Situationship to Soulmate

Ghosting and Breadcrumbing: Psychological Impact and How To Recover

• Shelly Ray Crossland • Season 1 • Episode 14

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In this episode we dissect the psychological impacts of ghosting and breadcrumbing, and what you can do if you experience them. I walk you through the difference between ghosting and breadcrumbing in terms of mental health and implications on your dating life, and how you can find empowerment through boundaries and healthy communication. We also talk about how situationships often include breadcrumbing, and ways you can learn to stop attracting these types of people into your dating life. At the end of this episode I share journal prompts for you to use for self-reflection if you have been ghosted or bread-crumbed.

I draw inspiration and use quotes from the following articles in this episode:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/04/health/what-is-breadcrumbing-meaning-wellness/index.html

https://www.elitedaily.com/dating/how-to-respond-to-breadcrumbing

Follow me on TikTok and Instagram @shamelesslyshelly + @situationshiptosoulmate

Shelly:

Welcome to the Situationship to Soulmate podcast, your guide to navigating the complicated world of dating and sex in your 20s. I'm your host, Shelly. Content creator, mental health counseling graduate student and a trained sex and relationship coach. After going through a lot of traumatic, unhealthy and toxic experiences throughout my 20s, I'm finally ready to use what I've learned over the years to help those of you who are still experiencing it. I'm ready to use what I've learned over the years to help those of you who are still experiencing it. I went from situationships, bad hookups and settling for less than I deserved to finding my soulmate, all within one year. Let's help you get there too. All right, welcome back to another episode.

Shelly:

I am in a much different mood than I was the last time I recorded an episode. I feel like last episode I was talking about how I had really been struggling with motivation and like procrastinating a lot and just not feeling like doing episodes. Basically, this week I am feeling a lot better and I wanted to talk about something that I definitely will do more episodes about in the future, because I think it's a really interesting topic, I think, which is how my cycle, how my menstrual cycle, impacts me and also my relationship, and I know I'm not alone in this, but when I recorded the last episode I was on my period and I have for a while been wondering if I have PMDD. I definitely want to do an episode about PMDD and how that can affect relationships. Pmdd stands for premenstrual dysphoric disorder. It is a mental health condition where you basically have like really intensified PMS symptoms. So you know a lot of people think like, oh, pms is just, you know, you get a little bit more, you know you get a little bit more moodier before your period. But PMDD is like that times a hundred. Um and yeah, basically I realized that the week that my boyfriend was out of town where I was like really struggling, it probably was in part to do with me missing him and just getting used to like being in the house alone, but I think it also was potentially PMDD. At the very least it was PMS. I just really, yeah, my mood and my mental health really gets affected that week leading up to my period.

Shelly:

So anyway, now I am done with my period and I am feeling like a whole different person. I literally feel so much happier, like it just. It feels like it's like depression and fog has just been lifted and I'm like, let's record a million episodes. I am like so ready to get all of this shit done and like I'm just so productive and whatever, I'm having the best day ever. So anyway, I basically have decided that I'm going to start paying closer attention to my cycle and really planning out my months to where, like, I can just get a lot of stuff done, be really productive in the weeks where I am feeling up for it, like I am right now, and then kind of cut myself more slack and be like it's okay to not be as productive the week leading up to my period, like, if that's not, I don't need to force myself to record episodes that week. I can just record ahead of time and, you know, take advantage of these times, like right now, where I am feeling that motivation.

Shelly:

For any people out there who have a period. I'm sure you can relate and, yeah, I definitely will do more episodes talking about that. But today's episode has nothing to do with that. But I just wanted to kind of start the episode sharing a little bit about that. So today I am talking on a topic that actually my boyfriend recommended. He was like oh what if you did an episode about ghosting or about breadcrumbing. So I'm like I'm going to do an episode about bothing or about bread crumbing. So I'm like I'm going to do an episode about both, all right.

