“There was a kind of relief in having your own smallness laid bare before you, and I realized something (…): Spirals grow infinitely small the farther you follow them inward, but they also grow infinitely large the farther you follow them out.”
On November 6, 2024, I started a new Instagram handle, matts.singing.project. I opened with a cryptic post explaining that I’d be uploading a clip of myself singing every day, alongside the first video, a couple verses from “Stick Season” by Noah Kahan.
I like to think I left room for this to be interpreted as a mysterious marketing scheme for, like, an album of nu-metal serialist sea shanties about turtles or whatever, but it was really more interesting than that.
This post serves as both the explainer, and a bit of context surrounding what became a fascinating bit of growth for me.
(Please note: I’ll be discussing mental illness in depth. Some may find the contents distressing, and I am not a medical professional. This is not a substitute for therapy or psychoeducation.)
Forgive me, I’m gonna do that thing where, like, you hear a record scratch over a freeze-frame, and the narrator goes, “Yep, that’s me! You might be wondering how I got here. Well, we need to take it back to the beginning. It all started when…”
I. Questions
(Black hole opened in the kitchen)
Growing up, there was very little I wasn’t capable of expressively. As soon as an idea entered my head, it existed in the tangible world outside of myself. I recently took a deep dive through my childhood hard drives, and—despite containing a level of brain rot capable of instantly atomizing a Victorian era child in even moderate health—found a lot that made me proud of (if terrified of) my childhood self. A quick selection of these projects included:
A mouse-cursor maze game, complete with themed worlds, a soundtrack, keys-and-locks, and even boss fights—programmed in fucking PowerPoint
A parody of “Moves Like Jagger” that I wrote while playing Milky White the cow in my 8th grade production of Into The Woods, titled “Moos Like Milky”
A Minecraft recreation of the GLaDOS boss fight from “Portal” made out of redstone, accompanied by a video that hit 300,000 views on YouTube (now unlisted)
The cornerstone: the YouTube channel I had with friends through middle school and high school, which often saw me dressing up and playing absurd characters in plain view of the world
But something funny started happening as I stepped into adulthood: a couple particularly bad people led me to believe that most of my being was wrong, and the culture surrounding me led me to internalize those thoughts.
I noticed over the last few years that it was worse than I’d realized. Especially following the COVID-19 pandemic, I felt frozen at the starting line of any creative impulse, like my rawest human urge to emote was clogged in the pipeline.
I know some amount of personality dampening is typical in adulthood (though that is, itself, something I try to fight against)—but this felt different, and worse. I’d start in on an idea and immediately find everything wrong with it, I’d see the mountain of work that I’ve suddenly placed in front of myself, I’d feel paralyzed in guilt for not immediately living up to it, and I spent most of my days simply ruminating.
I also lacked such a large degree of daily functioning—the thought of cooking for myself, or bathing, or doing my day job, or being available for friends/partners, or getting out of bed earlier than noon, or scheduling medical appointments; all of these were unattainable. I couldn’t tell whether these lifestyle barriers or my expressive impasse came first, or what degree of causality existed; all I knew was that this was now a downward feedback loop.
This was the sort of thing that’s only noticeable from the inside. To onlookers, I’ve been doing great. I moved to Los Angeles and started getting my name attached to major films and TV shows that most ordinary people would recognize. It’s hard to explain to most people that this side of my life feels generally easy because it’s not a creative effort on my end. Someone else is doing the expression, I just get to do the more logical & technical work, which flows way more quickly through my head these days.
The external validation made it, ironically, much harder to trust that I didn’t feel right.
II. Answers
(Every clock’s a different time)
Finally, my circumstances aligned such that I could start the slow process of understanding. By July 2023, I started seeing a psychiatrist for the first time, and in March 2024, I completed 12 clinical hours of assessment with a neuropsychologist (well beyond the normal time requirement—I’m a complex case!). A few weeks later, just before my 26th birthday, I had answers.
Among the results were a few things I fully expected by this point: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), depression, and generalized anxiety. I’m fortunate to have parents who’ve been open about mental health since I was young (much of my extended family is anxious and depressed), and I’d recently had my closest friends point out the symptoms of undiagnosed ADHD in adults that flew under the radar, the “gifted kid” I was. (Side note: Maybe the fact that, almost unanimously, my very closest friends throughout life have been neurodivergent should’ve been a sign…)
However, one new surprise made it onto the report: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
That alone was one thing; the urgency of the diagnosis was another. In the 25-page write-up the provider sent me (lmao), he remarked on the severity of my condition, telling me that he saw “a Rolls-Royce of a brain, but the tires are only spinning out, and it just can’t seem to gain traction.” He believed that more intensive treatment than simple therapy/meds was warranted.
I’d heard of OCD, we all have; I didn’t know how it might apply to me. I think we’ve all heard the “pop psychology” examples of the Howie Mandel-type germophobe, or the person who needs patterns and desk arrangements to be geometrically perfect, but I don’t associate with either. It did immediately account for the several motor and mental tics I’ve performed hundreds of times a day through my entire life, and my general strength in attention to detail, but surely that didn’t warrant a severe diagnosis?
