I do not remember exactly what happened in the past years as the OP says. I only have my own analysis if bitcoin prices will not fall lower than $5k and stay at current prices ie in the range of $6k I'm sure bitcoin will recover from now even though we have to wait much longer until the market returns completely recovered.
I would like to see the price going lower than $5000, just to see how miners react to the fact that (supposedly) the price would be lower than production cost of a single coin. What would they do? Would they mine at a loss, or would they try to influence the price into being higher than this hypothetical $5000 floor? For now it seems to be working, Bitcoin refuses to go lower than that price range.
Depending on the rigs and the region some big miners are located, they are already mining at a loss.
In the last episode of the Bitcoin News Show a guy with the name Andrew form the company Hut8Mining said the average price for many miners to be profitable is in the 6000-7000 range. His company however, due to long term agreements, still has plenty of room. He said price could to $2000 until they start to mine at a loss.
So we are already in a tough price region already, from the point of view of many miners.
But these guys possibly don't have the influence and resources to attempt keeping the price higher. I don't see Jihan Wu from Bitmain running his machines at a loss for a long time, they will attempt to keep the price up. He knows many whales with resources to pump the price and make a floor there.
If the price is kept for enough time above that range people will just assume it will never go below there and FOMO will naturally kick because everyone is just waiting with fiat to get in Bitcoin. All these people that learned about it but didn't buy yet want to own some, but they are just mad that they didn't buy cheaper, so they will end up getting in.