Originally Posted by
steakbake
Maybe the good thing about this thread is it might show how many people have endured similar. You're not alone and you're not on your own.
For a long period of time anxiety and depression totally paralysed my day to day life. All sorts of thing, including a time when I couldn't leave the house without ironing my clothes. I also became convinced that any time I drove, I'd knocked someone over and not realised. Things came to a head one day when I spend a full afternoon driving in circles, going back to check then becoming convinced it had happened again. I also had the headache = brain tumour, feeling under the weather = a mortal illness. It's exhausting and drains your life.
CBT was the way out but I had to persist with the doctor. First one I saw was useless. Second one I saw was tremendous.
Still get extremely anxious at times but the OCD has never been an issue again.
The drugs are a crutch, I'd say, until you can fly solo and deal with things yourself. IMHO I wished I'd got off them a lot sooner than I did.
Be brave - CBT is useful and can get you out of it. In the meantime, you can find info online about the kind of things and techniques CBT involves: mood diaries, rationalising your thoughts etc etc.