III. Understanding
(Staring at the ceiling fan)
Sometimes, others know us better than we know ourselves, as much as we wish this wasn’t the case. I’ve gotten into some interesting philosophical conversations about this—what is the most “true” concept or essence of a person: their first-person lived experience, or the third-person perspective the rest of the world experiences in day-to-day interaction, their reputation, and their legacy after death?
Whatever your stance, I quickly understood how massive a spotlight my neuropsychologist had put on my life. It’s not normal to experience the black-and-white thinking, the life-dictating self-sabotage, or the constant spirals that I’ve experienced over the course of my life (and more noticeably in my adulthood).
An unfortunately common sentiment you’ll hear when explaining the symptoms of any disorder, including OCD, goes something like this:
“I [get sad/get bothered by imperfection/feel overwhelmed/feel like staying in/get distracted/feel insecure/worry/stress out/hated doing homework/etc.] sometimes too! That’s just a normal part of living!”
Firstly, yes, it is! And I’m sorry for every single moment any person has felt this, and always hope it gets better soon! I understand the hesitance some people feel towards accepting mental disorders in the face of increasingly many “armchair psychologists” on TikTok, who’ve gained a reputation for over-diagnosing in recent years.
This does not delegitimize a formal diagnosis, though, and OCD is not a defined symptom cluster as much as it is a blueprint for obsessive thought patterns to take any number of forms and control a person’s reality. It’s a massive spectrum, much like ADHD, autism, etc.
My symptoms have extended far beyond the creative and lifestyle issues. For the curious (and willing to be potentially disturbed), a select handful of other examples include:
24/7 rumination, replaying distressing past conversations in my head or envisioning made-up, horrible arguments with those who’ve upset me
Intrusive thoughts: Vividly envisioning harm that could come my way every day (getting pinned in a car crash, being killed in a breaking-and-entering by someone who’s mad at me, being stuck beneath rubble in the massive LA earthquake we’re overdue for, having a dentist fumble equipment while operating on me, etc.)
Entering and exiting the car as quickly as possible when visiting home, feeling a burning aversion to the thought of a neighbor seeing me and making awkward small talk
Seeking excessive reassurance in relationships, requiring tons of constant evidence that my significant others actually like me strongly enough
Avoiding people being upset with me at all costs: rarely expressing strong disagreement, over-explaining if someone is upset and I don’t believe I’m fully understood, etc.
It took no time at all to realize how deeply and consistently I’ve hampered my quality of life through patterns like this.
IV. Treatment / ERP 101
(Half a mind that keeps the other second-guessing)
After several months of waiting for the perfect conditions to exist for me to start treatment (ironic!), I finally got over myself and onboarded at an intensive outpatient program (IOP). These can look different depending on the provider; for me, it meant 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, spent in a clinic with a group of several patients and therapists.
The primary treatment modality for OCD is Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) therapy. I think a lot of people have some basic understanding of “exposure therapy” in their heads, usually something like this:
Notice that you have a particular fear
Intentionally expose yourself to the fear
Repeat until acclimated to the fear
This is a decent summary, and the above process does work for plenty of people tackling many basic types of issues. However, its simplicity runs a few risks.
When in the middle of the exposure, the person might still perform their problem behaviors. Here are some quick examples off the top of my head:
Entering a room with insects and attempting to physically avoid them, or doing nothing but tensing up and screaming internally, “I AM ABOUT TO DIE!!!” when being touched by one
Touching a dirty door handle and immediately running to wash their hands
Going to a party, meeting someone new, and defaulting to the thought, “I just fumbled that interaction and they hate me now”
Observing a symbol or number that’s considered “bad” (an upside-down cross, the number 13, etc.) and remaining vigilant and scrupulous of the negative impacts it may have on them or their loved ones
Leaving the toaster plugged in and leaving home, but then constantly checking the Ring camera to see if the house has burned down yet
These behaviors are called compulsions in our world (that’s where the C in OCD comes from!). They’re the things we do (or don’t do) to soothe ourselves and feel safe/comfortable. And they make natural sense—OCD is classified as an anxiety disorder (my mind was blown when I learned this). Our brains are just trying to protect us from physical or social harm!
But OCD brains over-correct for these perceived threats. We develop these compulsions in an attempt to feel better, but in doing them repeatedly, we accidentally train our brains to believe it’s necessary to remain safe. And doing an intentional exposure, but returning to the same compulsions in doing so, runs the risk of harming more than helping—we reinforce that feeling of necessity.
This is where the Response Prevention in ERP is crucial. The intent needs to be not simply experiencing the fear, but getting practice in resisting the problem behaviors that reinforce it.
To do this, most patients can’t (or shouldn’t) jump right into the full-blown scary scenario. With the guidance of therapists, we dissect our obsessions into hierarchies, planning exposures that start small and baby-step their way to the end goal. We get lots of repetition leaning into the anxiety at lower levels, resisting our compulsions, then work our way up as we start to habituate and feel more capable of the experience.
