Digital Haunting: The Invisible Threat to Moving On

It’s hard to embrace the future while you are still being hounded by the past. Here’s how digital haunting is destroying our relationships and what you can do about it.

Anyone remember Evanescence? I think it’s one of those bands that completely identifies someone as a millenial #Guilty. They had some amazing songs during their foundational years with Amy Lee’s stunning voice accentuated by excellent grungy rock. Similar bands were Plumb and BarlowGirl but Amy and the crew truly brought the combination to the mainstream. Also a bit left field but High And MIghty Color do an amaaaaaaaaaaazing song in this vein called Pride which was used in my favourite anime intro ever (Gundam Seed Destiny).

One of their most iconic tracks wasn’t a super rock and roll number, but a piano driven ballad My Immortal. Even those two words are enough to trigger that haunting piano for many people, and even moreso, the memory of one or multiple people who have either emotionally or physically disappeared from your life, whether through break up, divorce, a relationship that never fully manifest itself, or even death or destructive illness.

It’s a song that encapsulates a phenomenon that has only gotten stronger over time in our digital lives, even as far back as the Hi5 and MySpace days, or just even from the birth of the digital camera – the ghost of relationships past, now preserved and kept alive in their digital form.

This is known as Digital Haunting – where the ghosts of the past continue to follow you into all your present and future relationships, kept alive by images, videos and posts that continue to be a part of your life.

But what has made things more difficult is whether you use Facebook, Instagram, Google Photos, even Microsoft OneDrive, unless you disable it, you and everyone you know is going to be bombarded by the Memories feature. It can be really great – I love seeing old photos from when my kids were young, or good memories with some old friends I haven’t seen in 10 or 20 years, or a restaurant or holiday or meal I forgot about and need to book another trip for.

And then, it happens. There’s her face again. There’s his face again. I don’t even need to fill that in for you – you’ve already done it. There are people from your past that are so intimately tied to your present, like the titular immortal of the Evanescence song, “and you won’t leave me alone”. Unfortunate for your current love life though, “you still have all of meeeeeeeeeeee-yaI find it so hard to tell myself that you’re goooooone”.

There is a growing amount of research and awareness of how this phenomenon is affecting modern relationships. For instance, technology gives people what researchers refer to as a digital afterlife, where it’s not just immediate relatives who retain photos and memories of those who have passed on, but a significant presence of memories and interactions that can be immediately drawn upon at any moment even after someone is gone. We lost a good friend this year and his presence still lives on for hundreds to thousands of people. Fortunately all our memories of this great mentor in our lives are positive and happy.

But this digital afterlife notion is also true of breakups, which is where it isn’t so positive or helpful. The photos, videos, posts, pokes, laughs, memes, messages, DMs – they all live on beyond the life of the relationship, the situationship, the courting, the friends with benefits, the I thought you liked me too, the whatever stage you got up to.

Psychologist at the University of Colorado Boulder ran a study of the pain registration in people’s minds when they saw photos of their exes in platonic and then in romantic situations. The subjects were given a placebo nasal spray which some were told eased pain, and others were told was just a saline spray, and they checked their brains. All subjects braced and tried to trick themselves that their pain could be lessened by the false treatment, highlighting just how comparable emotional breakup pain and digital haunting is to anyone desiring pain medication for any other medical ailment or condition. Another study in the Journal of Affective Disorders with a large numbers of contributors concluded that digital haunting produces symptoms akin to post traumatic stress disorder.

This is a serious deal.

And so here you come, trying to date again, trying to find love again, trying to make friends and new connections, well into your engagement, several decades into your marriage, having your kids all grown up, and these images from your past are still floating around.

Or worse – you’re actively seeking them out.

Tara Marshall conclusively discovered in her research that stalking an ex any number of years after your breakup, looking at old photos, having them pop up in a feed or when someone comments on something, whatever form your digital haunting is taking place, is severely limiting to your emotional recovery. I mean it’s seems obvious, but sometimes it’s helpful to have someone’s research slap you with a reality check so you can stop sabotaging your own happiness.

