Kat McAdaragh

Have you ever tried to solve a puzzle when you know some of the pieces are missing? Not lost temporarily—just gone. Never coming back. That’s what it feels like when someone you loved walks away without explaining why.

The silence they leave behind isn’t peaceful. It’s loud with questions. And in that deafening quiet, the mind starts writing its own stories to fill in the gaps. Stories that almost always casts you as the villain of your own life.

The thing about unexplained ending is that they don’t just hurt—they make you doubt your entire perception of reality. If you couldn’t see this coming, what else are you missing? If you were so wrong about someone who supposedly cared about you, how can you trust your judgment about anything?

When Ghosts Leave More Than Silence

Here’s something that might make you feel less alone: researched published in Psychology Today found that approximately 30 percent of adults in the USA have experienced this in the last decade. That’s nearly one in three people who’ve been left in that particular kind of limbo where someone just…vanishes. And research shows it’s actually worse than being told directly that it’s over.

Think about that for a moment. We’ve all heard the phrase: “the truth hurts,” but apparently not knowing the truth hurts even more.

Dr. Leah LeFebvre, who studies this experience extensively, found that people who experience ghosting face what psychologist call “account-making problems.” That’s academic speech for: your brain literally can’t construct a coherent story about what happened, and that incomplete narrative keeps your psychological distress alive and festering. Her research, published in the Journal of Loss and Trauma, revealed that victims have great difficulty in rationalizing the breakup, which in turn increases psychological distress.

It’s like being handed a book with the last three chapters torn out. You know something significant happened, but you’re left making up the ending yourself. And we’re notoriously bad at imagining kind endings when we’re hurt.

The Negative Beliefs That Move In

When someone leaves without explanation, your brain tries to solve the mystery. And because humans are wired to look for patterns and meaning, we rarely land on “sometimes people make choices that have nothing to do with me.” Instead, we construct theories about our own inadequacy.

“I wasn’t enough.” This one is insidious because it’s vague enough to feel universally true. Not pretty enough, not interesting enough, not successful enough, not emotionally available enough, not independent enough. The goalposts can move when you’re measuring yourself against an unexplained rejection.

Here’s what the research actually shows: a study published in Evolutionary Psychology by Carin Perilloux and David Buss found that people who were rejected experienced significantly more depression rumination, and decreased self-esteem compared to those who initiated the breakups. But here’s the thing—that’s about the rejection itself, not your actual worth. The wound is real. The interpretation of what it means about you? That’s optional.

“There’s something wrong with me.” When you don’t know what specifically went wrong, your mind helpfully suggests that maybe everything about you is wrong. Your personality, your values, the way you love, the way you exist in the world—all of it is suspect.

Stanford psychologists Lauren Howe and Carol Dweck discovered something about this in their research published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. They found that people who believe personality is fixed—that you are who you are and that’s unchangeable—suffer longer after rejection. Why? Because to them, rejection reveals that they’re deficient. It’s not “this relationship didn’t work.” It’s “I’m broken in some permanent way.”

But here’s what Dweck points out: people who believe in their ability to grow and develop—while still hurt by rejection—can more readily envision a brighter future. The difference isn’t in the pain. It’s in whether you see the rejection as evidence of who you permanently are, or as something that happened in a specific situation with a specific person.

“I should have seen the signs.” This one masquerades as self-awareness but it’s actually self-punishment. You replay every interaction and look for red flags you missed, as if the ability to predict someone else’s unexplained departure is a reasonable expectation.

Spoiler alert: it’s not. Unless you have actual psychic abilities, you cannot be expected to read someone’s mind, especially when they’re actively choosing not to communicate.

“I don’t deserve love or commitment.” This is where the narrative gets truly dark. The absence of explanation becomes evidence of unworthiness. If you mattered, they would have given you a reason. Since they didn’t, you must not matter.

Research by Dubar (2022) found that college students who experienced ghosting reported something heartbreaking: overwhelming rejection, confusion, paranoia, and decreased self-worth—all because of the lack of clarity. The long-term effects? Developing mistrust that gets carried into future relationships. Some people start internalizing the rejection so deeply that they sabotage new connections before anyone else can leave them first.

It’s like your heart decides to get ahead of the pain by ensuring you never risk it again.

“I’m impossible to love.” The final evolution of the negative belief system. Not just unworthy of love, but actually incapable of being loved. Too much, too needy, too damaged, too complicated. Unlovable in some essential way.

These beliefs don’t just hurt—they spread. They influence how you show up in future relationships, how you interpret other people’s behavior, how much risk you’re willing to take with your heart. Research by Koessler (2018) on attachment styles reveals that individuals with anxious attachment are more likely to be victims of ghosting, and a 2021 multi-study investigation by Powell and colleagues found that the experience itself intensifies attachment anxiety, creating a painful cycle that’s hard to break.

The Closure Myth We All Believe

Here’s the difficult truth to accept, closure is not something someone else can give you. It’s something you create for yourself.

I know, I know. That sounds like one of those irritating lines people say when they don’t know how else to help. But stay with me here.

We’ve been sold this idea that we need explanations to move on, that without understanding why something happened we’re stuck in limbo. But think about it—even when people do offer explanations, are they ever really satisfying? How often have you heard someone’s reasoning and thought “ah yes, that makes complete sense, I feel totally at peace now”?

Rarely. Maybe never.

Psychologists Kruglanski and Webster (1996) defined the “need for closure” as an individual’s desire for firm answers and our aversion to ambiguity. Research by Wilson (2008) shows this need cannot be satisfied unless you fully understand why your partner decided to terminate the relationship. And ghosting, by definition, denies you that understanding.

But here’s where it gets interesting. People lie. People don’t understand their own motivations. People give you the explanation that makes them feel better rather than the one that’s true.

A study published in Psychology Today revealed that low self-worth and feelings of inadequacy are actually correlated with the decision to ghost someone. Some people who ghost genuinely believe they’re doing you a favor by disappearing, rather than facing their own discomfort and having an honest conversation. They’re not capable of the emotional maturity required for closure, so they take the easiest path—for them.

Waiting for closure from someone like that is like waiting for a vending machine to give you a hug. It’s not designed to give you what you need.

The Work of Not Knowing

Learning to live with not knowing is one of the hardest emotional tasks we face. It requires accepting uncertainty, which goes against every instinct we have. But it’s also incredibly liberating once you get there.

First, you have to stop treating their unexplained departure as a code you need to crack. It’s not a mystery with a solution. It’s a thing that happened, and the meaning you assign to it is a choice, not a discovery.

This means questioning the negative narratives your mind has constructed. Not because they’re definitely false, but because they’re definitely unprovable. You’re making assumptions about what someone else was thinking and feeling, based on the single data point of their absence.

Research by LeFebvre and Fan (2020) on breakup recovery identifies the most successful coping strategy as “future-focused” thinking—accepting the situation and moving forward to initiate new connections. The least effective strategy? Researchers call it “no effects”—taking no action and letting the ghosting experience continue affecting feelings without any attempt at resolution.

Essentially, waiting and hoping they’ll come back with an explanation keeps you stuck. Deciding to move forward anyway? That’s what helps you heal.

Try this thought experiment: what if their leaving had nothing to do with you? What if they were dealing with things they couldn’t articulate? What if they were emotionally immature or avoidant or terrified of intimacy? What if they made a choice that was entirely about them and their limitations, not about your worthiness?

Studies by Koessler (2018) show that people who ghost often display avoidant attachment styles, conflict avoidance tendencies, and poor communication skills. Research has found associations with certain personality traits including Machiavellianism (a personality trait characterized by cunning, manipulation, and focus on self-interest and personal gain, often at the expense of others) and vulnerable narcissism—which is characterized by reduced emotional empathy. In other words, their inability to provide closure often says far more about their emotional capacity than your value.

The suggestion isn’t to replace negative assumptions with positive ones—that’s just wishful thinking in the opposite direction. It’s to recognize that you simply don’t know, and that not knowing doesn’t have to mean the worst-case scenario is true.

