Saturday, November 7, 2020

Bring Back Closure

 We’ve all been there… dumped by someone we love. Without closure, you’re in a never-ending cycle of a whole lot of hurt. This type of emotional pain is enough to affect how we function, think, and relate to others. Add the physical pain, feels like someone hit you in the stomach. Combine that with an ache in your chest that cannot be wished away and it’s like you lost an arm and are walking about in shock. Did I get that right?

The pain of love lost is a horrible thing. But I have noticed that in the computer age in which we live, being dumped has turned into a traumatic and abusive experience purposely designed and socially encouraged to deny closure. Working as a Tarot Card reader, I’ve come across many people who are traumatized by “break up abuse.” The people who call me suffer from an intensity I have never experienced and for much too long. When I started to think about why I thought about the abuse, I felt when a BBF denied me closure. I had no idea how vicious and painful computer age breaks-ups could be until it happened to me. People use technology to surgically cut someone out of their life like they have died. Break-up abuse causes PST for a lifetime. It doesn’t have to be that way.

Photo by Karina Holosko

Not only do people break up with email and text messages, but they also lock one another out of social media accounts and block phone numbers like the other person is a diseased lunatic. The purpose is to plunge a dagger deep into another’s heart and twist it so painfully that their intended will never go anywhere near them again. 

There is no respect for giving closure; which acknowledges another’s pain, the part you played in it, and help them to heal. It’s the last gift we can give to our friend and/or lover.

We need to bring closure back to break-ups and help heal, not abuse one another. Let’s just call a spade. This “break up abuse” trend is brutal and cruel. The sick thing is that it’s meant to be. I have talked many clients off the ledge who cannot understand why their phone number has been blocked when they just want to say “hi.” And if you’ve ever felt the sting of someone taking you off their Facebook, you know what I’m talking about. If this has happened to you, you have been abused. And if this what you’ve done, that makes you an abuser. But we don’t have to be those things to move out of a relationship. Pain is unavoidable, so leave the person that you shared time and love with a band-aid instead of a knife.

I lived in the pre-computer era, and I have the privilege of spanning both worlds. I can tell you this…when it comes to break-ups, there’s a huge difference. We didn’t have email or text so breaking up that way wasn’t an option. Yes, we had landline telephones, but the social blowback for that was rough.

The way we broke up in the pre-computer age was this. Person One would call the other, and you’d meet for coffee. After that, Person One would say, “we have to talk,” and Person Two would feel that they got punched in the guy.

Person One, “I’d like to break up, but we can be friends.”

Person Two would cry, and Person One would comfort them and explain why and with whom and how it happened. And Person Two would go away crushed but with an emotional band-aid in hand because no matter how brutal, they got answers. And they know they will eventually heal. Without closure, you do not know you will heal, so the pain feels like it goes on forever. So please, if you are going to break up with someone, sit down with them, have a coffee, and tell them why. Only bad karma will come to you if you keep another’s pain in limbo. Without giving closure, that’s exactly what you’re doing.

So let’s bring closure back! Heal. And move on!

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