Everyone’s situation is different and everyone reacts differently, but in case it’s worth anything at all, my own approach to such situations is to suspend any thought about what has happened. This took me an exceedingly long time to learn because the brain is a pattern-seeking engine, it hates ambiguity, it hates not knowing. We ponder and wonder and go back over memories again and again, we speculate, we run scenarios…. and none of it brings us one iota closer to understanding because we simply don’t have sufficient data. So I’ve trained myself to stop. I tell myself there’s no point spending any mental time on any problem that can’t be resolved due to lack of data, be it professional or deeply personal. And I keep telling myself this until my brain stops nudging and pestering me and accepts the reality of the situation.

….But of course I still don’t like it….