I am a successful person.

A CV lists eight years in four lines. What it leaves out is the fortnight in year three when the whole thing nearly came apart — and the fortnight is the part you can still describe hour by hour.

Anxiety keeps unusually thorough records. It files the near-misses in full detail and the successes in summary, then presents the file back to you as evidence that you got lucky. The filing is meticulous. The conclusion it draws is not.

Two things are true at the same time: the outcome held, and it cost you something nobody else saw. Success that was expensive is still success.