1 Month officially with OCD

My advice is to be gentle and patient with yourself. Living with OCD is hard. Tackling it with ERP is also very hard. You are working on rewiring your brain. Tell your therapist about your fears about dying, if you haven’t already. You don’t have to have all the answers right now. Take things slow, and go day by day. Find small moments to do what you like. Listening to a favorite song? Driving alone? A few minutes of alone time? An episode of a TV show? Create time for yourself when you can. Don’t guilt yourself over your content creation. You’re doing the best you can right now while you’re working through hard things in therapy. Something that helps me get out of my head is, when I go to bed, reflecting on what went well in my day, or what I’m proud of. Could be small things, or big things. Could be I brushed my teeth before bed, or I heard kind words from someone at work, I had a really good cookie, etc. Overall, be nice to yourself. You got this.

Glad your ERP is going well! These are my struggles too. I am glad that I could at least explain to people I trust what is happening with me because I felt guilt & shame for avoiding things because of OCD. But in my job I still show up and do my best even when I am struggling because that’s what I have always done. I am going to think on this too. Thanks for exploring it here.

I'm am just really sad and need someone to talk to

I felt similarly. I used to create content too. What I use in those moments is recalling or reflecting on how I felt about existential things before OCD. I remember it didn’t bother me as much. I don’t enjoy thinking about the subject but it didn’t nag at me. That’s how I know it’s my anxiety latching in trying to solve something. Similarly, with feeling guilt about making content and not feeling as happy as you seem. That’s probably checking if some sort. It’s okay to show up to things like our jobs and ‘act as if’ we are okay when we have a bad day. It can even help. Some days I just act as if I don’t have anxiety or ocd. Those are the best days usually.