Reading and learning about these studies in recent weeks had me remembering one of the main points I’ve had repeated to me in some counselling and therapy experiences I’ve needed over years, and it’s this – your limbic system doesn’t know what year it is. That is, the part of your brain that controls and processes your emotional state. As soon as a memory, past, present, or hypothetical, enters the limbic system, your emotions are reacting to it as if the event is currently taking place right now. More on that in The High Cost of Ignoring Your Mental Health, And My Huge Regret

That’s why when you see old photos or that love unrequited, the one who got away, the one who broke your heart into a million pieces, whatever it may be, you are immediately distraught and drawn back into that place you thought you had moved on from.

But you can’t move on while the ghost remains.

Have you ever heard of a séance? It’s where spiritual mediums deliberately attempt to bring back ghosts and spirits of the past. And how many times does it turn out that we do the same, either indirectly or directly, intentionally calling out for or at the very least tolerating the ghost of something we should never ever try to invoke again.

We’re at our seventh marriage anniversary and well passed 8 years together now – if I were to allow photos from old memories and old relationships to resurface and become things I stare at and wonder about, or even just old memories to stay long enough to settle in the limbic system for a period of time, I could seriously distract and detract from the life I have now.

And I mean, sometimes they still do pop up. Not every relationship breakdown is as dramatic or clear as a major breakup. I’ll see an old photo from an old “will we won’t we” event somewhere or out with someone who we were both trying to explore a potential future with, and if I allowed myself to sit there and let the memories take hold, I could make myself sad again. We all have the potential to do it. As I always like to say as it’s a good reminder for myself, every person is one decision away from stupid.

We were recently at a wedding with our kids and we got some really great photos from it. I was uploading some of those and was just completely overwhelmed with just how great my life is now. There were so many days I wished and prayed and believed and tried my hardest to build towards the life I have now married to my best friend and with amazing children who are just winning in every area of life. And now I am literally living the dream.

If I allow myself to drown in the despair of the difficulty incurred in two people staying together, or in the cost of having and raising children, or dealing with the tantrums, or working through big disagreements, or the financial implications, or the energy cost, or the or the or the or the or the or the, I would drown in “or the” rather than embracing and cherishing the greatness of what I have now.

But how easy it is to allow these digital hauntings to persist. In truth, they’re the mental hauntings that we tolerate. It’s not just seeing a photo of an ex and wondering what your life could be like now if it had gone a different way – it’s that you’re taking the time to allow that to happen.

It’s all because of one simple reason: you haven’t fully said goodbye to the past.

Bishop TD Jakes talked about something he referred to as spiritual necrophilia. It is a really gross way of wording something that is even more gross that we do – we continue to have affairs with things that no longer have any life in them. The relationship that is over, the potential that was never realised, the mistakes you’ve made that were too severe and just simply have killed things in your life.

But there you are once again, when you’re dropping your kids off at school, or doom scrolling at 3am, or deliberately going through old memories when you’re having challenges in your current relationship, dragging that dead body out of the coffin, mentally pulling your pants down and going at it, wondering why you still feel dead inside about all of it.

It’s time to let the past die.

Here are some ways to deal with the ghosts that are digitally haunting you, and they’re really simple.

First is, just delete the old photos. I’m in the same boat that I don’t want to fully turn off the Memories features of my apps because they also bring so much joy into my life. But do you really need to keep on Facebook or Instagram or Google Photos or your iCloud all those photos from that relationship that is well and truly dead? Is it serving you in any positive way to keep those around so they can be revisited so easily? If you can’t look at the picture without going back there or accepting that season of your life is over without it being a brutal stab, it can go.

Now I will note here this is probably not fully applicable for people who are in a custody situation where their ex is still in their life as they’ve had kids together. But use your common sense here. The photos from the track and field day at the kids school last week are okay, but do you really need to keep all the ones from that hot weekend down the Coast? Or the ones where you said yes? No wonder you can’t see him or her without getting sad again immediately – you still have your brain actively engaged in what it was like 15 years ago. How can you possibly date or give all of yourself to someone when your ex hasn’t fully lost their elevated status in your life or expectations?

Second is, gratitude for today. Like the apostle Peter returned immediately to his life of fishing after a major disappointment in his life, so too we return to the past when we are disappointed or discontent with our present. Zig Ziglar called the attitude of gratitude the paramount approach to remaining content in life. There’s simply no reason to go back to the past when you are fully content with how today is.

