There are 4 stages to rejection.
Anger, Sadness, Denial and Acceptance.
We are angry at being rejected, being left behind. It's a breach of trust. We are made to feel stupid and cheated on so the anger is projected on to ourselves. To salvage our pride we push the blame to the other party, we project our anger on to them. A common enemy that enables us to save our pride and sanity.
We feel sad when we realise that rejection also means a loss. We lose a part of ourselves, and we don't know what to do. We hurt, sadness is usually something we reserve for our own self. We paint ourselves as the victim, to garner sympathy. As with sympathy comes trust and favours. Though no one will admit it, some even go so far as to voice out that they do not want sympathy or empathy for that matter.
Denial, because we refuse to accept reality. The situation is too absurd for us to even consider the possibility, so we deny it. We create an alternate reality in which everything is the way it was, could be called hallucinations or could be labelled as a mental breakdown. But either way we wait and hope that ignoring and refusing reality means it will go away.
We feel calm, because we accept, because we have forgiven. We finally face reality and say "yes". But don't be too happy and don't be fooled. Forgiveness and forgetting are mutually exclusive. With memories come pain and with pain comes revenge. Pain can be a very motivating factor for one to do indescribable things. Things no one would ever imagine them to do. However acceptance is probably the one thing that can help us move on.
