Currently, I'm suffering night time anxiety and Pure-O thoughts / anticipatory anxiety in the morning. It happens every day.

There was brief period (a week or 2) when I couldn't function but was able to go back to being functional without medication. When I say functional, maybe I'm 70% okay. I can do my day to day tasks, have some motivation, and can genuinely feel happy moments within the day.

The thing is, because of the nature of intrusive thoughts, every time I would feel happy, the intrusive thought would come and would bring my mood down. It happens every day and it greatly affects my quality of life. My intrusive thought is irrational but due to OCD, it won't shut up.

It's like whenever I'm happy, my brain would tell me, "Nope, you're not happy. Remember you have this problem? Solve that first. Then, you could say you're happy." However, the problem is unsolvable because it's irrational in the first place.

Of course, I'd prefer this rather than the hellish week of terror and panic. But I'm still not back to my old self. Living life, like I have a major concern every day is not a good way to live (for me). It's tiring. Is this enough reason to take medication, if it would help?

I'm seeing a pdoc soon but I just like to get your opinion on what level of anxiety requires medication? Do you take medication (most likely SSRIs rather than anti-anx) to help with chronic anxiety like this? Or only when your anxiety is really high?