Shelly:

So I'm sure we are all already familiar with what ghosting is no warning, there's no breakup talk, there's no, there's no communication at all. They just go, no communication, and typically it's like very unexpected or sudden. You know, I've heard of people being ghosted who were in actual, like long-term, committed relationships and they literally feel like you know, worried that the person like passed away or something and they find out no, they're still alive. They just didn't want to bring up with me to my face and have just ghosted me. So this article from Elite Daily, which I will link in the description, says that, unlike ghosting, breadcrumbing doesn't end all communication. Instead, breadcrumbing is the deceptive practice of giving someone just enough to keep them interested, even when you're not. Breadcrumbing keeps someone around at your liking, taking the form of a half-hearted instagram, like once every two weeks, or even a text once every few months.

Shelly:

I also found a cnn article which says that bread crumbing refers to a form of manipulation involving one person feigning interest and acting as though they sincerely interest, that they are sincerely interested and invested in a relationship, but but they're actually not. Yeah, I think like the most obvious difference between ghosting and breadcrumbing is that breadcrumbing, the person is still talking to you, whether it's once every few weeks or months, or maybe they are still talking to you once a week or every day, but something about the communication is different or feels off. But they are not willing to like admit to you that they just are not interested or they want to end the relationship, whereas ghosting they just end it completely, with 100% no contact, not talking to you at all. You have no communication with them. They don't give you any closure.

Shelly:

So in this CNN article they brought up this kind of psychological principle, which I was obviously interested in, since I'm studying counseling and training to become a therapist. They basically said that the reason why breadcrumbing works is because the person using breadcrumbing is using a principle of intermittent reinforcement, which basically means that they are every now and then giving you that reinforcement or assurance that they're still there, they're still thinking about you. So they actually compared it to like why gambling is successful when you're gambling, you will win every so often, you will win some money every now and then. So you keep playing, hoping that you will win big right? The reason why gambling can be so addictive for people is that it's not like you never win anything right. Every now and then you probably will win some money and that reinforces you and makes you feel like, oh, this is working, maybe I could win even more and even more. So you keep playing, you keep gambling and then ultimately, most people end up losing more than they even won to begin with. So that's kind of like breadcrumbing, where, like, you continue to talk to this person and continue to try to make a relationship work with this person, because every now and then you do get that reinforcement, you do get that like affirmation or reassurance from them, but it's not a regular occurrence, it's not consistent. So ultimately you are really gonna lose.

Shelly:

If you are trying to like play this game of winning at being breadcrumbed, you're not going to not to be like you know, uh, debbie Downer here, but you know it is. It's like gambling. They're really. You know the vast majority of people are not going to have positive outcomes from gambling and the vast majority of people are not going to, you know, live happily ever after with someone who's breadcrumbing them. So, according to a lot of research and like my own opinion, I feel like breadcrumbing is actually much harder to move past and to to kind of process and work through, because you know when, when you're. When you've been ghosted, as much as it sucks, it's like there's your closure right, like this person is not responding to you, they're refusing to contact you, so it's kind of easier almost to move on from them because it's like they're not giving you any reinforcement or any reassurance, they're not responding to any texts from you, you know, whereas breadcrumbing, again, it's like they're kind of leaving the door open a little bit. They're leaving a window open. They're like giving you this idea that maybe they could still be interested or maybe at some point in the future they might still want to be with you.

Shelly:

There actually are some long-term negative impacts on your mental health if you have been breadcrumbed and they've actually found that there's more of a relationship between feeling lonely, not feeling satisfied with life, having feelings of helplessness. All of those feelings have been correlated to people being breadcrumbed. But there actually was not a significant relation between people who have been ghosted and those mental health issues that I mentioned, like feeling lonely, helpless, all of that and again, I think it's probably because of what I kind of just said around like the closure, the CNN health article that I found. They say that over time, the target of breadcrumbing is emotionally manipulated, deceived and disrespected. They feel anxious, sad, confused, lonely, inadequate, abandoned, embarrassed, hopeless, angry, unworthy of love or attention. Yeah, it kind of causes you to settle for like scraps of attention, like settling for those very infrequent reinforcements that you're getting from that person, instead of just cutting your losses and moving on.

