*Warning: some adult language below!

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve always, just, gone cold.

I’ve stopped talking to people or taken myself out of all equations. I’ve recently learned the name for this is ghosting.

Am I a serial “ghoster”?

Am I just an asshole?

Do I just not give a fuck about the people I’ve stopped almost all communication with?

I’ve thought about this so much: why I have no long-term friends. No communication with people I actually love or have loved at one point.

I’m so envious of people who have lifetime friends—I must be a fucking asshole.

How can I be such a jerk and just stop talking to people that I care so much about and need and want in my life? I guess that’s where the trauma hits, really.

I’m always the person everyone perceived as the strong one—the one who takes no shit from anyone ever—the one who always has the answers. Truth is, I’m all of those things for the people I’m in a way protecting. I can’t preach being strong and taking no shit if I, myself, am seen as weak or hurt by someone else.

So, instead, I…well, I ghost.

Everyone knows when my life is good and things are great because I share that, but then, when shit sucks, pfft, so the fuck do I. I drop everything and everyone because I don’t want to stop being the strong one when I’m needed.

How can anyone take my advice if I don’t even follow it?

How can I place my burdens on the people I just want to be happy?

Why would I cause anyone else any pain?

I wonder, would people even care about what I’m going through? Maybe not. So, then I think, shit, what happened to me where I think no one gives a shit about me or what I’m going through? Well, again, trauma.

This trauma didn’t come from just one incident; it’s a series of situations and hurts that I’ve learned, in some way, to cope with. My traumas started at a young age and many more followed as I grew. My coping and survival skills did as much damage as the trauma I ran from.

So, to the people and situations I’ve ghosted—well, some of you I actually ran from—most of you were people I tried to hide my true self from.

Sometimes people who are there for everyone else don’t know how to let people in. There is a major fear of rejection and vulnerability by exposing yourself. So, once again, I ghost.

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