Friends who have ghosted me - what to do

I have some friends/ acquaintances who have pretty much ghosted me since asking how I was doing in the fall 2016. I'm toward the end of my treatment and will see some of these people.

One just asked me if I wanted to go skiing in a month. Others I will see at a party with adoption friends next month. I am still in treatment (no energy to go skiing and I don't want to see this former friend. When asking about skiing, she didn't inquire how I am doing.

I'm particularly wondering what to say to this friend (skiing) friend, whom I have know for more than 15 years. I have considered her more of an activity partner, but she has considered me a close friend at one time. So after a year of ghosting, I have no interest in seeing her again. My husband and son are going on the ski weekend (which I encourage as I want my son to like cross-country skiing and he hasn't been in 2 years). Skiing friend has an adopted kid same age as mine and the kids get along great.

Eventually I will have to see her and other (not very good) friends from the adoption support group. What do I say? I don't want to avoid these people as my child is adopted and this is the adoption group where he knows all the other families have adopted kids like him and we all have transracial adoptions.

And I have a male friend whom has been a friend we do things with.(I've known him for 20 years) He also ghosted me all year plus. He sends funny things in an email like there is nothing different happening in my life. He gets along really well with my 10 year old, and is not really a friend of my husbands. I wish he could be there for my son, but I don't want to see him anymore, which I feel like I'm taking one of the adults out of my son's life and I don't really want to do that.

What have others done with friends who have ghosted them and then you see them or they get back in touch with you?

I went through the same thing. But I decided that I have way too much to worry about and didn't need to dwell (which I tend to do) on the people who weren't supportive or the people who said the most awful things or otherwise didn't handle the situation well. I imagined myself giving them one--just one--gigantic Free Pass---Like those newspaper pictures of the person giving a huge check to a charity and everyone grins for the camera. I let it go. If they contact me, fine. If they don't, fine. But they got their free pass anyway. One person did email recently and apologize for being absent recently and I was gracious, because I had no bad feelings. It's not that I'm a good person, but it's that cancer was so hard for me and still is that I just had to find away not to dwell on the actions of other. I'm taking care of myself first. I hope you find a way to deal with the loss of friends. It is hard.

It is one of the biggest and most painful lessons of cancers - disappearing friends. I had an entire family that abandoned me - thought we were friends for 30 years. It was horribly painful for me. And they too, wanted to go back to the way things were before cancer which meant - me do all the giving.

Lesson learned. Check.

You never know what's going on in someone else's life. Supporting you may have been more than they could bear. Also, there are some friendships where the tie isn't really close enough to expect someone to support you. Before I experienced a run of bad stuff in my own life, I was terribly torn about contacting people I knew who were experiencing illness or hardship because I was worried they wouldn't want the intrusion. And of course there are people who simply cannot handle illness and death, and are much better-off staying away and not putting their awkward feet in their mouths. You just don't know if you are someone's trigger or someone's biggest nightmare of an interpersonal challenge. I have yet to make a friend who is completely self-confident, well-adusted, able to take on anything that life throws at them and able to reliably make the perfect decision about when to call vs. when not to call.

I am all for giving people chances, especially if they reach out in any way, like the skiing-inviter. If it turns out that they disappeared because they're really shallow and just didn't want anything to do with a sick person, you can turn down the next invitation.

I had cancer and even I avoid touchy subjects or nurturing sick friends... I'm not made that way,. But ask me to solve a problem, or fight a battle, and I'll totally do it.

I think you need to lower your expectations. Not all of us handle sickness well including myself. I was cracking death jokes all the time and thank goodness it was my cancer so I could but if my friend gets cancer I'd probably crack just death jokes there too. I think especially for your son you need to let go of the judgment and hurt you have. Did you reach out to them and specifically asked them to help you? If you didn't then again expectations need to be lowered.

Honestly asking someone to go skiing and kind of get back to normal is my type of friend now if you need to be real with them and explain what you need go for it. But don't expect them to just know what you need.

I think my general advice would be to do what's going to cause the least drama and stress for you. You don't owe anybody a big conversation about what and why and feelings. You can say, 'thanks for the invite but I have to pass, have fun!' and leave it at that. Make small talk about the weather or pets or whatever you would do with an acquaintance. If in the future you feel a strong desire to reconnect and rebuild the friendship, you can always do it later.

Hey Dottess,

In a situation like that I'm a big fan of processing as much of your feelings as you can before, with other people. So like coming here and typing it out, talking it through with friends, even acting out all the things you'd want her to know, more than once if you want. Role play to a friend maybe. The goal is to get to the place where you are the 'conductor' of your feelings, and not her, so that when you see her, you can interact with her in a more casual way, without all the weight of your feelings rushing to be expressed in the moment. No alcohol is a great idea.

I would say that cancer has taught me a lot about my own strengths and weaknesses and my friends' strengths and weaknesses, and made me more accepting of both. We all bring different things to the table, and a bird won't become a fish no matter how much you might need a fish in the moment. Better to appreciate them for what they can bring and hopefully have a broad enough net of support that someone can step up to be the fish. I know I haven't always wanted to be the friend I wished I could be for friends going through their own stuff either.

Dear Dottess, welcome to Breastcancer.org. As you can already tell, this is a wonderfully supportive community. Please know that we are here also if you need help navigating the forums, or have a question you don't see posted, you can always reach out to us via the private message function. We're here for you!

Again, welcome to the Community!

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