How to Find Closure in a Relationship When It’s Not Possible to Get One
By: Midori Writes
Tags: Self Improvement, Pain, Relationships, Regret, Friendship

1. I made a movie about my first love

I’m a writer, so yes, I’m romantic and over the top. I was 22 years old, graduated, unemployed and very troubled. So I rejected the kindness and support from my successful boyfriend, who got a double first honour from the top university with job offers from big companies even during the recession. I killed the relationship because I was jealous of him.

Years later when my life was on the rise again and I’ve spent enough time and money on clearing my childhood wounds. I was no longer the troubled person I once was, I’ve built the confidence to not criticise myself constantly. However, when I looked back on the pain I had inflicted on him and how selfish I was, and the feeling of regret, guilt and disgust flooded in my heart.

I don’t know where he is anymore, perhaps he blocked me on every single form of social media. So I wrote a story about it and gathered a few friends to experiment with making a movie. It’s called Closure (as expected).

The movie was never shown to anyone, including those friends who help me filming it. If there’s a slim chance you are reading this article, I wanted to thank you for being generous with my experiment, your support has helped me to regain strength in living.

Over time we forget that everyone is creative by nature, even if they have the least creative jobs. It’s the environment that has numbed our senses. When something epic enough touches your heart, your body will react to it and you will have the urge to express yourself.

Make a movie, if that’s what you’re propelled to do. But it can also be dancing, singing, writing, painting, speaking. No matter what that is, make sure you action.

2. I breathe deeply for my friend who passed away

Before mindfulness became a popular topic in mental health discourse, I experienced using heavy and silent breathing to remember my late-best friend.

My best friend died in an accident when travelling abroad, so it was very sudden. It’s been five years and there’s not been one day I didn’t think about him.

At first, tears ran down my face and I cried my lung out. A bizarre form of weeping that involves a deep roar, like an adult trying to mimic a baby’s screaming. Because no words can describe the pain of grief for me, so it became abstract sound and tears.

But slowly time and the tears soothed my heart. Now when I think about my dear friend, I stop whatever I’m doing and concentrate on missing him. I notice my breathing becomes slow, heavy and audible.

I place my hands on my chest, I close my eyes and I feel him. I imagine his invisible hand presses on my hands, I recall his hug and his smell. I imagine him smiling and telling me everything is good. It’s been five years and his voice, smell and warmth are as vivid as if we’ve met yesterday.

I’ve been meditating for a few years now, but from time to time I will get very badly distracted by mental chatter. Usually, I’d call upon the heavy breathing and imagine his soothing hug. This is how I ground myself to the present moment, with hope and love, then I slowly move into groundedness.

When you allow grief, you allow closure. Nothing is better about losing your loved ones, there’s only acceptance.

3. Find a tree hallow

I can’t talk about things that are damaging my pride.

I find that people usually can’t talk about something when they fear that their reputation and image will crumble after the truth is revealed because the listener will never treat them the same anymore.

I can easily talk about my dead friend and other sad things, but I can’t talk about when my promotion was passed over, or when I embarrassed myself for being so obsessed with a certain person.

It’s also the reason why alcoholics find it hard to accept they are completely controlled by some liquid, as well as why people with very few trusted close friends are often more troubled because there is no way to let out their sorrow.

The paradox is that when you can’t talk about something, you will always be controlled by it. There’s no closure, it feels like karma.

I had another boyfriend who abandoned me, betrayed me and scarred me for life. I wanted to ask him why did he treat me like that and what did he really want. But he wasn’t able to tell me anything because he was himself too embarrassed and prideful to talk about the bad things he did. Double whammy.

Since I couldn’t get closure from him, not even a sorry, it was very hard for me to even write about it, my usual creative medium. I saw some really brave love stories on Medium and I thought maybe I could do that too. I tried, but I couldn’t.

But I can’t let this wound to stay open and bloody forever. So I looked up the cheapest therapist available in the neighbourhood, I stormed into her office and started telling her every single thing. I wasn’t interested in a treatment, I wasn’t there to talk about my childhood wounds or whatnot. I just needed to burst out all the crap happened and how much it hurt.

I only met that therapist three times, I told her everything I needed to say about this guy, then I never contacted her for more sessions again. She was my tree hallow. It’s the only safe way to speak out because this therapist will never leak anything back to my world.

In hindsight maybe I shouldn’t have used a therapist but an actual tree hallow instead. Is this unethical and disrespectful to the therapist? Feel free to let me know. I suppose I was doing whatever it takes to get rid of the pain in me, I hope the therapist will forgive me.