I just wanted to say it’s OK to make mistakes or have setbacks. This is something I’ve struggled with for most of my life. I would get into a situation that set off my anxiety, and then I would react in a way I usually wouldnt. Then I would tell myself “you’re a failure, you always make mistakes, you’ll never get better” and things like that.

Every time something like that happened, I would think “Now you’ve done it. THIS is the time you went too far and everyone will judge you for it forever. You’ll never live this down”. The vast, vast majority of the time, this just isn’t true. Every time I’ve thought that, I’ve been dead wrong. I’ve gotten past it, and people have forgiven me if they hold on to it at all.

The reality is us with anxiety are strong and resilient even if it doesn’t feel like it. We make it through what feels like world ending anxiety on a daily basis. And having these things happen doesn’t make us dumb or useless or a failure. In reality, almost nobody improves on a constant upward trend. You might be in a dip right now, you might be stagnating for now, but it’s okay. Anxiety might be winning the battle, but it will never win the war. There 100% will come a time where you learn a new positive coping strategy, or where you desensitize to a common trigger, or even something small like when you find the courage to push through the day. 

This was an exercise where I write down things I wish I could tell my younger self in order to help me learn to forgive and have compassion for myself. Thank you for reading, I thought to post it here so that even one other person could find something I wrote here helpful.