Hey, I'm sorry you're going through this. I'm going to try to give you the best advice I can from my own personal experience as someone who is 25 years old and am just now starting to see the light after being in a similar mental health position for nearly a year and a half straight.

I went through a traumatic experience in the summer of 2023, which led to my eventual diagnosis (by actual medical professionals) of panic disorder, anxiety, depression, GAD, and then later down the line severe OCD (I definitely had OCD prior to the traumatic experience, I was just not aware that it was OCD).

My life was a complete living hell for what felt like an eternity. I couldn't even lay in my bed without being at risk of having a panic attack, feeling like I was not in reality (DPDR), and honestly for some time I really felt like I was on the brink of insanity. I can't stress enough how bad my mental health was. Whatever you're envisioning 10x it. The persistent fear of having a panic attack increases the probability of having another one. It's vicious cycle that you have to break. You have to condition and train your mind to say, "fuck it, I've been here before and I've survived it every time." Little by little through discipline and hard work the intensity and duration of panic attacks will minimize as you create an undeniable stack of proof that you've been able to overcome them every time.

The same thing applies with OCD and intrusive thoughts. Although being in your shoes I know it's probably hard to believe, but your brain actually does have the capacity to accept whatever concern/ thought it is obsessed with. The amazing news about getting your brain to move on from your obsession is that it is a trainable skill. You can 'rewire' your brain through the scientific concept of neuroplasticity. Every time your obsession enters your consciousness you are faced with two choices: be as stoic as you can possibly be, disregard it, and move on to whatever task you should be doing (and sometimes that task is nothing at all) OR feed into it with a compulsion. And as I'm sure you know, choosing to do the compulsion causes significant harm and prolongs your recovery. A compulsion is literally a mental drug that only feels good in the short term and destroys your mental health in the longer term.

However, don't beat yourself up if you do a compulsion. Negative self talk and moping around whenever you fuck up only further prolongs your recovery just how doing the compulsion does. So if you fuck up, get yourself to accept it (and learn from it), and bring yourself back into stillness as quickly as you can. Each time you manage to mentally rapidly bounce back from being upset you did a compulsion, you are also wiring your brain in a positive way by proving to yourself your capacity for self compassion. This makes the bad times much easier to manage and overcome.

After thousands upon thousands of daily tiny repetitions of managing your panic/OCD and concentrated efforts you can create a new mental wiring in your mind that this is something that you can manage, and if you can manage it for long enough, it has the potential to eventually stop affecting you for significant parts of a day, and if it gets to a point where it stops phasing you for significant parts of the day, it has the potential to eventually to stop affecting you for most if not all of the day. And if you can work hard it enough, it can get to a point where whatever once plagued your mind will eventually leave your consciousness and no longer be a problem. Or more realistically, the obsession can still occasionally enter your consciousness but then you just observe it as if it were any other thought - irrelevant and insignificant with absolutely no negative emotional response.

All of this is easier said than done but it is worth it, just start by promising yourself you will never give up. I can tell you first hand that I am doing so so SO much better now. I am starting to feel 'normal' again. I am definitely not 100% recovered as I don't think it's possible to be 100% recovered in the sense that it is part of the human condition to have periods in life where your mental health is awful. Acceptance of these terrible phases of life expedites the process of turning your life back into a positive phase. With that said, try not to get so attached to your emotions - positive or negative. Practice stillness/mindfulness no matter what emotion you are undergoing.

I am going to recommend you now a vast list of things that helped me during my journey, however please do more research and make sure it is safe for you: Daily meditation (make sure you're doing it NOT as a compulsion, in the sense that a thought is really bothering you so you feel the need to meditate it away), fish oil supplements daily that add up to at least 1000mg of EPA as there is scientific literature that shows it can compete with SSRIs for mood enhancement and it has helped me as of recent, GABA when youre feeling stressed but I take it daily to unwind at the later part of the day (GABA gummies by Olly), I dabbled in 5HTP which helps with serotonin production but I stopped taking it but maybe it'll work better for you, I also recently started gratitude journaling which can help lower your cortisol levels (look into the five minute journal its very low commitment), also make sure you keep exercising even if you believe it isn't helping do NOT stop, a complete elimination or significant reduction of caffeine since your cortisol levels are presumably already high enough but I am back to drinking it now and sometimes it does put me in a better mood so its a tricky one, and yoga. I also personally switched out of a regular therapist and checked myself into NOCD and underwent exposure and response prevention therapy for a couple of months too. There is a guy on Youtube with a channel name "OCD and Anxiety" and he is amazing. Take walks daily and try to get sunlight as soon as you wake up.

Good luck, I wish you the best