Separating What Happened from What It Means

The facts are: this person left without explaining why. That’s it. Everything else—the stories about what it means about you, about love, about your future—is interpretation.

You can acknowledge that being left without explanation hurts deeply. You can validate that it triggers every abandonment wound you’ve ever had. You can recognize that it feels like rejection and dismissal of your worth as a person. All of that is true and real and deserves compassion.

But you can also separate those feelings from beliefs about yourself. Just because it feels like you’re not enough doesn’t mean you’re not enough. Just because it feels like you’re unlovable doesn’t mean you’re unlovable. Feelings are real, but they’re not always accurate assessments of reality.

Here’s something that I found interesting, neuroscience research published in Psychological Science shows that social rejection activates the same neural regions associated with physical pain—specifically the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula. That’s why people say rejection “hurts.” It literally does, in your brain. Your nervous system can’t always distinguish between physical and emotional pain. Research by Dr. Mark Leary (2015) in Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience confirms that activity in these regions correlates with self-reported social distress in response to rejection.

So, when someone tells you to “just get over it,” your brain is being asked to ignore signals that feel as real as touching a hot stove.

This distinction matters because you can work with feelings—you can process them, sit with them, let them move through you. But negative beliefs become part of your identity, shaping how you see yourself and how you show up in the world.

The Practice of Self-Trust

One of the most damaging things about unexplained ending is how they damage the trust in yourself. If you were so wrong about this person, this relationship, this situation—how can you trust yourself about anything?

Research by Slotter and colleagues (2010) on self-concept after breakups reveals that romantic breakups are associated with decreased perceptions of the self as consistent and temporally stable. Translation? You start to feel like you don’t know who you are anymore. The question becomes: who am I without my partner?

And when you can’t answer that question, decreased self-concept clarity predicts subsequent depression.

Rebuilding that trust is slow work. It starts with small things. Noticing when you have a feeling or intuition about something and it turns out to be right. Paying attention to the times you make good decisions. Remembering that you’ve survived difficult things before.

Research by Baumeister and colleagues (1993) found that nearly half of narratives about being romantically rejected include statements about lowered self-esteem. But here’s the encouraging part: studies by Bonanno (2011) also reveal that most people demonstrate resilience. They adapt successfully to significant challenges and recover from stressful events, including rejection and social loss. You’re more resilient than you think you are in this moment.

It also means being honest about what you actually knew versus what you hoped. Often, there are signs that someone isn’t capable of the kind of emotional intimacy you want. You might see them but explain them away because you want something different to be true. That’s not failure of perception—that’s being human and hopeful.

You can learn from that without using it as evidence that you can’t trust yourself. You can say “I saw the truth but chose hope, and that’s okay” instead of “I was too stupid to see what was obvious.”

Creating Your Own Narrative

Since you don’t know their story—why they left, what they were thinking, what it meant to them—you get to write your own. Not a fantasy where they regret everything or where you were secretly perfect, but a narrative that allows you to move forward with your dignity intact.

Your narrative might be, “This person wasn’t capable of giving me what I needed, and rather than having an adult conversation about it, they chose the path of least resistance. That says more about their emotional capacity than my lovability.”

Or, “Whatever their reasons, they made a choice that hurt me deeply. I deserve better than that, regardless of what was going on with them. Their inability to provide closure is their limitation, not my flaw.”

Or, “This ending was painful and confusing, but it also freed me from investing more time and energy in something that wasn’t right. I don’t need to understand their reasons to trust that if this relationship was meant to be sustainable, it would have been.”

Research supports this approach. The Stanford study by Howe and Dweck show that how people interpret rejection affects their recovery. Those with what psychologists call a “growth mindset”—believing in their ability to develop and change—recover more readily from rejection and can envision a brighter future.

As Dweck put it, while these individuals are of course hurt by rejection, they don’t see rejection as revealing a fixed core truth about who they are as a person. The rejection happened, but it doesn’t define them.

