

So if you're watching or listening to this and this brings up something in you and you're
like, shit, yeah, A of all, sorry about that.

Except I'm not really sorry about that because no feelings are going to just not come
back.

That's not a thing.

You can bury a feeling pretty deep.

It will come back.

So getting started on your payment plan of feeling those feelings in little windows and
little windows is totally fine.

Like I'm talking like 10 minutes, right?

Like it doesn't have to anything significant time commitment wise.

But you do get to heal from that.

And I remember listening to that stupid ass song.

I went and I put it on Spotify immediately afterward.

And I just played it, just drove around, just listening to it, just being fucking sad.

And I let myself feel some shit that I hadn't until that point.

And it was really, really freeing.

I still like that song.

I don't like that I like that song as much as I do.

But

Whatever gets you to feel your stuff, sidebar is kind what I want you to do.

You know what, I take that back.

If you're like, my thing for feeling is to like skin people alive.

Too bad, no feelings for you, dick.

um But otherwise, I feel like finding ways to access your feelings, and you could probably
find a better way.

Peel potatoes or something, I don't fucking know.

Weird

twist here at this point in the show.

The Zero Dot.

Peel potatoes, not people.

Hahaha

That's what we're going with.

oh

Yes, that is the slogan.

Peel potatoes, not people.

feel like.

take coming in 2026.

I feel like that is gonna be our least selling shirt, but I will buy it.

I will wear it exclusively for the rest of show.

Oh God.

ah Fucking, how does Daniel just like hang out for like an hour, not say a word and then
just drop that bomb and then fade back to the shadows?

I hope he edits himself in like a cloud.

Ah, so wise.

needed that.

uh Yeah.

Hey, person listening to this.

Thanks for hanging.

Thanks for hanging with us.

I know that some of these topics are a little bit heavy, but it is truly our hope here
that this is gonna offer you some respite.

Spoiler alert, this is one of the topics that I wanted to do, and it's because in my time
as a therapist over the last 14ish years, ah this is like a weekly thing for me.

Not like I ghosted every week, but like I talk to a person.

every week, there will be at least one person who's going through this.

It just happens a lot.

And it's a human thing.

It's a communication ability thing.

It's a brain real estate thing.

It's an ADHD thing.

It's a guilt thing.

It's a PTSD thing.

It's a shame thing.

It's an anxiety thing.

It's a depression thing.

It's a logistics thing.

It's a moving thing.

It's an employment thing.

Like this goes on and on and on and on.

Yeah.

And if I can, I'm going to, I'm going to cap this with something that's going to sound
like the opposite of what John said, but I want to bring us to what today is, which is we

are incentivized in our current world to one click cancel anything we want.

Cancel our subscriptions, cancel this, disconnect this, delete this app, whatever.

And I'm seeing in the newest generation of folks, the ghosting is more of a normative
thing to do and then not being able to reconcile the feelings from it on both sides.

And so what John's talking about is a cautionary tale of just like,

Here's the cost you pay when you ghost.

Sometimes it's worth the cost.

But in all cases, do do yourself right by making sure you're ghosting quote unquote
properly, making sure you're doing it from a place of sense enclosure.

The other person's feelings, they matter a little bit, but you're the most important
person.

You're the advocate.

So you can always do it if you absolutely need to.

But I, as a leadership consultant, would always encourage you in whatever way you can.

You're never going to regret the times in which you flex yourself a little bit to not just
click the button and just be done with it.

But like

do a little bit more than that because you owe it to yourself.

Because you'll deal with trauma, like you'll deal with that PTSD for a long time and I
would like to save you from that if I possibly can.

I'd also uh echoing off that, I would give you our little tip for not ghosting somebody.

And this is not an everybody thing.

There's people who need to not do this and that's okay.

um But if you have it in you, if you have the single spoon to say to someone, hey, I'm
gonna have to quit talking.

I got personal shit going on.

um That's it.

But you don't have to go into detail or anything.

