Thought loop

I have bipolar disorder as well as GAD, so depression might also be at play here, but lately I've been stuck in this loop where I'm obsessing over every mistake I've ever made, getting down and anxious, imagining the future as a series of mistakes until I've boxed myself into some corner, some life I don't want to lead.

How do I even fight this?

Hello. Though I don't have bipolar disorder, but I have GAD and OCD that both make this cycle worse. My OCD would make me check over documents for hours until I knew they were perfect because if I didn't, I would consider myself a failure at any mistake.

I have imagined things that happened in the past and think how they have affected me now.

Maybe you can try thinking that you are human, and humans make mistakes and we learn from them. People who only have perfect lives wouldn't have experienced much of the world. Many successful people made many mistakes before they succeed such as Thomas Edison.

Anyways, that may not work, so you can try to distract yourself. Sometimes this works for me, sometimes it doesn't. If I am too worked up about something, that's all I'll be thinking about. Maybe try taking a walk? When I walk, I try to think positive about myself and try to solve my anxiety problems enough so I can work on things. I try using positive thinking, though I know positive thinking is not going to solve all my anxiety, it can help temporary at least? Anyways, I hope this helps .

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You sound like you are a perfectionist. i used to be like that as a child but it drove me nuts!!!i learned i don't have to be perfect when i started working and making friends who i knew would accept me if i made mistakes or wasn't always on top. i didn't actually like myself when i was a kid either because of it. i learned to accept myself if i could only do whatever i was doing as good as i could do, not what someone else expected of me.

This is ruminating which isn't very healthy. Try to avoid practices that will only encourage the rumination. For example I avoid journalling because I write at length about the same negative thing over and over. Even watching endless news or depressing tv encourages it. I think rumination actually put me in the hospital.

Try to practice distraction in your life. Try some mindfulness exercises.

My question is, how does distraction or pretending the mistake didn't happen actually help to fix it? I'm not trying to play the devils' advocate, but if I make a bunch of mistakes and pretend they haven't happened, I leave a huge train wreck behind for others to clean up.

I have the same problem - the answer to everything you just asked is: it doesn't

You know what does?
Self forgiveness
Self love
Self respect
Self compassion

You have to be able to look at yourself and realize "yes, i made these mistakes" , "no, they do not define me as a person - i have other qualities too" , " yes, i can use this to help me grow and learn"

Then don't allow yourself to dwell - you can reflect on it from time to time when the memory becomes triggered, but you control how long you allow your thoughts to focus on it and what emotion you equate with it - one of remorse n pain or one of growth