The Addiction Nobody Talks About: Chasing Closure You Will Never Get

How to break the cycle that keeps you trapped in other people’s power

We romanticize closure. We picture it like the final chapter in the book of pain. The conversation, the explanation, the apology that ties everything together with a neat little bow.

Movies end with tearful confessions. Self-help books promise you can get the answers you deserve. Therapists suggest you “have that conversation” to find peace.

But closure is not what we think it is.

Closure is a lie.

And worse than that, closure is an addiction.

The Withdrawal That Is Not About Drugs

When someone betrays you, leaves you, or wounds you in a way that does not end cleanly, your brain does not just want peace. It craves the hit of “maybe this time I will finally get the answer.”

That craving looks a lot like withdrawal.

Sleepless nights replaying conversations until the edges blur.

Obsessive thoughts scrolling through old texts like they are scripture.

One more message drafted, deleted, and redrafted until you are exhausted.

You convince yourself the next call, the next explanation, the next breadcrumb will finally scratch the itch. But it never does.

“Because closure is not about them. Closure is about your nervous system screaming for control in a moment when you had none.”

Your brain is wired to solve problems. When someone hurts you and then disappears or gives you partial explanations, your nervous system treats it like an unsolved equation. It keeps running the calculation in the background, burning through your mental resources, convinced that if it just processes the data one more time, the answer will appear.

But some equations don’t have solutions. Some people will never give you the truth. Some wounds will never get the explanation they deserve.

The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can stop bleeding.

Closure as a Drug

Think about it for a second.

The high: You get a reply, a reason, an answer. Relief floods in like a shot of dopamine. For a moment, the chaos in your head quiets. You feel vindicated, understood, closer to the truth.

The crash: Hours later you are replaying the reply, twisting it, searching for what was not said. New questions emerge. The relief evaporates. The itch returns stronger than before.

The tolerance: One answer is not enough. Now you need the real truth. The deeper explanation. The full confession. What they gave you was just the surface level. You deserve more.

The withdrawal: Silence from them feels unbearable. Your skin crawls. Your mind races. You are back in the loop, crafting messages you will not send, checking their social media, looking for clues that might give you another hit.

If a dealer strung you along like this, we would call it exploitation. But when a lover, a friend, or a parent does it? We call it “unfinished business.”

“Closure addiction is the only drug where the dealer doesn’t even know they’re dealing.”

The Lies We Tell Ourselves

The closure addiction survives on lies we tell ourselves:

“I just need to understand what happened.” “If I can get them to see how they hurt me, they’ll apologize.” “I deserve an explanation.” “This one conversation will give me peace.” “I’m not obsessing, I’m processing.”

Every one of these is bullshit designed to justify one more hit.

Here’s the truth: You already know what happened. You already understand their character. You already have all the information you need to move forward. What you’re chasing isn’t understanding. It’s validation. It’s control. It’s the fantasy that you can make someone care enough about your pain to ease it.

You can’t.

My Story of Chasing Closure

I chased closure like it was oxygen.

I chased it from the therapist who manipulated me out of one hundred twenty-six thousand dollars. She knew every wound I had, every secret I told her in trust, and she weaponized it to keep me paying. But even as she was destroying my life, part of me still wanted her to explain why. I wanted her to admit what she was doing. I wanted the real story behind her lies.

I begged her for honesty, for clarity, for the truth about what she was doing to me. Instead I got manipulation, fake stories, and gaslighting. But I kept asking. Kept hoping. Kept believing that if I could just phrase the question right, she would finally tell me the truth.

I wanted closure so badly I let her bleed me dry.

I chased it with family members too. I spent years waiting for them to acknowledge what really happened in my childhood. I wanted them to admit the abuse, the dysfunction, the silence that shaped everything. I crafted perfect arguments, presented irrefutable evidence, appealed to their better nature.

But they never did. They defended, denied, or deflected. The closure I craved was never coming.

“I was not healing. I was getting high on false hope.”

I begged. I demanded. I obsessed.

I told myself that if I could just make them see what they did to me, if I could just get the real story, if I could just corner them into the truth, then I would finally be free.

But every answer led to another question. Every crumb of information kept me hooked. Every partial explanation left me thirstier than before.

The worst part wasn’t the pain they caused. It was the pain I caused myself by refusing to accept that they would never care enough to heal what they broke.

The Anatomy of a Closure Addict

Closure addicts share certain characteristics:

We believe explanations equal healing. We think if we can just understand why someone hurt us, the hurt will stop. This is magical thinking. Understanding why someone stabbed you doesn’t make the wound disappear.

We give other people power over our peace. We make our healing contingent on their cooperation. We essentially hand them the keys to our emotional freedom and then wonder why we stay trapped.

We confuse closure with justice. We want them to admit what they did, apologize for how they hurt us, and somehow make it right. But closure isn’t justice. Justice is rare. Closure is a choice.

We mistake obsession for processing. We tell ourselves we’re working through our feelings when we’re actually stuck in them. There’s a difference between processing trauma and rehearsing it.

We become forensic accountants of pain. We analyze every interaction, every word choice, every facial expression, looking for clues that will unlock the mystery of why we were hurt. But some people hurt others for no reason deeper than “because they could.”

The Breaking Point

The breaking point came when I realized something simple and devastating.

Closure is not something someone gives you. Closure is a drug your brain tricks you into chasing because it does not know how to tolerate uncertainty.

