The Anger Stage
When a person experiences a significant loss or tragedy of some kind in their life, they typically will go through the various stages of loss. This website, http://www.lifeworktransitions.com/exercises/stgesloss.html
posts an article entitled "When Smart People Fail, Rebuilding Yourself for Success" and lists the stages as follows:
1. Shock
2. Fear
3. Anger and blame
4. Shame
5. Despair
Now, I think I should be able to apply these stages to my current situation, since I consider myself to be a smart person who failed. But really, I think for those of us unfortunate souls who fail the bar examination, or maybe the med school boards, this must be slightly altered. I, for example, went through the shock and fear stages almost simultaenously- well first shock and then a little bit of fear, all in the night I found out the results. Actually, I don't think shock is quite accurate because I think most people who sit for the bar kind of expect, even a little portion of themselves expect, that they might fail, even if they are confident after they leave the exam. Plus, you experience I think most of the fear stage in the weeks leading up to receiving the results. But even though I prepared myself to fail- not because I thought I didn't study enough, but because I knew I was bad at taking law school tests- It still shocked me to see FAILED next to my anonymous candidate number.
After that shock, I went through the "What am I going to do now?" phase, even though I am clerking and have a job for at least a year, I still freaked out about what my career would look like after the clerkship ended. I think I might have thought for a little while that I should never practice law and that it wasn't for me since I couldn't pass the test.
I guess now I'm in the "Anger and blame" stage, though I think I am just angry at myself, but I can't quite figure out why, and I am angry that this happened to me. I have no one to blame really. Nothing happened during studying or the test itself for me to say, "This is really why I failed, not because I did anything." I had perfect testing conditions, well almost perfect.
I am quite angry today. We'll see how the next stages progress. I'll keep you posted.
posts an article entitled "When Smart People Fail, Rebuilding Yourself for Success" and lists the stages as follows:
1. Shock
2. Fear
3. Anger and blame
4. Shame
5. Despair
Now, I think I should be able to apply these stages to my current situation, since I consider myself to be a smart person who failed. But really, I think for those of us unfortunate souls who fail the bar examination, or maybe the med school boards, this must be slightly altered. I, for example, went through the shock and fear stages almost simultaenously- well first shock and then a little bit of fear, all in the night I found out the results. Actually, I don't think shock is quite accurate because I think most people who sit for the bar kind of expect, even a little portion of themselves expect, that they might fail, even if they are confident after they leave the exam. Plus, you experience I think most of the fear stage in the weeks leading up to receiving the results. But even though I prepared myself to fail- not because I thought I didn't study enough, but because I knew I was bad at taking law school tests- It still shocked me to see FAILED next to my anonymous candidate number.
After that shock, I went through the "What am I going to do now?" phase, even though I am clerking and have a job for at least a year, I still freaked out about what my career would look like after the clerkship ended. I think I might have thought for a little while that I should never practice law and that it wasn't for me since I couldn't pass the test.
I guess now I'm in the "Anger and blame" stage, though I think I am just angry at myself, but I can't quite figure out why, and I am angry that this happened to me. I have no one to blame really. Nothing happened during studying or the test itself for me to say, "This is really why I failed, not because I did anything." I had perfect testing conditions, well almost perfect.
I am quite angry today. We'll see how the next stages progress. I'll keep you posted.
posted by JD at 10:32 AM
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