@mikh2wg (and @spac_melt by proxy) and anybody else who reads:
It sounds like you are reminiscing about youth and depression, and that you are in a much better place than all those years ago.
I certainly hope that's the case - and I'm writing this as if that's the case.
This is more of just my thoughts on the idea of life mistakes in general.

We all have the ability to, in our minds at least, visit a museum of "our mistakes".
But it is the mantle of the world, the paradigm we are given practically from birth, by family and society, that makes us believe that we are making mistakes and not doing what we are supposed to be doing. In fact for me, up until maybe as recently as 9-12 months ago, I have held onto that kind of a self punishing world view every day of my life.

The beautiful truth.
We are divine. We are infinite and eternal. We are pure light. We are pure consciousness, and we are nothing but undiluted love.
and we are having human experiences.
We come here to learn things - often times through significant hardships.
Sometimes we're poor, sometimes we're rich.
Sometimes we're slaves, sometimes we're masters.
Sometimes we're beaten, sometimes we're the abusers.
Sometimes we're gurus, sometimes we're TV junkies.
Sometimes we manifest amazing lives of joy and serendipity, sometimes we feel stuck in a quagmire of shame, guilt, fear, and feelings of unworthiness.

Never at any of those times are we anything but pure undiluted love - here on Earth learning things.
Our mistakes are not that at all.
They cannot be that at all.
They are our experiences of this world.

Bless you all who read these words