But let’s say you’re not in the same boat of having everything you ever wanted. Let’s say you really don’t feel content in your life. You don’t like being single, or who you married, or being a parent. Often we idealise the past in combination with a lack of gratitude about our present.

Think of it this way – if the past was really that great, you would still be there. The relationship would still be going. He would have said yes. She wouldn’t have left you like that. Clearly the memories are tainted with a naive ignorance of just how bad things really were. The movie 500 Days of Summer features a really sharp case study of a relationship exactly like this towards the end of the film where all the optimistic and exciting memories are revealed to have been moments that weren’t actually that great, even some that were downright sad.

A truth that really set me free in this area was this – your destiny isn’t tied to the things you’ve lost.

When your joy is complete where you are, there’s no room for a past memory because your heart and mind are already full.

Third is, get closure. Finish it out. No more stalking the ex – just block him so you can’t find anything as easily any more. Most people have locked or limited their profiles nowadays so what you’ll be able to see publicly is very limited. If it’s not easy to find, then you won’t do it so easily. Throw out the old books. Get rid of the old messages. And in the vain of the digital haunting topic, the old photos and videos have to go.

There’s a really funny episode of The IT Crowd called Jen the Fredo. Roy, who is a little IT nerd like me, has had a seriously bad breakup, and responds by photoshopping his ex out of every photo they were in together. Moss responds that it’s like somebody broke up with Stalin. Maybe you need to have your own “breaking up with Stalin” approach. Then Moss plays a game of Dungeons and Dragons with Roy, pretends to be his ex in Elven form, and tells him goodbye so he has a chance to do so. Stupidly funny but a send up of an actually super powerful set of activities to help you move on.

Even if it’s been years or decades, do a break up cleanse. It’s a very healthy ritual that can help cleanse your opportunity and your mindset from the shadow of the past.

Think of it this way – we have funerals to say goodbye to those who have died. We celebrate the memory of the one who has passed, but we acknowledge and accept their time in this world is now over, whether it was a peaceful or a tragic ending. The person who died gets zero benefit from it – it is all for those left behind by their loss.

Have a funeral for the future you wanted to happen, so you can allow the future that still can happen to have a chance.

I’m always reminded of the story of Ezra who was the priest around the time the Israelites returned to their homeland after the Babylonians had destroyed it. The old people saw their ruined cities and wailed for what they lost. The young people saw the same ruins and rejoiced for what they could build in its place. Which one are you going to be? Will you keep crying for what’s gone? Or will you take up a youthful spirit, clear out the rubble, and build something new?

Clear out the ruins in your life. They’re taking up the space of what you could be building. Maybe that’s why every new relationship isn’t working out, because everyone has to keep trying to build around these old destroyed rocks in your life you refuse to get rid of.

Sometimes restoration is the same relationship with the same person, rebuilt, issues sorted out, building a new future. That can be really beautiful when that happens. But sometimes restoration is removing the ruined cities and building something even better. And that is also beautiful.

They’re both restoration. They’re both glorious. They’re both wonderful. They’re both answers to prayer.

“My dear Sam, you cannot always be torn in two. You will need to be one and whole for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be and to do”.

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Digital haunting has been a really fascinating spin on a phenomenon that has always existed in every relationship since the dawn of time – will we pick our past, or our future? While you could keep blaming social media or new technology for the problem, I hope you find the courage to spend the few minutes it will take to do a clean up so your future doesn’t have to flinch waiting for a memory of the past coming in and annihilating your current potential joy.

One of my favourite sermons of all time I’ve ever heard I have kept on every phone and device I ever have owned. In it the pastor talks about two birds of the desert – the hummingbird and the vulture. The vulture only feeds on dead things, the hummingbird only feeds on living things. Both birds always find what they’re looking for to feed on.

Are you going to feed on what’s alive, or what’s dead? Are you going to fill your energy and relationships with new life and energy and strength, or keep trying to make do with the carcass of a rotting antelope that’s dried up and bled out in the sun?

Is it sad? Yes. Is it tragic? Yes. Was it unfair? Probably. But it’s over. It’s gone. Don’t waste another moment staring behind you when there is great love that you could be enjoying with your whole heart today.

We have a choice, and I hope we use your choices well.

How about you? Have you experienced digital haunting before? What are your tips for negotiating it?