Shelly:

So I thought I'd share an example of from my life, of when I was breadcrumbed, as I like to do on this podcast. And yeah, for me I think the most clear example that I have of being breadcrumbed was my very first situationship that I had in college. So I talked about this in the first episode of this podcast, sharing my stories around my different situationships. But basically this person, you know, we dated casually, I guess, for a few months and then I, you know, kind of brought up the conversation of like I think we should talk about what, what are we, what are we doing? He told me he did not want a relationship or that he wasn't in a place to be in a relationship right then, and so we stopped seeing each other for the time being.

Shelly:

But the breadcrumbing started happening, in that he, you know, for about a month or two I didn't hear from him at all and I was like I'm not going to text him because I want a relationship. He doesn't. He knows I want a relationship, like you know, we kind of just cut off communication, um, but then it would be like, yeah, after a couple know, we kind of just cut off communication, but then it would be like, yeah, after a couple months he texted me and started up a conversation and would say things like, oh, I want, you know, we should, we should catch up, we should hang out and catch up sometime. You know, I, you know, like, would text him back and be like, yeah, that sounds great. And then he would never follow through on actually like planning a time for us to meet, you know. And then, like this, I mean the breadcrumbing really kind of continued for like at least a year after we had ended things.

Shelly:

Because, like, I went, I did a study abroad program in Spain, so I was in Spain for a semester, I got back from Spain and I remember him texting me when I got back being like, oh my gosh, I want to hear all about your study abroad semester. Like let's meet up and, and you know, you can tell me all about it. And I was like, yeah, sounds great, crickets Again. He never followed through but he was, you know, he was kind of breadcrumbing me because it was like, okay, he hasn't completely stopped all communication and he will sometimes give me those reinforcements that I talked about earlier, like he is telling me that he wants to catch up with me, he wants to hear how I've been, he wants to hear about my study abroad. Like he's giving me this, this reinforcement and then not following through on it. Or then you know, continuing to have a few weeks or months where he just doesn't talk to me at all and then he comes back into my life and more breadcrumbing, you know.

Shelly:

So this was actually like when I look back on it, it makes sense why it was so difficult for me. I think at the time I felt really kind of ashamed for even responding to him. Like whenever he would text me I'd be like I know I shouldn't respond to him, but I felt like I needed to because again it was like that gambling thing. It was like, oh well, what if? What if there's a chance that now he really wants a relationship? And that's why he's texting me again. And and oh, he seems really genuine when he's saying like that he wants to hear my study abroad experience Like maybe we will meet up, maybe we will start dating, maybe we'll live happily ever after. You know, it was like I was holding out hope because he was giving me those little pieces of hope instead of just doing. You know the more mature thing, which would have been to just stop talking to me if he wasn't actually interested in pursuing a relationship with me.

Shelly:

When I was doing some research about breadcrumbing, the first step that, it said, was to recognize when you are being breadcrumbed. That's like the first step to really be able to heal from it and move past it. And I can look back now and see that, like you know, I was young, I was still in college when this experience that I just talked about happened. I was definitely not seeing that I was being breadcrumbed. Like I didn't even know what the term breadcrumb meant at the time, like I had no awareness around it, and I think that made it harder for me to to be able to heal and move past it because I didn't even realize what was like psychologically, what was being done to me.

