You Don’t Need Closure. You Need Self Respect
The most powerful thing you’ll never hear from your ex, your therapist, or your past.
The Lie We’re Sold About Closure
Everyone wants closure.
We crave it like oxygen after the fire. We convince ourselves that if we could just get that last conversation, that final explanation, the story would finally make sense.
But closure isn’t peace. Closure is control disguised as healing.
It’s the illusion that the same people who broke your heart are capable of fixing it.
We chase closure because it feels logical. Because it gives our pain a script. Because the idea of never knowing why is unbearable. But some stories don’t have why’s. Some betrayals don’t have meaning. Some people were never supposed to understand what they did — they were only supposed to show you who they are.
That realization hurts like hell. But it’s also the beginning of freedom.
The Waiting Room of “What If”
You know the place I’m talking about — the mental purgatory of replaying everything.
What if I said this differently?
What if I’d left sooner?
What if they finally understood?
You try to negotiate your way out of pain by rewriting the past. You keep sending drafts of reality to a person who isn’t reading anymore.
That’s not closure. That’s obsession disguised as hope.
And it’s exhausting. It’s sitting in a waiting room with no door, expecting someone to walk in with the truth.
The truth isn’t coming from them. It’s coming from you, the day you stop waiting for their voice and start listening to your own.
Fairness Is a Luxury, Not a Guarantee
We grow up believing that justice will balance the scales. That good people will win, liars will lose, and every wound will eventually be acknowledged.
Then you live long enough to learn that the world doesn’t always work like that.
Some people break things and never feel a ripple. Some people destroy trust and still sleep fine at night. Some people walk away without looking back — and you’re left holding the ruins, trying to turn them into a reason.
That’s when you learn the most brutal lesson of all: fairness isn’t owed. It’s created.
And sometimes creating it means walking away with nothing but your dignity.
When you realize that, you stop chasing “why.” You stop searching for logic in people who built their lives on denial. You stop performing worthiness for people too emotionally bankrupt to recognize it.
That’s where self respect begins.
The Shift From Closure to Self Respect
Self respect is a quiet revolution.
It doesn’t come with fireworks or validation. It comes on the day you stop reaching for people who keep you small. It’s not loud or righteous. It’s steady, deliberate, and earned.
Self respect looks like closing your own door.
It looks like deleting the number without ceremony.
It looks like ignoring the urge to prove your pain.
It looks like walking away from the argument you know you could win — because winning isn’t worth your peace.
It’s learning to leave mid-sentence when your body says, “I’m done.”
It’s realizing that silence isn’t weakness — it’s sovereignty.
You don’t need someone else to validate your pain for it to be real.
You already lived it. That’s your proof.
What Happens When You Stop Waiting
The first thing you notice is the quiet.
The absence of noise feels wrong at first. You’re used to chaos, conflict, and analyzing every micro-expression for hidden meaning. You miss the very thing that hurt you because it was familiar.
Then, slowly, something shifts. You start to sleep better. You stop checking for messages. You stop rehearsing imaginary conversations in the shower. You start seeing yourself in moments again — in sunlight, in laughter, in silence that doesn’t ache anymore.
That’s not closure. That’s you rebuilding trust with yourself.
Peace doesn’t arrive like a package on your doorstep. It shows up in small, boring ways: eating better, resting without guilt, saying no without apology. It’s not dramatic. It’s sustainable.
And when you finally realize you don’t care what they think anymore, you’ll understand that the real ending already happened — the moment you stopped letting them define your worth.
The Lessons That Stay
You can’t get clarity from someone who profits from your confusion.
You can’t get honesty from someone who lies to themselves.
You can’t get closure from someone who can’t face their own reflection.
You can’t get peace by chasing it through other people’s chaos.
But you can get your power back.
You can build boundaries that protect you instead of punish you.
You can live without their permission.
And that’s worth more than any apology could ever give.
The Real Definition of Closure
Closure isn’t a conversation. It’s a decision.
It’s the day you stop waiting for someone else to return your peace and start reclaiming it on your own terms.
It’s when you choose to end the story mid-sentence because you’ve realized the rest doesn’t deserve to be written.
You don’t need closure.
You need to remember who the hell you are.
You are the closure.
—Cody Taymore
Kill The Silence
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If This Spoke to You
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Once again you hit me where I live and it's little uncomfortable, but a lot empowering.
Thank you.
My God you’re brilliant! Not only do your thoughts hit the bullseye but your writing flows in a compulsively readable way. You are one of those rare writers that reads like butter. This was absolutely THE message I needed today. Thank you!