The narrative you choose should be one that allows you to maintain both honesty about what hurt and compassion for yourself. It should make room for the pain without making it mean something terrible about your worth.

It’s Time to Move On

You don’t need their explanation to move on. You don’t need their apology to heal. You don’t need their validation to know you’re worthy of love. All of those things would be nice, certainly. But making your peace contingent on receiving them gives them power over your healing that they don’t deserve.

Moving on doesn’t mean you weren’t hurt or that what happened was okay. It doesn’t mean you’ve gotten over it completely or that you never think about it. Moving on means you stop waiting for them to give you something they’ve already proven they won’t give.

It means you start investing your energy in your own healing rather than in understanding their choices. It means you write a new story about what this experience taught you—about boundaries, about red flags, about what you want and need—rather than what it revealed about your inadequacy.

Research on post-breakup adjustment shows that focusing on personal growth and future possibilities—rather than ruminating on the past—is associated with better psychological outcomes. Studies by Tashiro and Frazier (2003) on breakup recovery emphasize that while the pain is real, most people eventually experience what researchers call “post-traumatic growth.” They find they learned valuable lessons and emerged stronger.

Not despite of the pain, but because of the work they did with the pain.

It means you take back the power to decide what this means for your life.

The Healthy Acceptance

Accepting what happened—truly accepting it—doesn’t mean you’re fine with it or that you think it was right. It means you stop fighting reality. You stop trying to change what already happened through the force of your analysis and understanding.

Acceptance says: this person left without explanation. I don’t know why. It hurt me. I survived it. I’m healing from it. And I’m choosing to believe that my worth isn’t determined by someone else’s unexplained choices.

That’s not easy. Some days you’ll believe it completely, and other days you’ll fall back into the old narratives. That’s normal. Healing isn’t a straight-line, and rewriting deeply held beliefs takes time and repeated practice.

Research by Cross and colleagues (2024) on emotional recovery after breakups, published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, shows that while most people experience decreased life satisfaction and wellbeing following a romantic dissolution, the majority demonstrate resilience over time. Studies tracking people longitudinally find that although breakups cause distress, individuals generally show improvement in psychological functioning within several months to a year.

But every time you catch yourself falling into those old negative stories and gently redirect to something more compassionate, you’re doing the work. Every time you choose to interpret ambiguous situations in your favor rather than against yourself, you’re healing. Every time you show up for yourself the way you wished they had, you’re proving that you’re worthy of care and attention.

Building Something New

Eventually, if you do this work, you’ll notice something shifting. Not that you’ve forgotten or that it doesn’t matter—but that it takes up less space in your identity. It becomes something that happened to you rather than something that defines you.

You’ll be able to look at the experience with more neutrality. Yes, that hurt. Yes, I wish it had gone differently. No, I still don’t know exactly why. And also—I’m okay. I’m more than okay, actually. I learned things. I survived. I’m choosing different things now.

The negative beliefs that moved in when they left? They become easier to question, easier to challenge, easier to release. Because you have evidence now—evidence that you can handle uncertainty, that you can survive rejection without explanation, that your worth isn’t determined by whether someone else can recognize it.

Research by Mason and colleagues (2012) on self-concept reorganization after breakups, published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, reveals something important: those who successfully redefine themselves, independent of their ex-partner, show better psychological well-being over time. The ability to answer the question “Who am I without them?” with a coherent, positive sense of self is associated with more complete recovery.

You’re not who they left. You’re who you’re becoming in the aftermath.

And maybe, eventually, you can even feel grateful for the ending. Not because it wasn’t painful or because they handled it well, but because it freed you from investing more time and energy in something that wasn’t right. Because it taught you things about yourself and what you need that you might not have learned otherwise. Because it’s proof that you can survive hard things and come out the other side still intact, still capable of love, still worthy of everything good heading your way.

You don’t need their explanation to have your own understanding. You don’t need their closure to create your own peace. You just need to decide that you matter more than their silence, that your healing is more important than their reasons, and that you’re writing a different story now—one where you’re not the villain or the victim, just a person who loved and lost and survived and eventually, learned to thrive again.