One thing sometimes overlooked about the healing journey is that you find people you cut off trying to reconnect with you. The scenarios prior to that decision can come flooding in, and you may wonder “what’s going on in their life that they thought coming back was suddenly okay?”

The old ways, which to some extent are still here, involved reuniting in person, either by chance, or by something hosted by a mutual friend. They may say something that they’ll hope will ping your interest in reconnecting, and for some of us, it works. Only to be reminded of the reasons you ended the connection, with bonus features exclusive to the trauma.

Then you have the social media way, often combined with the in-person one. A friend request or page following, which thankfully can be countered with a block or restriction. And for me, the question remains “why?” Especially when I was clear on the reason(s) the split had to happen. And it took a lot to do that much on multiple occasions, especially one face-to-face at an old job.

If you were unclear on the reason you wanted to split because of your own strength of communication, or even because you know presenting evidence won’t solve anything, that’s fine. Some of us aren’t built to express how they were hurt by another’s actions, which led to the choice.

And sometimes, silence is all they deserve.

Let’s flip things around. What do you do when you’re the one cut off?

Are you someone that just takes the loss as a chance for someone new to fill their void? Even if someone does, do you still wonder why that former connection did it, assuming they didn’t give you a reason? If so, I’d say it’s because you may fear losing the new people over the same thing or things you may have done.

But if they gave you one, and you’re in a place of accountability, then it’s a chance to change your ways for the good. Because there are others that hear what they did and know how to hide their mess, so the new people never leave them. And if you’ve lived with and around people like that the way I have, you’ll know better than to repeat that trend.

Take it from someone that’s been like that, and often fear they still could be.