Congratulations Alex, I'm really glad to hear you're feeling better!

A combination of finding the right medication and just learning to know my own mind better and develop better management strategies worked wonders for me personally, over the course of 2007-2019 I went from not being able to leave my house to leading an almost normal life.

Getting cancer and the pandemic have unfortunately set me back quite a bit in the last year, but I'm working on rebuilding and it should be easier and faster than last time since now I've done it before.

So which medications and therapies ended up working for you if I may ask?

Thanks, curl! I'm also glad that you overcame your difficulties. Basically, I'm taking anxiolytics and I was also taking a medicine to sleep at night, but the doctor ruled it out, since I'm not having trouble to sleep anymore.

Also, another thing that helped me a lot is that I'm actually facing my fears. For example, I was nervous about the idea of going to the dentist a couple of months ago. So, instead of fleeing it, I actually made an appointment and everything went the best way possible. Well, the days before it were a bit longer than usual, but now I'm free of that fear.

I'm also enjoying myself more. When I was at my mental limit in 2017, I would avoid even playing video-games. I'm going to be honest with you, back in those days I would boot up my favorite games and play them for like 5-10 minutes before giving up. Now, if I want to play a game, I play it for the time I really want.

Trivial things like watching a movie you like, playing games alone or with friends, having a nice walk, studying, every little thing helps.

Now I'm going to tell you something I learned with my experiences: Laying down in your bed and thinking about how bad your future can be destroys you. It's like a curse, but inside your mind.

Yeah getting out there and facing my fears worked for me too, I just had to make sure I did it in a gradual and controlled way so as not to overwhelm myself and slip backwards.

And yeah, self-care with stuff like movies, gaming, exercise, are essential for me, I try to use "rewards" to motivate myself and as relief when I'm having a rough day. I can always look forward to sitting down and playing games in the evening after work for example, or if I have an anxiety incident I'll watch a meditation/ASMR video or maybe just game games reviews or Digital Foundry or something.

I'm also seeing a psychologist; unfortunately they're pretty heavily booked atm for obvious reasons, but my next is halfway through next month, so I just gotta make it through the next 5 weeks without losing my shit haha.

To me it sounds more like hypochondria than OCD

Saying that, no matter what it is, glad you seem to getting on top of it.

There's significant overlap between the two; OCD generally manifests as intrusive unpleasant thoughts usually with a theme, in the case of myself illness and death. As such, hypochondria is a symptom of the OCD in the same way that a fever might be a symptom of influenza.

OCD is a terrible debilitating condition that makes life very difficult for a sufferer of that condition.
OCD being labelled as hypochondria is ignorance and insensitive towards the sufferers of OCD.
We need less ignorance and more support towards OCD and other disabilities.

I do have OCD so I know what it is like.

I also have a friend with hypochondria. What the OP described, personally I would classify as such based on how my friend acts. Both are serious disorders that impact a person's quality of life and therefore no less ignorant and insensitive one way or another.

So anyone who can learn to cope with either has done a fantastic job.

The thing with OCD is it often occurs in conjunction with other conditions; 76% of OCD sufferers also have an anxiety disorder, 63% have a mood disorder, (most commonly depression, at 40%) and 39% have a substance abuse problem.

https://www.cureus.com/articles/38400-psychiatric-comorbidities-and-the-risk-of-suicide-in-obsessive-compulsive-and-body-dysmorphic-disorder#:~:text=The%20most%20common%20comorbid%20disorder,)%2038.6%20%25%20%5B7%5D.

Well, that's not my case, fortunately. I've never used any substance in my life (unless medication counts).

Seriously, in fact, I dislike alcohol, and never had a smoke, even in my worst days. I don't think that is the solution.

I'm glad to hear that. I don't have a substance abuse issue myself either, but I do have an anxiety disorder and have had depression in the past.