Shelly:

So the experts in this CNN Health article say that being able to recognize breadcrumbing is like the first and one of the most important steps, and then the next step is to identify the root of why you are accepting such maltreatment. Is to identify the root of why you are accepting such maltreatment and that can kind of help you begin the journey of healing, improving your self-esteem, working on your mental health, all of that. So, yeah, I think that, like back in college when I was being breadcrumbed, if I had realized that I was being breadcrumbed, the next step for me would have been trying to figure out what is the root cause of this, like why, what is it about me, my experiences, my mental health, psychology that is causing me to be accepting these breadcrumbs instead of just moving on and finding someone who wants to be in a relationship with me? You know, moving on and finding someone who wants to be in a relationship with me, you know. So I think that's like really good advice is, you know, I talk about this a lot on this podcast you really have to be self aware and you really have to be willing to do the work and to really get to know yourself and your pattern, your negative toxic patterns that you might have, and also, just like your attachment styles maybe it's it's you know trauma history and knowing your triggers. Like you need to figure out, like what is causing me to allow someone to breadcrumb me. I think I talked about this in the boundaries episode, so you should definitely listen to that if you haven't already.

Shelly:

But if you feel like someone is doing something that is hurting you and it's really having a negative impact on you, one of the first things you need to do is, like look at, like what's going on with my boundaries? Like, have I set a boundary? Have I told this person hey, if you don't want to date me, I don't want to talk to you anymore? Like that might sound harsh, but like that is sometimes what you have to do to stop the breadcrumbing from happening, because a lot of times, these, these are people that, like they, just they don't want to completely get rid of you from their life, they don't want to completely ghost you, but they're also not stepping up to the plate. You know it's like a situationship. It's like they are not giving you what you need. So you might need to be really straightforward with them and be like dude I know you're breadcrumbing me. I don't appreciate this, I don't deserve this, I am going to stop talking to you and find someone who will treat me better. And that might sound like really crazy and really like.

Shelly:

You know you might think like, oh, that's like way too much. I would never say something like that, but why not? You know, like why? Why are you allowing yourself to be mistreated? Especially if you do have that awareness Like, especially if you have gotten to the place where you're like oh, I recognize that I'm being breadcrumbed. And then maybe you've taken the second step of like acknowledging kind of the root cause of it, of like, oh, I can see that I have low self-esteem or that I have an anxious attachment style, or I am in this fawn response. You know, with trauma responses it's like fight, flight, freeze or fawn. Fawn is basically the people pleasing. So you might be someone that has a tendency towards the fawn trauma response and that might be causing you to be accepting these breadcrumbs because you don't want to hurt the person's feelings.

Shelly:

So another piece of advice that this CNN article says is that you need to let go of your hope. That sounds really dark, but like, let go of your false sense of hope that this person is actually going to want to be in a relationship with you or that they are going to change, because right now, in this moment, they're breadcrumbing you and breadcrumbing, like I talked about earlier, actually does have like really serious negative mental health consequences. Dare, I say, you could even ghost them. I think fighting breadcrumbing with ghosting maybe it's not the most mature move, but like this person has been breadcrumbing you, they don't really deserve you treating them well Like you don't. You don't have any obligation to them. So, honestly, if you feel like you're not going to be able to follow through with it, if you try to have a conversation with them, if you feel like you're going to be kind of lured back into their bread crumbing trap, then just ghost them. Like if they are bread crumbing you, they don't want to be in a relationship with you and, for whatever reason, they're choosing this route over ghosting you. So you could just ghost them Like.

Shelly:

I don't know, maybe that's not what I'm supposed to say, maybe that's not the advice I'm supposed to give, but again, like I said earlier, breadcrumbing is actually way more like, has way more negative mental health outcomes than ghosting does. If you go someone, they're going to be fine, they're going to take the hint, they're going to move on and it's going to be okay. But, like, you don't need to continue accepting breadcrumbing from someone just because you're afraid to lose them or to ghost them or to stop talking to them. In this late daily article that I found they say with ghosting, although there might not be any healthy emotional closure like you might want, at least it's closed. When a person stops responding to your messages and cuts off communication, you know where things stand, they're done. So, like I said, you know it's much easier to get over being ghosted than it is to get over being breadcrumbed, or at least I should say for most people. It is Another quote that I love from this article says ghosting someone is rude, while breadcrumbing someone is deceitful.