And if I kept chasing it, I was going to waste years of my life begging people who would never care enough to give me peace.

The people who wounded me were never going to suddenly develop empathy. They were never going to have the breakthrough conversation that explained everything. They were never going to apologize in a way that matched the magnitude of their harm.

“The only way to win was to quit. Cold turkey.”

But here’s what really broke me out of the cycle: I realized that every moment I spent chasing closure was a moment I was not spending building a life they couldn’t touch.

Every hour I spent crafting the perfect message was an hour I wasn’t investing in my healing. Every night I spent obsessing over their motivations was a night I wasn’t sleeping peacefully. Every day I spent hoping they would change was a day I wasn’t changing myself.

I was giving them real estate in my head rent-free while they lived their lives completely unburdened by my pain.

That had to stop.

The Withdrawal Period

Quitting closure cold turkey feels like death at first.

Your brain will scream for just one more explanation. Your nervous system will convince you that this unresolved situation is a threat to your survival. You will feel physically ill from the uncertainty.

This is normal. This is withdrawal. This is your brain rewiring itself to tolerate not knowing.

The first week is hell. You will draft a hundred messages you don’t send. You will check their social media obsessively. You will replay conversations until you make yourself sick.

The second week is slightly better. The urges come in waves instead of constantly.

By the third week, you start having hours where you don’t think about them at all.

By the first month, you realize you can survive without their explanations.

By the second month, you start to feel free.

Quitting the Closure Addiction

Here is how I broke the cycle, step by painful step.

I starved the cycle. I stopped reaching out. I stopped reading between the lines. No more texts. No more late night Google searches for “why narcissists do this.” No more bait. I blocked them everywhere. I deleted their contact information. I made it impossible to get a hit even if I wanted one.

I named the craving. Instead of lying to myself and saying I just wanted “peace,” I called it what it was. I would say out loud: “I want a hit of closure right now.” Naming it stripped away the illusion. I stopped pretending this was about healing and started acknowledging it was about addiction.

I built tolerance for uncertainty. I journaled. I meditated. I sat with the sick feeling of not knowing. At first it felt like death. The uncertainty was unbearable. But slowly, like building muscle, my tolerance grew. I learned that not knowing wouldn’t kill me.

I rewrote the ending myself. Closure was not a conversation. Closure was a choice. I picked the story that freed me, not the story they were never going to hand me. I decided what their behavior meant. I decided what I deserved. I decided when the chapter was over.

“The peace you are looking for will never be in their mouth. It will only come from your decision to stop asking questions you already know they will never answer.”

What Real Closure Looks Like

Real closure isn’t a conversation. It’s a decision.

It’s the decision to stop giving someone power over your peace.

It’s the decision to accept that some people will never acknowledge what they did.

It’s the decision to heal anyway.

It’s the decision to build a life so full and meaningful that their explanations become irrelevant.

Real closure is quiet. It doesn’t announce itself. You don’t feel a moment of triumph or vindication. You just realize one day that you haven’t thought about them in weeks. That their name doesn’t make your stomach drop anymore. That you’ve built something beautiful in the space they used to occupy in your mind.

The Questions That Set You Free

Instead of asking them questions they’ll never answer honestly, ask yourself these:

What would I do with my life if I knew I would never get the explanation I want?

How much time am I willing to waste waiting for someone to care about my pain?

What could I build with the energy I’m spending on this obsession?

Who do I become when I stop letting other people’s actions define my worth?

What would healing look like if it had nothing to do with them?

These questions hurt at first. But they hurt in a way that moves you forward instead of keeping you stuck.

The Hard Truth

Closure is not a finish line waiting for you to cross. It is not a conversation, or a text, or a tearful confession.

Closure is a drug. And like any drug, the more you chase it, the more it owns you.

The people who hurt you are not sitting around thinking about how to make things right with you. They’re living their lives. They’ve moved on. The only person still trapped in your story is you.

“The second you stop chasing closure is the second you start healing.”

Some wounds will never get the acknowledgment they deserve. Some abusers will never take responsibility. Some questions will never get answered.

That’s not tragedy. That’s life. And life is too short to spend it begging people to care about pain they caused.

Breaking the Cycle for Good

If you recognize yourself in this article, know this: You are not weak for wanting closure. You are human. Your brain is doing what brains do when they encounter unresolved trauma. But you are also powerful enough to break this cycle.

Here’s your recovery plan:

Cut off the supply. Block them. Delete their number. Stop following their social media. Make it impossible to get your fix.

Identify your triggers. What makes you want to reach out? Loneliness? Anger? Seeing them happy? Know your patterns.

Build new neural pathways. Every time you want to text them, text a friend instead. Every time you want to stalk their social media, go for a walk. Replace the behavior.

Practice uncertainty tolerance. Sit with not knowing. Meditate. Journal. Let the discomfort exist without trying to solve it.

Create your own ending. Write the last chapter of this story yourself. Make it one where you win by walking away.

Focus on your life. Build something they can’t touch. Create meaning they can’t destroy. Become someone who doesn’t need their validation.

Recovery from closure addiction is possible. But it requires the same thing recovery from any addiction requires: the willingness to feel uncomfortable in service of getting free.

You deserve peace. But that peace will never come from their mouth. It will only come from your decision to stop asking for what they will never give.

The story ends when you decide it ends. Not when they give you permission to move on.

Start writing your next chapter. Without them in it.

— Cody Taymore

Kill The Silence

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