You can just let somebody know.

I think I mentioned this before.

There's a...

that I was dating, Cassidy, Cassidy Baker, wherever you are, I wish you well.

And we were starting things off and she texted me and said, hey, just so you know, I gotta
call it.

My ex is back in town and I realized I've had some feelings that I did not have resolved.

I shouldn't be dating her at this time.

And I said to her in the text, thanks for telling me.

I appreciate that.

And then I said, God damn it, because it felt really sad.

But like, what a fucking boom.

I think of that person to this day, I do not know her from a can of paint at this point in
my life.

But I just remember that was like a really cool gesture.

That was nice.

So if you have the spoons for it you can do it, totally recommend it.

And if you don't, don't feel bad.

Especially if it's for like a traumatic reason, that you don't, but it, yeah, it makes a
difference both for you and the person if you can, if you can.

One thing that I do want to mention before we start wrapping up is

The episode before the episode just gone, we were speaking about anger.

And we were speaking about, would you rather be angry or so-and-so emotion?

Would you rather be angry or sad?

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And I remember that John said that the overwhelming majority always picks angry.

So I did a, I did ourselves a little poll.

on the YouTubes to test it, to see if people would respond in that way.

And they did.

Lo and behold, they did.

So it's, would you rather be angry or sad?

Angry clocks in, it's a little bit closer than I expected.

Angry clocks in at 57 % and sad has clocked in at 43%.

Those are some healthy participants.

ah And that's not a knock on the anger people, but wow.

So closer than I expected.

However, it may be that some people listened to the episode and then answered the
question.

Like a cheeky little one.

However, I just thought it'd be fun to test and you have been proven to be correct, John.

Thanks, I'm used to that.

um But also that is really fun.

I do feel like yay for the people who marked sadness because you find healthy things, but
yay for the people who marked anger because way to be honest.

Like I appreciate that sincerely, that's like a really big deal.

I think identifying with anger is like an empowering thing is like real hot right now.

It's real hot right now.

In America it is real hot right now for a variety of reasons.

And.

When we were starting the show, there was a talk about distressing, you know, things in
the news.

And I immediately was from up to a place like, yeah, fuck this, like just rage.

Because it makes you feel like you can fight the thing.

But fighting is a very brief activity.

If you've ever been in a fight before, it doesn't last long.

It's quite quick.

It feels like it takes a thousand fucking years.

book sound effects that happen when you punch or do something.

Yeah, it doesn't happen.

You...

Whack!

Yeah.

don't want to do this anymore.

And I'm like, that's fair.

Hi-yah!

But yeah, no, that's really fun that you did that, by the way.

Well did.

fun.

Well did.

Well did.

I'm trying to the words say this, people will feel loyal to their anger, like they need to
keep it.

And there's this little cynical thing, and I don't mean to say this is exclusively the
purview of men, but there's a, I don't want to feel like a bitch.

And if you let your anger go and don't take some sort of vengeance action, you're just
like, fucking lost.

My God, that is so fucking unhealthy.

There's some quote that I'm going to butcher now, but it's like uh holding anger towards
someone is like poisoning yourself and it's making them to die.

You're taking damage from doing this.

It isn't helping you.

If you are gonna go do your cool revenge plan and you're a movie character or something,
fit that shit into two and a half hours.

This needs to be a short term thing.

Anger is a catalyst for survival mechanisms.

is not a thing to sit with.

We have a whole episode on this.

It's one of our good ones.

I recommend it.

All right, well that has been our show.

That's the Zero Dot.

Thanks for tuning in listeners and viewers.

That's right, I'm gonna take a part into both of you all.

You know where to find us, thezerodotpodcast.com.

We got a Blue Sky account, we got a TikTok account, we got an Instagram account.

We're on YouTube, we're on Spotify, we're on Amazon Music.

We're everywhere where podcasts are broadcast.

Until next time.

Farewell.

Peeled potatoes, not people.

not people.

Not people.