A Halloween ghosting: A haunting tale of depression

Trigger warning: Despite the spooky, festive title, this post is actually a recap of the darkest, longest bout of depression in my entire life (so far). There is plenty of thankfulness and hope in my heart as I look back at this experience. But if you're looking for some light, fun reading, skip to one of my other posts. There is a silver lining in every situation. Cheers!


Ghosting (goh-sting): the practice of suddenly ending all contact with a person without explanation

Inspired by today's Halloween Dictionary.com word of the day, ghosting (certainly not in the romantic sense, as it's defined there), I'm recalling one of the times I was ghosted by one of my random adventure buddies.  Though not her fault in any way, it sent sent me into a spiral of depression that, quite literally, nearly cost me my life.

I'm simplifying this story for brevity, but it more or less started with a Mount St. Helens climb. A few years ago, a buddy from Roseburg had been asking for months to replace our climb plans that fell through when she got injured. She sounded so enthusiastic about climbing a mountain with me... Or even just hiking something. And incidentally, I was getting more interested in technical mountain climbs myself. She suggested all these cool routes we could try. As a people pleaser (yes, to a fault), I couldn't bear to let her down.

Some time later, she abruptly stopped returning my messages. No reason was given, and no "Nah, I changed my mind" or "Oops, we missed our weather window" was hinted at.  Just silence. No responses.

A person without depression would've shrugged this off (as I would now as well, had it happened more recently). But tragically, at the time I didn't have the basic coping skills yet to be that person. I spent the next 18 months (lowball estimate) crying, staying awake nearly all night for days/weeks/MONTHS on end, scrutinizing every hike we had taken for a navigational blunder, replaying every conversation for something I may have said wrong, rereading/wincing over every Facebook message I had ever sent to this person, and drafting even more awkward messages to send. I beat myself up day and night.

It became a self-defeating cycle. The worse the pain of depression from the ghosting grew, the more desperate and emotional my messages became.  And the more messages I sent, the more I hated myself for sending overly emotional messages that I wished I could unsend. Why, oh why, can't Facebook have an unsend button?, I agonized. I was crippled by depression, and, even more sleep-robbing, super embarrassed that it took me so long to curb my efforts to reach out.

Had I done something wrong to deserve a ghosting, I wondered? Possibly. When I had met her for a day trip in Verona, Italy (Yep, I still hook up with buddies overseas often), I was living off extreme sleep deprivation like no man has ever encountered. I must have been an incoherent zombie.  I slept for a record 13+ hours (!) when I left Verona that night to hook up with my next round of buddies in Venice.

Had I said something wrong to deserve a ghosting, I wondered? Probably. Again, as the pain of depression stabbed me in the chest every night until 3:30 a.m., I definitely began to type some sappy, regrettable stuff that I didn't even mean.  But the pain was so crushing. Every month that passed, I plotted to end my life. I never even thought about that friend, or the ghosting, anymore...

It became completely about me, and what I might have done wrong. I was no longer myself.

Would I ever get closure as to why I got ghosted, I wondered? A quick, "Oops, I never got back to you" or standard-issue "Hope you're doing well" message? No. And again, a non-depressed person would never have been so devastated by a casual friend doing that, anyway. It shouldn't have been a big deal. She probably just forgot. But due to my depression working overtime, I couldn't live without hearing a "everything is cool" reassurance from an otherwise casual, only occasionally thought of adventure buddy.


Thankfully, at what would have been the final hours of my life, God sent me a dear friend who would help me put all of this in perspective: How depression distorts reality, how I am worth being friends with (and being alive), etc... But that's a story for another day, with a happier outcome.

Am I upset at the bummer friend who did the ghosting? Of course not. Social media connects us with more friends than we could ever keep track of. Too many amazing friends, too little time. And it's impossible to know who may be struggling with occasional mental health issues.

I'm thankful for every person I've ever known. No exceptions. Every friend I've ever had is amazing, just the way they are. There are no former friends.

My prayer is that I will be the best friend I can be, to everyone who needs one. Everyone is special. And everyone needs to know that they are loved, cared for, and appreciated.

Happy Halloween, friends!

That's me in the red shirt, paying tribute to the late Burt Reynolds with my '80s mustache and "Smokey and the Bandit" costume.

An Instagram pic from my annual Halloween costume hike I led last Saturday)

From tonight's Instagram Story: A mostly Star Wars-themed night of trick-or-treating