How do you let go when you never got an explanation?

[release_the_frontal_lobe]

Early in this year, an very important and special friendship in my life came to an abrupt end. For a long time, I didn't even realize that something was going wrong between us, and even now, I still don't fully understand what happened. Looking back, the whole experience feels deeply confusing and filled with overwhelming emotions.

What made it especially painful was not knowing why. After one conflict we had in person, he never replied to any of my messages again. I kept reaching out, even though I wasn't receiving any responses. Eventually, I discovered that he had deleted me from every platform we used to stay in touch.

Without any explanation, I found myself desperately trying to understand what had happened and whether there was any way to repair the relationship. I continued sending friend request and messages, hoping to reconnect. I even contacted his mother, but she wasn't able to offer me any answers, and the conversation ended on an uncomfortable note.

Not a single day has gone by without me thinking about him. More than three months have passed, yet I still find myself crying because of this every day. No matter how hard I try to keep myself occupied during the day--studying, working, or doing things I genuinely enjoy--as soon as I have a quiet moment, my mind returns to him.

After losing him, I finally decided to seek professional help. I started therapy for the first time in a serious and consistent way, something I had never done before because I was always worried about the financial cost to my family. I also opened up to the small number of friends and family members I trust. They listened and wanted to help, but none of them seemed to understand just how deeply this experience had affected me. Some of them even became frustrated because they didn't know how to help anymore.

Most of them encouraged me to let go and move on. They told me that he had problems of his own, that he wasn't a good friend, he wasn't worth grieving over. I know they were trying to help me, but hearing those things often left me feeling as though my emotions weren't truly being understood. They also tried to help me find the reason why he might have done this, but in the end, those were all just guesses. Even though no one can tell me the real truth behind what happened between us, my mind keeps searching for an explanation to restore a sense of order so I can continue living my life. I know I need to learn how to live with not knowing, but that has been incredibly hard for me.

The emotional impact this relationship has had on my daily life, my studies, and even the way I think has been far greater than anyone around me seems to understand. To be honest, it has also been unlike anything I had ever experienced before. I've gone through so many different emotions and thought patterns. I've questioned myself endlessly, reflected on everything I could have done differently, felt overwhelming guilt and regret, struggled with the urge to reach out to him again and again, felt abandoned, and found myself caught in constant rumination. Through therapy, journaling, and many long conversations with AI, I'm gradually beginning to realize that there are many reasons why losing this friendship triggered such an intense emotional response in me. I'm pretty sure this relationship touched much older wounds that had existed long before I met him.

What he gave me was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. He would think about me when we weren't together, pay close attention to me, comfort me, reassure me, and stand up for me when I needed someone on my side. He made me feel that someone genuinely kept me in their heart. I also saw something of my younger self in him. He was cautious, insecure, quiet, reserved, and reluctant to let others see his vulnerabilities. Seeing those parts of him made me want to hold him close and protect him.

We met in high school after both of us had moved to a completely different country. He was a little younger than me, and we were both lonely students trying to adapt to a new life. We became friends because of our shared interests, and after knowing that I was struggling with mental health issues, he told me that he wanted to help me through them. At first, I kept my guard up. I had spent so much of my life dealing with everything on my own that trusting another person didn't come naturally to me. But over time, he stayed with me, comforted me, listened to me, and made me feel understood. Little by little, I let my guard down.

He used to tell me that he would stay by my side until my tears had dried, until I feel better. He told me that whenever I was feeling distress, I could come to him because he would always be there. Over time, he earned my trust in a way that no one else ever had. That trust slowly grew into a deep emotional attachment.

I miss the way he cared for me so much that his absence has become even more painful. For the first time in my life, I experienced what it felt like to have someone share the weight I had been carrying. I was starting to believe that maybe I didn't have to face everything alone anymore. It took me a long time to believe that someone could stay beside me and help carry even a small part of my burden. And then, all of a sudden, it was gone.

What I've been really searching for all along isn't the perfect explanation. Maybe what I truly long for is someone who will stay with me and respond to me no matter what, even when there are no answers.

[NarcKiddo]

I'm so sorry. I have no advice but can totally understand why you are grieving this loss, and I hope you can be kind to yourself as you continue working through that grief.

[zen_racer]

I'm sorry this has affected you so much.  That's how it was for me the first few times.  I can definitely relate.  Most of the people that have ever been important to me left my life by ghosting me and I never got answers.  Or they'd come back later, much later, and apologize to the version of me that had already moved on.  When the door was already permanently closed.

I know it's hard, and I know it sucks.  In my experience, the best we can do is try to just accept that they aren't around anymore without coming up with a reason to blame ourselves.

That's the part I had problems with anyway.  First I'd blame myself.  Then I'd blame them.  After it happened so many times, I figured that's just how people are, and stopped wanting anything to do with anyone else.  That all happened before I was even aware that I had issues with cptsd.  After reading about the relational issues, and recognizing that I had never been given good examples of what healthy relationships and friendships looked like, I know that it likely did have something to do with me.  That some of my behaviors that were adapted out of trauma probably made me seem less than genuine because even though it was my reality, I was still masking and playing the part I needed to play to try to keep myself safe without ever realizing it.  I became too sensitive and would push people away at the slightest provocation.  Never let myself be vulnerable because I knew they'd just let me down like everyone else had.

I would suggest that you keep doing therapy and bring this up there.  And if you're searching for an explanation even though you know it won't be the truth, at least make it be an explanation that's kind on yourself.  It doesn't have to be something where you're at fault.  Also, regardless of how good they had been to you in the past, recognize that they did take the easy way out.  That choice is on that person, and that's not your fault.

[Kizzie]

I miss the way he cared for me so much that his absence has become even more painful. For the first time in my life, I experienced what it felt like to have someone share the weight I had been carrying. I was starting to believe that maybe I didn't have to face everything alone anymore. It took me a long time to believe that someone could stay beside me and help carry even a small part of my burden. And then, all of a sudden, it was gone.

I'm so sorry this happened to you RTFL, it's a huge loss no matter what but especially given you have no explanation. That is such a betrayal of you, something I know that would really hurt if it happened to me and that I would hope at some point I would feel angry about. It's just not how someone who supposedly cares about you behaves. It's the action of someone who doesn't care about others IMO, and basically it's cruel and cowardly.

That's hard to understand I know because you have suffered a big loss and wonder what you did to cause this. Maybe in time you will come to see it as nothing you did and in no way was how you should have been treated no matter what the issue was, and that it is on them.

My point is that the bigger issue is how they behaved (cruel and cowardly), and not about what you supposedly did in their eyes. Maybe you can't figure it out because there was nothing that you did, it was them all along.

I really hope you will find some peace about this.     

[release_the_frontal_lobe]

NarcKiddo, thank you for the thoughtful words. It means a lot when someone can understand why I'm grieving. I'll try to be kinder to myself, even though it's not been easy.

Zen_racer, thank you for sharing your own experience with me. I'm sorry you've gone through something so similar. It sounds incredibly painful. I hope therapy will help me accept he's not there anymore without coming up a reason to blame myself.

Kizzie, thank you for your compassion. You're right that one of the hardest parts has been never receiving any explanation. I'm still trying to understand everything that happened, and I don't know if I'll ever have all the answers. I just hope that I'll eventually find some peace. Thanks for wishing that for me.
 

[Kizzie]