Ideas & Opinions How to move on without closure?

Every 6 weeks or so I will ruminate about a lost friendship that happened almost two decades ago.

D and I were inseparable best friends. Until one day she stopped calling round for me and started ghosting me instead.

A couple of years ago, I made a Facebook account and messaged her asking for closure. I gave it a week and with no reply I deleted the account. However, during that week she had reposted a quote that said something along the lines of "one day, people will realise what they've done to you" whether that was towards me or not, I do not know but from looking at her account she didn't seem the type to repost things.

It's been almost two decades since we were friends and yet this is clearly something that still pains me. How do I move on without the closure?

A little more to the story (that I usually miss out depending on who I'm sharing my story with...)

During my birthday weekend (2005) I had a sleepover with D and another friend. D and I made out after the other friend fell asleep and the next morning I was moody and wanted to be alone because I was ashamed of what had happened.

I seem to have blanks in my memory but my birthday sleepover was in November 2005 and I remember that she stopped calling round for me for a while after and I never saw or heard from her even though she lived 3 houses away. March time 2006 I saw her on the street with some other girl and she never even looked at me, let alone speak to me.

It's almost as if our friendship never happened. How do you go from being inseparable best friends to literally acting like the other person never existed?

Has anything similar ever happened to you?

How do I move on when I know I'm never getting the closure I need?

Hi, not sure if this will help you. I cherished my friendship I had with the person I still dearly love and care for. We had so far two long periods of not being in contact at all. The first one lasted for morw than 10 years and while I missed her I cherished good times we had. So pretty much putting attention towards good that happened as closure for some things might not happen but cherishing the past we shared with friends who are not around anymore eases that need for closure. I wish you luck in overcoming this. And a side note, we never know, relationships can be renewed some time down the road.

I don't know if this will help. I did not get closure when an estranged partner died suddenly in a plane crash. I struggled with it for years, One day in reading some sort of recovery from grief book I read that love never stops, and that's okay. Maybe it came at the right time, I accepted it. Not the loss, because we never really feel okay about loss, but I accepted that it's okay to notice that I feel love for a person who is no longer around.

It's understandably a frustrating situation. You can't really squeeze a response out of someone even though you need and deserve one.

There's a lot of things that could have happened. Maybe making out was an intense emotional/psychological trigger for her, whether it was feeling of shame or something else.

If it was a problem, it's too bad you couldn't have worked it out, but unfortunately she's not giving you that chance.

What would you need to here from her to get the closure that you need?

I think making out with someone then wanting to be alone the morning after could be pretty hard for that someone to deal with.

However, I also think if that someone is close to you they'd be able to forgive you and choose the friendship over the hard feelings. Even if you didn't apologize, at least I hope they'd be able to identify and share why they are upset and give you a chance to apologize.

Since there are things you don't remember, we don't know if there's something else going on, but... I think it would help me to move on knowing that it's the other person who can't forgive me, or bring themselves to tell me what they need from me.

You made a mistake -- but people make mistakes. You tried to meet halfway to repair it. This person wasn't ready. Okay. You did your part. It's not on you anymore, and it's not your fault this person doesn't want to meet halfway.

I wish I knew, too. In my case it wasn’t a relationship, but a care provider. I was betrayed by the people I was literally paying thousands of dollars to help me. I can no longer trust anyone unless I have some form of leverage. I resent everything that happened daily. I know that if I would just get an explanation for why I was treated so harshly, I would have closure, but I don’t think that is happening.

So what I am experimenting with, is to apply the tools I already have. YMMV, but I am very heavy on theory, and yet this upset comes along. I can’t cope because I forgot about the skills I have worked so hard to attain.

Acceptance doesn’t mean you are okay with what happened, but you stop demanding that it be different. This is one of the hardest parts of the human condition. We have to accept so much that is actively painful. I hope you are able to mitigate your pain.