Why We Ghost Ourselves Out of Community… and How to Come Back
Sometimes, we drift.
Quietly, gradually. Not because we don't care, but because we're overwhelmed, unsure how to reach out, or unsure if we even belong in the first place.
One unread message becomes five. A missed gathering turns into an entire season. You tell yourself you’ll rejoin when you feel more like yourself. But that feeling doesn’t come — and neither does the return.
We rarely talk about this kind of slow self-abandonment. The ways we ghost not only others but also the part of ourselves that once trusted community as a source of care. So why do we disappear, and how can we begin to come back?
The Psychology of Withdrawal
In attachment theory, we learn that people respond to relational stress in patterned ways. Some of us reach out (anxiously), while others shut down (avoidantly). Ghosting ourselves out of community can be a learned protective behavior: a way of regulating internal overwhelm without risking perceived rejection. If we believe our messiness is a burden, then isolation becomes a strategy for keeping ourselves from becoming "too much."
This isn’t just interpersonal; it’s neurological. Research on social threat and the brain has shown that the anterior cingulate cortex, the area activated by physical pain, also lights up in moments of social exclusion (Eisenberger, Lieberman & Williams, 2003). So when we anticipate being left out, we sometimes preemptively leave first.
There’s also a moral piece. Philosopher Byung-Chul Han writes that "the achievement-subject... turns failure into guilt and self-reproach. The exploited soul exploits itself." In other words, we internalize disconnection as personal failure. When we feel ourselves withdrawing, instead of naming the rupture, we pathologize it. We tell ourselves: I’m the problem.
The Paradox of Isolation
The tragedy, of course, is that in trying to protect ourselves from judgment, we end up depriving ourselves of what we need most: connection.
Community is where we are witnessed, where we metabolize experience, where we feel human. And yet it can also be the place where our shame is most activated. As Brene Brown says, "Shame needs three things to grow: secrecy, silence, and judgment." Disconnection breeds all three.
We disappear, and we think no one notices. But the truth is, often, people do. They just don’t always know what to say.
The Path Back
So how do we return to community after we've ghosted ourselves?
Name it. One of the most powerful things you can do is break the silence. You don’t need to over-explain. You can simply say, "I've been going through something and needed some time with myself. I'm still here."
Re-enter softly. Start small. React to a post. Send a message. Attend the thing, even if you stay quiet at first. Community doesn’t always require words, just presence.
Shift the story. Instead of framing your absence as failure, see it as a pause. As part of a rhythm. You are allowed to step away. You are also allowed to come back.
Ask for what you need. If you want support but don’t know how to ask, name that, too. Vulnerability is the door through which intimacy re-enters.
Community doesn’t have to be loud or performative. It can be the friend who holds your gaze a little longer. The message you finally reply to. The moment you choose to just get out the door and be among others.
Disconnection is a season, not a sentence.
Sources:
Eisenberger, N. I., Lieberman, M. D., & Williams, K. D. (2003). Does rejection hurt? An fMRI study of social exclusion. Science, 302(5643), 290-292.
Han, Byung-Chul. (2017). The Expulsion of the Other: Society, Perception and Communication Today. Polity Press.
Brown, Brene. (2012). Daring Greatly. Penguin Publishing.