Shelly:

So again, this is why I'm saying, like, if someone's breadcrumbing you, I personally don't think it's the worst thing in the world to ghost them, because what they're doing to you is deceitful. If you were to ghost them, yeah, it's rude, but it's not even on the same level as what they're doing to you Like, when you ghost someone, you're not being as upfront as you should be, you're not communicating effectively, you're not doing certain things that like, yes, technically it would be nice for you to do that, but at least you're ending things you know, like at least it's over. And I, honestly I feel like for some people, ghosting is the only way to move on. Like I think that, again, it's really hard when you have been holding out hope that this person could change. You have been like maybe at some point they will want to be in a relationship with me. But, like, once you realize that they're breadcrumbing you, that is a inherently deceitful, dishonest thing that they're doing. Toumbing you, that is a inherently deceitful, dishonest thing that they're doing to you. I think that, like, you need to just make the choice to move on. And if, again, if you don't feel like you're someone who will be able to, like, sit down and have a conversation with the person, or, honestly, if you feel like, even if you did have the conversation with them, they wouldn't really like nothing would change, then just ending it is probably for the best for you and for them. Honestly, because, again, like when someone's breadcrumbing you, usually it's because they're just too much of a chicken to break up with you or to ghost you. So you're kind of doing them a favor too by just ending it.

Shelly:

Another quote from this article that I loved says ghosting cuts off all communication, while breadcrumbing perpetuates unhealthy communication. So, again, with ghosting it's more like yeah, there's a lack of communication and a lot of people believe that the mature thing to do is to communicate, but with breadcrumbing you are continuously engaging in unhealthy communication. Again, ghosting really sucks. I don't feel like I've ever actually been completely ghosted, but I can imagine that it's really hard because you don't really get that closure that you might get if you have a conversation with the person. But at least it's over. It's like ripping the bandaid off right, whereas breadcrumbing is like dragging it out and dragging it on and on when ultimately it's going to end. So it's kind of like it's wasting both of your time, honestly, because you are taking time away from or time or energy. You know that you could be spending focusing on finding someone who will treat you well. You're focusing on someone who is not communicating in a healthy way with you.

Shelly:

Okay, I keep finding quotes from this article that I love. This one says ghosting is immature, while breadcrumbing is malicious. So again, it's like neither one of them is good. I don't want it to sound like I'm saying like ghosting is okay, breadcrumbing is terrible. It's like no, they both are bad, they're just different types of bad.

Shelly:

It's like, again, ghosting is immature. Like the mature thing is to communicate and to have a conversation with someone, but breadcrumbing is malicious. Breadcrumbing is purposefully misleading someone to think that they have a chance with you or to think that you still are interested in them, when you know you're not. One more quote from this article breadcrumbers justify their own behavior while completely ignoring the toll it takes on someone else. Like I feel like when someone ghosts you, they probably know that that was a shitty thing to do, but they probably are also like I know I don't wanna be with this person. So I'm ultimately doing them a favor by ending the relationship, even if I'm not ending it in the most healthy or like mature way, Whereas breadcrumbing is like continuing to justify your behavior and saying that what you're doing is okay because you're continuing to talk to the person even though you know that you don't want to be with them, which again is deceptive, it is malicious.

Shelly:

It is perpetuating unhealthy communication. So let's talk about ghosting again for a second. Again, I don't want it to sound like I'm like downplaying how shitty it is to be ghosted. So, if you've been ghosted, I want to share some advice or some tips for how to heal and how to move on after that. So the first piece of advice I have is I know it's easier said than done, but try not to take it personally. Try not to, like you know, spend a lot of time and energy thinking like why did they do that? Oh, it must be something I did. There must be something wrong with me that this person ghosted me. Like, what's wrong with me? Why? Why did they do do this?

Shelly:

It's more beneficial for you to think about it as, like this is about them, it's not about me. If someone is choosing to ghost me, it's about their own immaturity, it's about their inability to have a mature, healthy communication style and it has nothing to do with me. You, you know. And yeah, I just would like advise you to like really try not to carry that into your next dating and relationships, because it's not about you, it's really not like. That person made a choice, it affected you and it sucks that they ghosted you, but like it's not a negative reflection on you and who you are or on your ability to find a good, loving, healthy relationship in the future, kind of along those lines.

