Bar exams are very stressful. You're under a great deal of stress, and it's coloring the way you see the world. Some of this will ease once you're through with the exams.

But... I have to say (again)... hmmm... Let me put it this way, you have a choice. You can continue to cling to this story of your life that has you derailed from your true destiny by a mental health system intent on making you a sex toy - for reasons that aren't clear to me - and continue to suffer with your anger and your despair. Or you can accept (this is why I was looking for those notes on DBT Radical Acceptance) that life has delivered you a blow, a set back, and maybe derailed you to a different path entirely.

I'm not trying to diminish your pain, but others suffer too. (This is why I suggested tonglen.) I suffer terribly. My beloved son who should have a family and a home and career right now is sitting on my couch at this very minute staring at his hand because he thinks "there's something wrong with it." He's terrified to go to the grocery store. He gets stressed out if he misses three seconds of a sitcom; he thinks somehow that's significant in some completely incomprehensible (to me) way.

This isn't what I signed on for either. But I have to adjust to what came. To fight it is to live in hell.

Don't get me wrong. I have my moments when I just have to vent the grief. When my son was fired, he left his jacket at work. He had thought he belonged, that he fit in, that he'd found his spot in the world. He marvelled at it. He couldn't believe his good fortune. He thought he was back on track to getting a normal life. He had no clue they weren't happy with him - right up until the moment they canned him. And they didn't just fire him. That last day all the workers had to evaluate one another, and they all gave my son a bad evaluation. They didn't just fire him; they voted him off the island.

Anyway he was embarrassed to go back for his jacket, so I went. I arrived at the end of the day when the kids were all gone and the staff members had gathered in the office. There they were. Half a dozen young people who all belonged in the club, and up until a few days before my son thought he belonged too. He said he had thought they were 'nice people.' And they rejected him.

I couldn't help it, fish. I just wept. I had to stop at my sister's house before going home, because I wanted to compose myself before my son saw me.

Now, it's true that I have no one to point the finger of blame at like you do. No one did this to me. It was misfortune or an act of God. We do tend to hang on to our anger longer when we feel some person willfully harmed us. But that's why I shared the cow in the parking lot story. The point wasn't about minor parking irritations. But point was agency, having a human agent. The point of the story is that whether someone did it to you or whether it was bad luck, the result is the same. You have to find a different spot to park. You have to find a different way of making sense of your life. Clinging to the anger will only harm you.

A woman who had an autistic son once told me that finding out your child has autism is like going to the travel agent and planning a trip to Italy but when you get off the plane you find yourself in Bali. You can be angry you didn't get the trip you planned for so long and looked forward to so much. Or you can enjoy your stay in Bali.

I'm not trying to minimize your pain. And I hope I'm not lecturing too much. But you're carrying a burden that you can set down anytime you want to. Right now at this moment you can let it go. It's weighing you down and destroying your peace. Just set it down. You cannot change what's happened in the past.

“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”
― خیّام, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam