Isla Merrin > Quotes

“People can hurt you without it being your fault.”
― Isla Merrin, When Friendships End: Healing the Heartbreak of Losing a Friend and Learning to Move On Without Closure

“Sometimes letting go is the most loving thing you can do — for them, and for yourself.”
― Isla Merrin, When Friendships End: Healing the Heartbreak of Losing a Friend and Learning to Move On Without Closure

“You are not weak for being hurt.
You are not silly for being sad.
You are not shameful for being left.”
― Isla Merrin, When Friendships End: Healing the Heartbreak of Losing a Friend and Learning to Move On Without Closure

“It wasn’t abandonment. It was awareness.
It wasn’t cruelty. It was courage.
It wasn’t failure. It was self-respect.”
― Isla Merrin, When Friendships End: Healing the Heartbreak of Losing a Friend and Learning to Move On Without Closure

“It’s hard to hold that last thought for long. Because if they left for their own reasons, and it had little or nothing to do with your worth, your effort, or your love — then you have to accept that something precious ended beyond your control. And that kind of powerlessness is terrifying.”
― Isla Merrin, When Friendships End: Healing the Heartbreak of Losing a Friend and Learning to Move On Without Closure

“But when a friendship ends — especially without death — there’s no script. No societal roadmap. You’re grieving a relationship that the world may not have even acknowledged as central in your life. And yet, it was.”
― Isla Merrin, When Friendships End: Healing the Heartbreak of Losing a Friend and Learning to Move On Without Closure

“You can begin to stop apologizing for your pain.
You can stop explaining yourself to people who don’t understand.
You can stop justifying your emotions to people who’ve never known this kind of loss.”
― Isla Merrin, When Friendships End: Healing the Heartbreak of Losing a Friend and Learning to Move On Without Closure

“You may never get those answers. And as hard as that is, accepting it may be the first step toward freedom. Because if you wait for them to explain the ending, you stay trapped in the middle of the story. You build your emotional home in the rubble, constantly turning over the same stones, hoping to find a message they forgot to leave.”
― Isla Merrin, When Friendships End: Healing the Heartbreak of Losing a Friend and Learning to Move On Without Closure

“Because losing a best friend isn’t just emotional — it’s existential. It shakes your sense of who you are”
― Isla Merrin, When Friendships End: Healing the Heartbreak of Losing a Friend and Learning to Move On Without Closure

“The pain of being left often transforms into embarrassment. And embarrassment becomes isolation. You stop sharing how much it’s hurting, because you’re afraid of sounding dramatic or clingy or childish.”
― Isla Merrin, When Friendships End: Healing the Heartbreak of Losing a Friend and Learning to Move On Without Closure

“ambiguous loss — a type of grief where the person is physically present but psychologically or emotionally absent, or the reverse: emotionally significant but physically gone. It’s the kind of grief that doesn’t have a fixed shape. It doesn’t follow the rules. And because society doesn’t really know how to name it, you’re left to carry it alone.”
― Isla Merrin, When Friendships End: Healing the Heartbreak of Losing a Friend and Learning to Move On Without Closure

“You are human. And humans are wired for connection. We are built to bond, to attach, to find safety in closeness. When that closeness is abruptly taken away, it creates a wound — even if no one around you can see it. Even if the world doesn't offer a script for it.”
― Isla Merrin, When Friendships End: Healing the Heartbreak of Losing a Friend and Learning to Move On Without Closure