Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health,

personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions

of ourselves.

I'm your host, Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia.

For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at therapyforblackgirls.com.

While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute

for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional.

Hey y'all, thanks so much for joining me for a session 119 of the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast.

And a huge shout out to y'all for listening and sharing because we just hit 5 million

downloads of the podcast. Y'all are amazing and I appreciate you and your support infinitely.

So, picture this. You met someone six months ago while out with some friends,

your exchange numbers really hit it off. You see each other several times a week,

you text nonstop and you genuinely enjoy each other's company. And then all of a sudden,

you just don't hear from them for a week. You reach out by phone, email, text, you do a drive by

to see if they're cause in the driveway and maybe even try to get a hold of their best friend to see

if everything's okay. It's very likely they're fine, but it sounds like you, my friend, have been ghosted.

In our common lexicon, ghosting occurs when you've been spending a significant amount of time

with someone and by all accounts, everything is going great. And then all of a sudden, you don't

hear from them anymore and they don't return any of your attempts to contact.

It's just as cruel as it sounds and sadly, I'm hearing that it's happening quite a bit these days.

So I wanted to spend some time digging into what my drive someone to ghost and how you can take

care of yourself if you've been ghosted. So most often, I think the reason that people disappear

...