[Celyn]

Sorry to hear the anxiety is ruling your life. It's awful when everything you do or don't do is out of anxiety.

It's good that you are in therapy. Have you mentioned to your therapist that you struggle to identify thoughts? I understand that with CBT, the focus is on looking at your thought patterns and trying to change them, but I also know from personal experience that sometimes you may just feel anxious and not really be able to identify thoughts. What helps me is to visualise myself taking steps to do whatever makes me anxious and see if there are any times I notice feeling more anxious as I visualise it. That gives me a clue as to what I'm really anxious about.

As for medication, that's up to you and your psychiatrist. For some people, medication can help them to feel less anxious, and be able to take part in therapy like graded exposure (facing your fears).

I'm not a professional, but from my own personal experience, I have found that accepting fears and working on facing them at your own pace can be helpful. If we belittle ourselves and feel bad for having these fears, we end up feeling worse. So accepting them without judging ourselves for having these fears can help.

Facing fears can be difficult, more so if you are anxious about many different things. It can help to think about which fears impact you the most on your day to day life and work on them first. The way that you work on facing your fears is by breaking it down into little steps (and is best to work this out with your therapist). For example, I was afraid of the vacuum cleaner. Irrational, I know. But anytime I had to use it, all I could feel was anxiety and so I just avoided using it. But I need to use it. So I would start off really small, and simply have the vacuum cleaner in the room with me, unplugged. If I was okay with that, then I would 'pretend' I was using it, still unplugged, just to get used to the feel of it. If I was okay with that, I would plug it in. I didn't break down the steps enough and wanted to use it but was still feeling physically anxious. I realised it was the noise that was bothering me. So my next step was to listen to vacuum cleaner noises online to try to get used to it. I still couldn't switch it on, so I would ask someone to do it. When the cleaner was on, I told myself that I didn't have to do anything just stay there. I then managed to vacuum a little bit, and would do a bit more, if I felt up to it. Several times I had to get someone to switch it on for me in order for me to use it, but that's okay. Eventually I did manage to feel comfortable enough to switch the cleaner on myself and with regular practice, I either only feel a little anxious or no anxiety at all. It took months to do this. Exposure therapy is pretty similar and you don't have to move on to the next step until you feel comfortable with the step you are on, so it really is done at your own pace. I'm not sure if that would help you but it may be worth looking into. Your life shouldn't be ruled by anxiety.

With OCD, I understand it may be a bit different, but it can still help to notice when you feel anxious and stay with the feeling, not avoiding whatever might be causing the anxiety or self-harming. With time, you'll realise that nothing bad is going to happen for doing the things that can create feelings of anxiety for you.