Estelle: I overheard a girl in my 11th-grade math class talking about a dish she wanted to cook, and listing the ingredients she planned to leave out. “Oh,” I said, “You can’t leave that out! It would be like making risotto without fish.” You’ll note this statement is totally incorrect—you don’t actually need fish to make risotto—which is exactly what she said, with a confused look on her face, in response to my doye-declaration. I knew you didn’t need fish to make risotto, but I’d just been thinking about a seafood risotto recipe I’d read that weekend. “Oh yeah, I KNOW you don’t need fish for risotto,” said I, without offering any further explanation. Essentially, I looked like I didn’t know that you didn’t need fish for risotto. QUELLE HORREUR, TAKE A MOMENT FOR ME.

She wasn’t mean about my faux pas—and even though I knew both that what I’d said wasn’t correct, and that there was a reason I made the mistake, I didn’t explain myself. To this day, I’m not 100 percent sure why; I suspect it was because I knew that sometimes I just wasn’t in control of my mouth-brain connection, but I also found that, in itself, incredibly embarrassing. So…I guess we can all see what a blindingly bad mistake this was and how I should send myself to social jail forever. Just kidding—it should have been a shrug-it-off moment, no big deal. Yet it stayed with me for years, and it was something I’d mentally bash my head against a wall about from time to time, each occasion as fresh and sore as the last. But why did I keep thinking about it? I didn’t hurt anyone. I just felt foolish in front of someone else, and didn’t know how to react.

I still remember this little doodad clearly, but the pain of the memory has faded. I’ve tried to accept myself as an awkward person who isn’t always supremely in control of herself. Yes, my classmate might have thought I was stupid, but was it more important that I care what she thought or that I forgave myself? I chose the latter.

Krista: A few years back, I went to an interview which took place in a minimalist room containing only flat, white, tufted chairs. I had on a black dress and as I sat talking to the interviewer, I distinctly felt something flowing, uncontrolled, from my body. I continued speaking, and tried to kind of clench my crotch, silently praying that nothing was seeping into the soft, white chair. The interview went well, we stood up and shook hands. I glanced furtively at the chair and YUP! BLED ON IT! I quickly moved to block my potential new boss’ view, but because I moved so fast, he looked to see what I was doing and HE SAW IT—bright red dots, smeared and obviously very fresh. In a strangled voice he said, “Well, thanks for coming in!” and turned bright red. Then I turned bright red and waddled my blood-soggy ass out of that room and into the bathroom.

I got the job but I was so embarrassed, I kept reliving the whole thing. Time has helped: After I started working there, no one ever brought it up, and yo, they were WHITE CHAIRS, it was bound to happen at some point.

Emma S.: I was on a plane with an acquaintance and her husband, and my period was horrible that day. I didn’t notice until I was off the plane that I had bled through my dress, which meant I had to walk all the way to the airport bathrooms before I could change. I was so, so upset. Then I ran into the acquaintance at baggage claim. It turned out that not only had she not noticed my mishap, but before I could even mention it, she told me that she had dropped her phone into the plane toilets and had stuck her hand in to fish it out (through the trap! eeee!). I told her my woeful tale and we both laughed. It was good to exchange stories in the spirit of sharing-is-caring; we’re all human and human bodies are weird and do things like bleed and drop stuff.

Stephanie: Toward the end of high school and in my first year of college, I made a lot of mistakes and burned bridges with friends in ways that I regret. I was struggling with depression and ending an abusive relationship and I responded by being angry all the time and making bad decisions involving drugs and alcohol, and lying to my friends and to myself.

More than once, at the diner where I’d hang out with my friends, I had a meltdown and ran off. My memory of that time is hazy, but I’m sure my friends were baffled. On one particular night, my friends wanted to hang out with a group of people who I didn’t think liked me, and instead of trying to socialize, I sat outside on the curb pretty much having a temper tantrum the whole time, waiting for my friends to take pity on me. After enough of these incidents they didn’t want to hang out with me as much.

Some of these wounds did heal with time, genuine apologies, and therapy, but I have a really hard time with regrets. I beat myself up about the time I’d lost and the stuff I didn’t get to enjoy in high school because I was too angry or messed up—I just could not let it go. Finally, my therapist told me to pretend I was listening to someone I really loved talk about this and to think about what I would say to “them.” I ended up crying and telling “them” (yes, MYSELF) that I was so sorry they felt this way, that they were on the path they were supposed to be on now, and to please forgive themselves.

Nowadays, I actively work hard at being kinder to myself. Since I often feel regretful and embarrassed, I apply this to smaller situations, too. When I think I’ve said something stupid, I try to give myself the advice I’d give a friend, which is usually: “Chill, no one else is going to think this is such a big deal,” and eventually it isn’t.

***

It can be tough to forgive yourself for any mistake, big or small. But history tends to repeat—in our heads—for a reason. It might mean you need to take the next step in how you conceive of the incident, whether that’s by re-evaluating the magnitude of what you’ve done, deciding to take action relating to people you’ve affected, or simply being less hard on yourself and accepting the deed as done. After all, you’re not helping yourself or anyone else by stewing in a vat of memory juices. And if other people have forgiven you in the past, chances are that you can forgive yourself, too. ♦