The end of a relationship, the end of a job, losing a loved one or perhaps even just an unexpected turn of events that doesn’t add up. We’ve all – myself included – been in a situation where we’ve been desperate for what we call closure: an attempt to make sense of an ending.
Indeed it’s the time of year for it, with all that January-induced self-reflection and intention setting and the like, but what does closure actually mean, and how can we use it to move on, and forward, with our lives?
I was surprised to discover that our use of the term need for closure is relatively new: it was coined in the 1990s by social psychologists Donna Webster and Arie Kruglanski. Our brain, they explain, has an innate need to understand a situation: when life doesn’t seem clear, it does everything it can to make things add up.
So when a circumstance – a relationship, a friendship, a job, or a life – ends in an ambiguous way, we experience a “need for closure” because that’s our way of stopping our brain from continually trying to make sense of it. It’s how we move on.
Of course, the motivation to find answers to ambiguous situations goes back millennia: for our hunter-gather ancestors the need to fully understand a situation would have meant the difference between life and death.
But today that survival technique manifests more often as trawling through social media to find out if a recent ex has someone new, driving mutual friends mad when a friendship dissolves, or drunkly seeking answers from colleagues after unexpectedly losing a job.
It’s so natural to want to form a mental puzzle of what happened, to put together the missing pieces, and lay it all to rest. That drive to seek comfort through knowledge and answers is both incredible strong, and I think, possibly unhelpful.
I’m going to share a very personal example with you…
When I was 18, my friend Eleanor died. She fell from an overpass in North London, one that is most commonly known as suicide bridge.
Eleanor struggled hugely with her mental health, so in all likelihood, she jumped, on purpose. But Eleanor also had a tendency to do strange things (as well as take hallucinogenic drugs) so in the seismic aftermath of her death, we also entertained the idea that perhaps she’d climbed up for some reason and fallen, by accident.
As friends we talked it over (and over and over) - there were some additional details around her death and using them we all formed different (and ever changing) ideas of what had happened. But no-one knew for sure, and we were never going to. Our brains would never get the answer they wanted: we would never be able to ask her what happened. We’d never know whether she fell, or jumped.
The only way I created closure around Eleanor’s death was through acceptance that I would never get closure from it. It didn’t happen immediately, but I eventually made the choice to feel and know that she was at peace, however she’d gotten there. Rather than focusing on her death and the many questions – the biggest, of course: what if one of us could have stopped it? – I chose (I choose) to celebrate her life instead.
Yikes, how do I segue into bad breakups after that?!
Well honestly, with ease. Because I shared that story for its lesson: the best way to find closure is to create it for yourself.
We’re forever placing closure at the feet of others. We want to know why exactly a relationship ended (oh and hey, I’ve been here myself many times!) We want to know what happened, what we did wrong, what changed, we tell ourselves we can’t move on until we have answers: “If only I had closure!”
The thing is, by doing so we remove both our autonomy and our responsibility for our own wellbeing in a given situation. Yes, it’s helpful to give your brain answers, so that you don’t find yourself repeating a negative experience. But it’s unhelpful to depend on others for closure (and ultimately, our happiness) because:
We can’t control other people or situations. The only thing in life we can control is how we respond.
(Fun fact: the intensity of a person's need for closure depends on their personality. People with intense needs for closure are often used to being in control and prefer life to go as planned (hi, me!) People with low needs tend to be more willing to "go with the flow." There’s actually a Need For Closure Scale - go rate yourself, if so inclined.)
It’s impossible to find all the answers in life, and sometimes it’s even downright unhelpful to seek them out. Finding closure is really about crafting a narrative, and the best way to close a chapter is by writing a new story….
Don’t: let the pain become your entire identity or world; stalk your ex on Instagram; send demands for answers after being ghosted on a dating app; harass your colleagues or boss; let yourself remain forever trapped in a spiral of “what ifs?”
Do: give yourself time to be upset and grieve; be supportive and kind to yourself; talk to yourself as you would a loved one; talk to a therapist; talk to friends, but then also stop talking lest it become your only shtick; write letters to burn - to someone who’s died, to your ex to say goodbye, to yourself to remind you of all the lessons you learnt from a (unhealthy) relationship; create rituals that will help you move on; find hobbies that help you tap into joy; take care of you.
Regardless of whether or not you think everything happens for a reason (It’ll all be okay in the end and if it’s not okay it’s not the end etc.) the fact is that something has happened or ended. It’s often a hard pill to swallow, but acceptance is the first step to healing, and when in pain, that should be our priority, always.
Heavy stuff today! Do you agree or disagree? Plus, a question to ask yourself:
Where do I need to create closure in my own life?
Thank you for sharing Lily. Powerful piece on what it means to let go. I'm sorry to hear about your friend Eleanor, what a struggle that must have been in the aftermath of it all. I sometimes think that accepting you're not going to find the peace that you crave is in itself finding peace (if that makes sense). You kind of come to terms with living with the unknown, the questions with no answers and it can be really freeing to recognise that. I've done it many a times when I feel I'm owed an apology or want an answer for how something ended, but eventually I know that I'm going to have to accept it as it is and move on from it. Sometimes you have to just live with what you've been dealt!