Hi everyone,
This is a painful subject because unless you are a very fortunate you have had to deal with being ghosted by some of those in your life.
What I'm talking about is when someone from your life before you came out had a place in your life and responded to and initiated communication with you, and now that you have announced to the world that you are in fact transgender and since then they have been conspicuously absent and silent.
I'll give you an example.
I have a relative who pre announcement had a place in my life and when locality or subject came close to each other we would talk, sometimes meet to catch up and share our lives.
Now this is someone who I have known since their birth. I watched them grow and learn and become an adult and they have accomplished much to be proud of, rightly so.
But since the day I came out to my family and friends I have not heard a word, not one, from this person.
At first I thought it may be because during most of his life he was told that he was very much like me growing up. Apparently we faced many of the same challenges and found some of the same ways to deal with them.
I thought maybe he was afraid that the people in his life would assume that he would take after me in other ways, i.e. come out as transgender like me.
I can tell you that if that were true, I would be there for him just like I have always been there for him regardless of the issue or problem.
But just because he likes some of the same things that I do or he reminds his mother of me does not mean he will follow me down every step that I have taken.
But here comes the problem that I am looking for a solution to...
What do I do to the ghosts in my life?
Do I continue to offer my support?
Do I wait patently for them to decide to reach out to me?
Or do I grant them the freedom they desire and cut them out of my life?
Don't get me wrong this one person is not the only ghost that I have in my life and frankly I am getting sick and tired of carting around the baggage of their personal issues with my life choices.
Here are the options:
1. Continue to do what I'm doing right now and silently watch from the sidelines, having no active part in their lives.
2. Excise them from my lives and treat them as though they were really ghosts in the afterlife. Accept that they are gone from this world and if we are all fortunate then perhaps we will meet up in whatever comes next.
Personally I am leaning towards number two. Just start treating them as if they had died in some mysterious incident and only look back on the good memories of the times we had shared.
Now there are people who have been forcibly exorcised from my life and often times this is due to the toxicity of the relationship as a whole. I mean the only healthy option is to cut them out and leave them out there to drift forever.
So what would you do if one of these ghosts suddenly decide to pop back into my life?
I guess I would have some questions and some requirements before opening the door to let them back in.
I would require an explanation why they treated me like shit and why should I even think about changing my mind.
I mean, why are they suddenly wanting back in now?
If it is because they hope to gain something from me I would have to respond the same way they responded to me when I invited them to be part of my new life.