Shelly:

I feel like it could be easy to you know after you've been ghosted, have this mindset of all or nothing or black and white thinking. Like all men suck, or women or people, whoever you date, like everyone sucks, everyone I date is going to ghost me. Like you know, I should just not even try to date anymore because obviously there's something wrong with me because they ghosted me and blah, blah. Like really try to avoid that, because I genuinely believe you will find someone you know. Just because you were ghosted by someone again, it has more to do with them than you and that doesn't mean you're going to get ghosted again and if you do, you will recover again. You will regain your confidence. You will remember that it's not about you, it's about them. So, yeah, really try not to like, let it like, sour your view on dating and relationships in general just because you did have that one negative experience.

Shelly:

And then I guess my next piece of advice would be and this might sound counterintuitive, because I just was talking about like it's not about you, but, like I said earlier, with the breadcrumbing thing, like it might be good to do some self-reflection and to think about like is there something that I could work on within myself to prevent myself from being ghosted in the future, especially if maybe you have been ghosted multiple times Again? It's not you, it's not I'm not asking you to blame yourself or feel shame around it, but you can kind of start to think about like this seems to be a pattern in my life. I seem to attract people into my life who do not have healthy communication styles. Why might that be? You know, maybe it's something with from your childhood and or like attachment styles, like I mentioned earlier. Maybe it's trauma related, you know. And really working on that, like focusing on what you can control, you can control working on your own mental health and self love and confidence and self-esteem and all those different areas. You can choose to start seeing a therapist or, you know, just doing the work on yourself so that you feel confident in yourself and even though being ghosted is not your fault, you will maybe feel more confident moving forward in dating and relationships if you feel like you've done that inner work.

Shelly:

So I wanted to end with some general advice, some journaling prompts that you could work through, whether you've been ghosted or breadcrumbed, and you're kind of ready to do that self-reflection and that work for yourself. So here are a few self-reflection journaling prompts. I want you to fill in the blank. Someone has breadcrumbed me, slash, ghosted me and as a result of that experience, I have become blank. How has this experience made you stronger? Or how has this experience caused you to learn something about yourself, or learn something about what you want or what you don't want in relationships, or caused you to become more self-aware or more loving towards yourself Not to be like toxic positivity, but like what is a positive thing that has come out of you experiencing this breadcrumbing or ghosting.

Shelly:

Okay, the next prompt I want you to think about or journal about is list the people in your life who are committed to you or who do display healthy communication with you, people who have always been there for you, who are not flaky or not giving you mixed signals. Maybe it's your best friend or your parents, a family member. Finding gratitude for the people in your life who are there for you and are displaying these qualities that you would hope to find in a romantic partner and just really like remind yourself that you do have people in your life who do treat you well and who don't deceive you and they don't breadcrumb you, they don't ghost you like, they're there for you, and maybe even think about some of the qualities that those people have and how you could try to find those qualities in a future romantic partner. I hope this episode was helpful for you all. I enjoyed talking about this. As always, I feel like I learned some new things from just googling and reading some articles about breadcrumbing and ghosting. I had never really thought about the idea of, like how breadcrumbing is actually more deceitful and more malicious than ghosting is. So, yeah, I hope you all learned a few new things or maybe have had some new insights.

Shelly:

If you have been ghosted or breadcrumbed, I would love to hear aInstagramnd stories. Feel free to reach out @shamelesslyshelly Instagram and TikTok, so feel free to reach out to me on there. I would love to hear your stories and experiences around being breadcrumbed or ghosted. So yeah, I will talk to you all in the next episode. Rate and review the podcast so it can reach other people who need it. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Situationship to Soulmate and feel free to shoot me an email at Situationship to Soulmate at gmailcom. See you next time.

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Shelly Ray Crossland

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