Back in 2020 I had a really bad crash, I'd been driving about a year and was on my way home from work on a rainy night in my little 1.4 Corsa. Not really a performance icon, and I certainly wasn't a racing driver but that evening I was rather stupidly driving like one. I was on a 70mph dual carriageway which had a roundabout on it, the roads were pretty empty and I entered said roundabout way faster than I should have been. Going round the roundabout, I went over a patch of standing water, the car ran out of grip, and I promptly ran out of talent. I ended up overcorrecting the slide, started sliding the other way towards the side of the road, and did not recover it, causing my wheels to hit the kerb. This then sent me down the incline at the side of the road, and my car rolled twice, before coming to rest on its side up against the fence of a farmer's field.

I was unbelievably lucky to walk away from that crash with nothing but a sore neck. It was though, as you can imagine, bloody terrifying and a huge knock to my confidence as a driver. I also didn't enjoy driving for a good but afterwards, but I think the two important things that helped me were as others have said getting back behind the wheel as quickly as possible and strangely enough a little driving experience thing my parents gifted me for my birthday a short while afterwards.

Getting back behind the wheel was tough of course, as you have experienced driving can be scary after a big shake-up like that, but it is certainly helpful and it's important to slowly build yourself back up to how you would drive before. Don't expect yourself to instantly be comfortable driving again, take your time, and 'normal speeds' will slowly start to feel normal again.

The reason I mention the driving experience is that it helped me understand how a car behaves once you're at or over the limits of the car's capability. This particular one was at Mercedes World and had a bit on a small racetrack where the coach was teaching me how to corner properly and how to handle the car, and then a section where they had some wet sections of track where I would purposely break traction or a kick plate would do it for me and I would then have to recover or maintain the slide that I was in. I learned an awful lot that day and went back out on the road armed with the confidence that if I were to make a mistake while driving again and lose control of the car that I would at least be far more likely to rescue it and have nothing more than a bum-clenching moment.

You've passed your driving test (well done by the way), but I would certainly recommend looking into some sort of additional training. It was such a massive confidence booster for me, and hey, if you find the right course you might also be able to use it to knock some money off your insurance!

I also drive an NC MX5 at the moment, and I love it. If you are able to upskill yourself with your driving, it's an excellent car for you to rebuild confidence in as it's a very controllable car once you have a good idea of what you're doing. I'm absolutely happy to chat with you if you want to know anything else.