Not surprised

Honesty, I don’t know if this is going to help more or not. Part of me doesn’t want to let go of my ocd tendencies. I don’t want to stop counting, organizing, cleaning, obsessing. It scares me.

I’m temping right now, which is good because I don’t feel pressure. But today, I was asked if I was interested In permanent position. Boy my OCD just shot up.

for the last several months, OCD has had an absolute chokehold on my career as a self employed artist. Just constant new subtypes and intrusive thoughts popping up one right after the other, all boiling down to the fear of me potentially losing my career. I'm not currently in therapy (nOCD does not take my insurance) but currently waiting to hear back from a therapist and OCD specialist while taking advice from OCD resources in the meantime. I've been doing everything I possibly can to keep my life going and working through my OCD, but it is so exhausting. I'll be working on a project and when intrusive thoughts pop into my head, I do my best to do some self ERP and tell myself the usual "well, maybe!", or "oh well!" ect, ect. but the anxiety will still linger and i will experience such extreme anxiety symptoms like sweating, dizziness, disassociation, and nausea to the point i will start gagging while I'm still trying to get my work done. It's become physically debilitating to deal with, it takes so much longer for me to finish work, and I don't even enjoy what I've created once it's done. I decided in a few weeks I'm going to take a short hiatus from my art account, so I can take a break from having to deal with the constant physical symptoms ontop of dealing with social media/algorithms which have also been frustrating me. I even plan to wipe my page so I can come back to a clean slate when I decide I'm ready to post again. But now my OCD has taken a hold of me wanting to take a step back. 'What if you don't recover when you come back?' 'What are you hiding/running from?' 'Maybe OCD is just telling you to take a break?' I am so tired lol. I don't know what the right choice is for me right now. But I do want to take a step back from work to work on my mental and physical health. So I think I'm at least going to listen to what my body and brain needs. if anyone has some advice or words of encouragement (not reassurance) pleaaase drop it here bc I'm gunna need it!!