Got arrested two days before I started my student teaching in college. I was president if the department, getting decent grades, and set to be the best student through our Ed dept in years. I was paired with the best cooperating teacher we had and had already met him. I was psyched. Teaching is life in my book. I don't know if it matters exactly why I was arrested, but I'll say it was not for anything I believed to be that big of a deal. I knew it was wrong but not that it meant riding in a police car and going to court and hiring lawyers and my parents disowning me. I was told to drop out of school, the dept wouldn't let me student teach, and I was looking at a huge fine and some minor --but career wrecking for a teacher-- jail time. It wrecked my entire mindset. I attempted suicide and thought about dying all the time. I made my lawyer aware of all I had lost and my lawyer told me, "you can ask for anything." He encouraged me to appeal my Ed dept at school and explain myself to them, ask for an audience with the cooperating teacher and even the school board. I did. I asked them for exactly what I wanted--to finish school, use my mistakes to teach others, and prove I was the person they knew me to be. I asked for my parents forgiveness. I did it with complete and raw honesty. I was direct and did not try to appeal to their emotions or make myself a victim. I got everything I wanted aside from my parents forgiveness, but my asking was the first step towards healing their trust.
You can ask for anything from anyone no matter when or why. Just tell the truth and be open to any answer. I now teach, and I am an excellent teacher. I don't ever lie to my students about anything, and I always have them do a writing assignment where they actually ask for something they want in an honest way. They are always very skeptical but come to find that a lot of them ACTUALLY get what they ask for. Tl;Dr: I fked up big time but then I fixed it all by asking for what I wanted and being open to any answer. Tldrthetldr: I asked, I got.