Has anybody else became someone totally different after your ocd experience? I miss the old me but some parts of me have changed for the better

Not gonna lie, I am in fact feeling a little bit melancholy at the moment, and it’ll pass, and it’s probably because i didn’t get enough sleep. But here’s the thing, there’s been a ton of changes in my life recently, and a lot of upheaval, and it’s been a very difficult time. It’s part OCD, part current events, part changes in my life. I graduated college, so I lost my classes and counseling there (and I still have NOCD, and my therapist is wonderful, and I could not have gotten through this OCD episode without her, but my counselor at my college helped me through some more of the general stuff in my life, and she was wonderful and she really supported me). I had to leave my part-time job I worked at for three years, and I’m still searching for one. My OCD spiked really bad over these last few months, my mental health plummeted, and it hasn’t been helped at all by the horrible winter weather where I live. Because the weather has been so bad and I live with my family in an isolated rural area, I haven’t been able to go to any social groups, even though they said alumni can still attend. It’s hard leaving the house because the weather seems to change on a dime, so I’m stuck inside more often than not. On top of that, there’s everything that’s happening around the world right now. I genuinely don’t know what’s going to happen. I have not felt like myself in months. A big part of that is the OCD, which i really don’t think would have been as bad if it weren’t for all of these huge changes happening all at once, leaving me isolated and stuck inside. My self-esteem has been absolutely shattered. There are video games I love and want to finish that I haven’t been able to bring myself to play because I worry that if I play them while I’m still going through OCD episodes, I’ll always associate them with the anxiety and thoughts and fears, and then I’ll never be able to play them again. I love writing, and before my OCD came back, I had a story I was working on that I adored and that made me so happy, but right now, I hesitate to write anything for it because I just feel this strange sense of guilt that I don’t know how to put into words. Like I’m not worthy or good enough to write anything for it, I guess? Like I wrote all that stuff when I felt like a good person and my self-esteem was better, and because of my OCD making me feel like a horrible person, I can’t bring myself to write anything for it. There are movies I loved to watch over my last semester at college that I don’t want to watch because I guess I don’t want to ruin my last memory of them. I don’t want to look back on the last time I watched a movie I loved and remember that I watched it while I was anxious and fighting off the OCD. There are songs I can’t bring myself to listen to because I listened to them before major changes in my life. And the thing is, all of these things are still there. None of these things suddenly stopped existing. They’re still there when I want to get back to them, but I don’t feel the same as I was when I was doing these things, and it’s hard to bring myself to, when I almost feel like I’m intruding, or ruining the last memory I had of those things. I guess it’s just hard to see that this difficult part of my life does have an end to it and that things will improve, and i’ll feel like myself again. It just feels like my life will always be separated before the most recent OCD episode, and after, and that’s not what I want. And I can’t go back to my last semester at college, but I also don’t want to lose or throw away everything I used to love. Part of this could very well be nostalgia. I just miss who I used to be. I miss feeling like I was a good person who deserved nice things, I miss writing stories I love, I miss having classes and social events and a job and income. I miss my mind being safe to exist in. I miss not wishing I was anyone else. All of this might be easier to deal with except that all of this happening at the same time has left me at absolute rock bottom. I’m not sure if any of this makes any sense or if anyone has any thoughts? I think writing it all down helped a little, though. If you made it this far, thank you for reading 😊❤️ I hope whatever you’re going through gets better, and that you have a great day/night.

The things that used to make me happy? The things that used to make me sad? I don't know how to connect with those anymore. I used to be happy just looking at the sunset and nature, I loved being present in the moment but now being present in the moment is scary because now I'm faced with my thoughts and new potential ones so I'd rather distract myself. I love kballads and I used to listen to them and just cry and be happy because they sound so beautiful but now I can't embrace these things that feel like beauty because I feel like the exact opposite. The only things I can enjoy are K-drama's! But I can't watch things with kids in it. So yah that's tricky! And the things that make me sad?! Well I used to be sad and terrified about loosing my loved ones but now it's a different kind of sad. I used to be sad because of miss them and all that but now I'm scared of facing now messed up my emotions have become. I'm scared of loosing someone I love and then not being able to feel sad because I'm just numb, or even worse...if it becomes something I'm okay with or what if OCD convinces me that I'm happy about it because honestly it would be weird moving around the world with such emotions. So not only has OCD made it hard for me to enjoy the good things but also hard for me to feel sad about the sad things or just to put it short...to experience emotions normally.

Hoping to find solidarity - I’m coming out of a major OCD episode and my self-esteem definitely took a hit. I talked with my therapist about it, and she was really helpful, and it definitely seems like it could be depression, especially as it was a really rough winter where I live and it’s really only just starting to ease up. Plus it’s also late at night as I’m writing this and as they say, never trust how you feel about your life after 9PM lol - but I’m just wondering if anyone else is dealing with this. I can sit with the uncertainty and the anxiety, but my self-esteem definitely takes a hit with every intrusive thought, and it makes me feel like no one could ever love me, or like I’d be lying/faking being a good person. Just curious to hear others’ thoughts about this - if this is pretty much to be expected after a major OCD episode, if this is depression, etc. And like, for context, it was a really bad OCD episode - fears I thought I’d dealt with already came up, a lot of new fears, every day for months was really high anxiety where I was watching TV just to get through the day, and it felt like I was just holding on until my next therapy session. And all centered around one of the darker OCD themes, and I’m only just coming out of it. Like this is the second or third week where I’ve been able to sit with things that come up and let the anxiety pass, so I feel like this is probably to be expected, that now that it’s passing, there’s things I have to address, like the self-esteem and the areas of my life that got neglected while I was in survival mode. I just hope it gets better soon - I want to go back to how I was feeling last spring and summer, when OCD wasn’t bothering me as much, or it was a less-dark theme to deal with, and i felt so much better about myself 😣 Maybe it’s just a matter of getting out of the house and out of my own head, and doing things that align with my values, especially after months of feeling like a terrible person? Will this pass eventually and I’ll feel like myself again? It’s just hard to actually really think about myself and what kind of person I am - I get anxious thinking about if I’m a good person or a bad person, and I almost kind of try to avoid thinking much about myself at all. And it feels like I’m faking being a good person - like if people only knew half the thoughts and fears that came up, they wouldn’t like me anymore. And it feels like if I move on and forget about these fears that came up, I’m lying to people and to myself, but I just wish I could move on from all of this, and be who I used to be, when these thoughts and fears weren’t on my mind. If you read this far, thank you 🤗❤️ i hope things get easier for you soon and that many good things come your way. Stay safe and take care of yourself