Editorial policy
How the 7 tools, the 3 guides and the 18 articles on this site are researched, written, sourced and corrected — and the limits of what any of it can tell you.
Last updated: Aug 5, 2026
Everything here is general information, not therapy and not medical advice. It knows nothing about your history and it is no substitute for talking to someone who can ask you questions. Nothing on this site is medically reviewed — there is no clinician on staff — so instead every claim names the study behind it and links to it.
If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself: in the US, call or text 988, any hour. Anywhere else, findahelpline.com lists free, confidential services by country. If you are being controlled, threatened or hurt by someone, thehotline.org or 800-799-7233 in the US.
Who writes this
One person: Ziggy, who built Ghosted and writes the guides and the tool methodology on this site. Pages carry the byline "By Ziggy · Founder of Ghosted" and link back here.
Ziggy is not a therapist, a counselor or a coach. The experience behind these pages is in building the app people open at 1am — which meant reading the breakup and attachment research closely, and reading it again when a claim did not hold up. We say that plainly rather than dressing the site in credentials that do not exist.
Drafts are written with AI assistance and edited by hand before they publish. Nothing goes up unread. Every factual claim is checked against the source named on the page, and anything that cannot be traced to a real study is cut rather than softened into something vague.
How we source
- Start from the question somebody actually asks. "Will no contact make them come back", "how long does this take", "I texted them, did I ruin it". The honest answer, not the answer that sells.
- Go to the primary study. Health and psychology claims come from peer-reviewed research, named and linked. Never a news article about a study when the study itself is findable, and never "studies show" with no study.
- Keep the numbers the size they are. Where a sample was 155 young adults reporting on themselves, the page says so. Where a finding is an association and not a cause, the page says that too.
- Name folk wisdom as folk wisdom. The "half the length of the relationship" rule and the "one week per month" rule have no research behind them. We say that instead of repeating them.
- List the sources on the page. Every guide ends with a Sources block naming each publication and linking to it. If a claim has no source we can check, it does not run.
What we rely on
- Peer-reviewed literature via PubMed and PubMed Central — rejection and reward circuitry, contact and distress, expressive writing, recovery timelines.
- The journals themselves where a paper is not indexed with a full text: Journal of Neurophysiology, Personal Relationships, Cyberpsychology, Behavior & Social Networking, Clinical Psychological Science.
- Public crisis and support organizations for anything about safety: the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, Find a Helpline, and The National Domestic Violence Hotline.
Every source URL was checked to resolve before it was published. If a link rots, tell us and we will repoint it or remove it.
What this site never claims
- That it is reviewed by a clinician. Nothing here is medically reviewed, no clinician reads these pages before they publish, and you will never see a "medically reviewed" badge on this site.
- That it can diagnose anyone. Not you, and not your ex. People search the word "narcissist" and we use it where they use it, but nobody can diagnose a person they have never met from a description in a message thread. We describe patterns instead of handing out labels.
- That no contact is a way to get someone back. It is not a lever on another person, and any site telling you it is has something to sell you. We answer the question honestly and then talk about what you control.
- That there is a timeline. No page here will tell you which week you stop hurting. Research gives ranges across groups of people; it does not give you a date.
- That it is a crisis service. The tools run in a browser tab. If you are in danger, the numbers above are the answer, not this site.
Updates and corrections
Every guide shows a "Last updated" date. It changes when the content changes — not on a schedule, and never to look fresh.
A page gets revisited when a cited study is revised or retracted, when better evidence turns up, or when a reader points out an error. Factual corrections go in as soon as we can verify them, and a correction that changes the meaning gets a new update date.
Found something wrong, out of date or badly explained? Tell us — include the page and, if you have one, the source.
Money and independence
This site is published by Ghosted and exists partly to introduce people to the app, which is free to use with an optional paid tier. We say so openly, and the app strip at the top of a guide says it too rather than hiding inside the prose.
There are no display ads, no sponsored guides, no affiliate links, and no paid placements. Nobody pays to be mentioned or to be left out. Ghosted has never offered a trial period and never will, so no page here carries a countdown.
The tools on this site are genuinely free. There is no account, no signup wall and no ad on any of them, and the privacy policy says what this website collects.
Questions about this policy
Write to us on the contact page. See also the privacy policy and the terms of service.