We’ve all heard it. After a major loss, a traumatic event, or a painful life transition, well-meaning friends, family, or even society at large eventually offer the same tired advice: “You just need to get over it.” Or perhaps they ask, “Haven’t you found closure yet?”
It is a deeply ingrained cultural expectation that grief, trauma, and heartbreak are like temporary colds. We are expected to suffer for a socially acceptable amount of time, take our medicine, and then return to “normal.”
But if you have ever tried to simply willpower your way out of deep pain, you already know the truth: we don’t just “get over” profound experiences. We don’t magically bounce back to the person we were before. Instead, true healing requires us to take the time to actively work through what happened.
Here is a look at the science and psychology behind why “getting over it” is a myth, and what it actually takes to heal.
The Illusion of “Closure“
The word “closure” suggests a neat, tidy ending—like finishing a chapter in a book and closing the cover. But human emotions are rarely that clean.
Dr. Pauline Boss, a pioneering family therapist, researcher, and professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota, has spent decades studying how we handle loss. She coined the term “Ambiguous Loss” and wrote the groundbreaking book The Myth of Closure. Dr. Boss argues that “closure” is largely an invented media concept that does more harm than good.It sets an impossible standard, making people feel like they are failing at grieving if they still feel pain years later. (CEHD Connect Magazine – University of Minnesota)
According to Dr. Boss, when we experience a profound loss or trauma, the goal shouldn’t be to shut the door on the experience. The goal is to increase our tolerance for ambiguity and learn to carry the loss in a way that doesn’t paralyze us. We don’t get over it; we learn to integrate it into our ongoing story. (American Psychological Association)
Why You Can’t Just “Think” Your Way Out
When someone tells you to “move on,” they are speaking to the logical part of your brain (the prefrontal cortex). But trauma and deep emotional pain do not live there.
Renowned psychiatrist and trauma expert Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk famously detailed this in his landmark book, The Body Keeps the Score. When we experience a traumatic event, our brain’s alarm system—the amygdala—goes into overdrive. If the trauma isn’t properly processed, the nervous system can get “stuck” in a state of fight, flight, or freeze.
- The body remembers: Your body stores the physiological memory of the event. You might experience a racing heart, sudden panic, or chronic fatigue long after the mind has tried to “move on.”
- Logic isn’t enough: You cannot simply logic your way out of a physiological response. As Dr. van der Kolk notes, telling someone to “get over it” completely ignores the biological reality that their nervous system still feels like it is under active threat.
Working through trauma means creating safety in the body so the nervous system can finally recognize that the threat has passed.
What Does “Working Through” Actually Look Like?
If we abandon the pressure to “get over it,” what do we do instead? Working through an experience is an active, ongoing process.
- Validating the Pain: The first step is acknowledging that what happened was hard, and that you have a right to feel deeply about it. Avoiding or suppressing emotions actually prolongs psychological distress.
- Finding Meaning: David Kessler, an expert on grief who co-authored work with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (creator of the stages of grief), recently added a vital sixth stage to the grieving process: Meaning. Kessler emphasizes that meaning doesn’t mean finding the event itself “good” or “justified.” Rather, it means finding a way to honor the experience, perhaps by helping others, changing your perspective on life, or creating art.
- Somatic Processing: Because the body keeps the score, working through pain often requires physical movement. This is why therapies like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), trauma-informed yoga, and somatic experiencing are highly effective. They help release the trapped energy of the trauma from the body.
- Reconstructing Identity: A major life event changes you. Working through it means asking, “Who am I now, in the aftermath of this?” It involves slowly building a new identity that honors your past while allowing you to step forward into the future.
Healing is Integration
We need to stop demanding “closure” from ourselves and others. The expectation that you will eventually wake up one day and feel completely unaffected by your past is not only unscientific, it lacks profound empathy.
Healing is not about erasing the past. It is about integration. It is doing the slow, brave, and sometimes messy work of feeling your feelings, calming your nervous system, and weaving your hardest experiences into a broader, more resilient life.
You don’t have to “get over it.” But with time, patience, and the right support, you can absolutely work through it.
Cited Sources
- Boss, P. (2021). The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change. W. W. Norton & Company.
- Van der Kolk, B. A. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.
- Kessler, D. (2019). Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief. Scribner.