Finding Closure
When something ends – it can be a relationship, traumatic experience, job, etc. – we want closure. If the event happens to us rather than us choosing it, we seek to understand why. Closure becomes the quest for answers. But it presumes that the answers are available and often, they’re not. It could be that the person who holds the key is unwilling or unable to provide the clarity we seek. They could be deceased, not understand their own actions or motivations, be too afraid to tell us or simply lie. It’s frustrating when we can’t get the answers we want, and we may blame ourselves as we try to fill in the gaps.
Regardless of the why, the goal of closure is to find peace. In my experience, the journey begins with acceptance. If we don’t accept, we can’t make peace. If someone doesn’t want to be with us anymore, whether they tell us directly or simply disappear, we have to accept that it’s over, even if we don’t understand why or want it to be. Only then can we begin the process of making peace with what’s happened and put it to rest.
The concept of closure comes up a lot in abuse. How do we reconcile what’s happened to us, especially when we’re hurt by people that purport to love us or should love us. Unfortunately, there are usually no answers that will provide satisfaction. People that hurt us or those that stand by and do nothing are generally not capable of the type of self-examination and soul searching required to make sense of what they’ve done. There can likely be no closure from the source we seek but there can still be healing as that comes from within and is therefore within our control.
In my own experience of childhood sexual abuse, my sense of ruin was so deep I was certain I could never be separated from it. My most fervent prayer was for it to somehow be miraculously undone but it was a futile and impossible dream. My therapist and I spent years trying to help me accept and integrate what happened rather than endlessly battling against it. I did ultimately get to a place of acceptance but there was never closure. It remained a source of pain, albeit greatly reduced from what it had been.
My struggle was that I always believed what happened was my fault. If I had just been savvier, smarter, somehow more capable of anticipating what was to happen, I could have prevented it. My inability to predict and prevent was my unforgivable sin. Through therapy I was able to understand intellectually that as a child, none of it was my fault, but emotionally I believed it was. It’s in keeping with a child’s view of the world that everything that happens is somehow because of them. I felt it so strongly I reasoned it must be true and as long as I believed that there would never be closure.
But it wasn’t true, and the universe provided the experience I needed so that I could find closure. I was in a relationship with someone I loved and did everything in my power to make it work. But in the end, it failed. It was the outcome I desperately tried to avoid and did all I could to anticipate and adjust, to foresee and prevent. I was hellbent on not repeating the perceived failings of my childhood. But just as with my childhood sexual abuse, there was nothing I could do to prevent the outcome because it wasn’t within my control.
The end of the relationship was devastating but the best thing that could have happened. It was the life experience I needed to finally understand that my childhood sexual abuse wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t have prevented it. I was too young, innocent, vulnerable and defenseless to outwit an adult. Finally, I could see that it wasn’t my failing. Just as the relationship that ended wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t control them. I was merely the collateral damage left in their wake. And once I understood that, once I truly believed that it wasn’t my fault, I found closure. But I never would have gotten there if I hadn’t accepted what had happened in the first place.
Peace is a profound thing. It has enabled me to move beyond the pain of my childhood because it doesn’t hurt me anymore. It is a part of me, and I’ve accepted that its impact shaped my life in ways I wish it hadn’t. But I’ve moved past the ruin and am happier now than I’ve ever been. And while there are parts of my life that have been tremendously hurtful, they don’t define me. They are each but one chapter and that chapter is closed, which is the whole point.
No matter what’s happened – with or without your consent – closure is possible. Wishing you strength, courage and patience on your journey to acceptance and peace.
