I've struggled with anxiety for about 11 years and one thing that caused me a lot of trouble in the past was lab work at university (bio student). My master's was particularly bad and I was having near daily anxiety attacks whenever I had to go into the lab, which really wore me down and I nearly quit several times. I pushed through though and this month started a PhD with a new supervisor.

Today, the final day of my first real week in the lab, I made a mistake and a flask with the stuff I'd been working on smashed. It was my fault, since I was the one who tightened them in place even though we both checked they were in tightly. When we found it, my supervisor reacted in an annoyed but calm way and we went about cleaning it up. I didn't say much, didn't try to apologise because I knew she'd have just said don't worry which would probably have stressed me out more somehow, but other than some low level anxiety that I feel most days in uni I didn't panic at all. I was thinking to myself 'I should be feeling anxious about this' but it never really came, and even now I don't feel too bad about it. 

It isn't much but realising that I don't have to have that strong emotional response and that it wouldn't have helped me in any way is a relieving feeling. It also definitely helped that my supervisor is super understanding and non-judgemental and just got on with it instead of blaming me for my simple mistake. And even with the mistake she thinks I'll be fine to work on my own on it next week, which is a bit of a confidence boost. 

So that was a nice little victory for today, and nice to see that I've come a long way from where I was a couple of years ago or even last year. Was a good reminder that anxiety doesn't need to rule my life all the time :)