Revisiting the above examples, some first baby step exposures might look like:
Googling images of insects and staring at them for 10 seconds
Touching a dirty door handle and waiting 30 seconds before washing hands
Telling yourself “I might only be able to give weird first impressions” and coming to acceptance of the uncertainty
Observing a “bad” symbol/number and working on diffusing the resulting negative thoughts, or avoiding checking on loved ones
Leaving the toaster plugged in and only leaving home for 10 minutes, making a point not to check the camera during this time
Despite this graduated approach, it’s still brutal work: we are intentionally, repeatedly triggering our anxiety, and prolonging the amount of time we’re sitting in it without performing compulsions.
It’s terrifying, it’s draining, but it’s important, and it works. Our brains are literally forming new neural pathways as we learn that we can tolerate the anxiety and uncertainty better than we realize.
V. “Matt’s First Take”
…was my internal working title for my Instagram singing project.
When I admitted to the IOP, one timely example of my obsessions included a sharp aversion to people hearing me sing. I thought my voice was awful, and we all know how awkward and uncomfortable it is to sit in a room with a bad singer. I liked the physical act of singing along to my favorite artists, but could only do so in the car with the windows closed, or completely alone in a home with no shared walls or roommates. If someone heard me sing, I imagined they’d only recall this second-hand embarrassment when they think of me for the rest of time, and no attempt at redemption would erase my failure from their view of me.
So, naturally, I realized this would be an effective exposure to work on. (This is a pattern you’ll notice: As soon as I realized I was afraid of some act or condition, I understood I had to run towards it for the treatment to work.)
My first baby step was to play a recording of a song I’d written and sung for my friend’s short film. The film had premiered a couple months prior, and I received unanimously positive and supportive feedback from my friends in the audience; despite this, I still had trouble making their compliments stick, and I still couldn’t stand hearing myself. (Accepting and internalizing positive feedback was another thing I’ve struggled with.)
The other patients all had equally kind things to say, and after overcoming the hurdle of continuing to play this polished recording of my voice for people (and accepting their feedback), I was told to think through how I can get more reps on this exposure outside of program hours.
So “Matt’s First Take” was born, and the process of determining the exercise was as enlightening as the work itself. It involved several moments of noticing that some aspect of it would comfort me, thus paradoxically demanding that I do the opposite at each step.
The prospect of uploading a clip of my voice every day already had me near peak anxiety, but I noticed that the polish of playing that existing song in-clinic was a tiny bit disarming, so for this project I devised some rules to keep it unpolished (or even actively bad):
I’m only allowed one take, and that’s the take I upload. It doesn’t matter what lyrics I slip, or how pitchy my voice is, or how many bad piano notes I hit, or how uncomfortable I am watching/hearing myself.
I only get 30 minutes to learn/practice each song excerpt upon deciding what I’d sing that day. When the timer goes off, I can’t play/sing any more until I hit “record”.
Upon finishing, I have 15 minutes to upload the clip to Instagram, thus disabling the opportunity for perfectionism in post (and preventing this project from eating up my time).
So I settled on these rules and got my first first take. I immediately winced upon playback, hearing and seeing substantial flaws, and every bone in my body was demanding that I cheat just this once and give myself another take.
…at which point I knew I had to upload it.
In preparation for posting it, I also recorded a quick explainer video detailing the above rules, and wrote a caption in which I pointed out the flaws in the recording. Many musicians are asked to give themselves constructive criticism via recording at one point or another, so it would be normal to do so!
And then it hit me like a ton of dicks bricks…
The explainer and caption were, themselves, additional defense mechanisms (compulsions).
Sharing media of myself that I cringe at is one thing; not getting the chance to preemptively justify or defend it is on another level. If I’m going to upload something you might find bad, I at least want you to know that I know it’s bad, or I want the chance to explain why it’s bad so I can at least gain some empathy & understanding in the process of disappointing you.
So, the project became very meta very quickly after a couple more adjustments:
The caption would only consist of the song title & artist—absolutely no context behind the day I was having, or my physical state at the time, or acknowledgement of mistakes.
The project name including “first take” was kept internal and not publicly shared.
I deleted the explainers and instead only stated that I’d be uploading my singing every day, nothing more. For good measure, I did so through a shitty iPhone Notes screenshot with a cropped-off top and bottom, a visible cursor on screen, a spelling error, the wrong “your”, and a missing apostrophe in “its”. (This was more stressful than you’d think.)
What I found significant about this project was the way it addressed far more of my OCD themes than simply my discomfort being perceived. I realized that I was wrangling multiple things at once:
Avoidance (one of my biggest compulsions in general—simply living around my worries, not having to cope with them in the first place)
Perfectionism (for all the audience knew, what I was uploading could’ve been the very best I was capable of after extensive practice)
Control over how I’m viewed (singing is incredibly vulnerable, and it felt like I was accepting some entirely new identity as a person by doing this—”Matt who sings and might not be perfect” is someone I have far less control over in your head than “Matt who stays quiet”)
Over-explanation/justification (ineptitude is one thing; seeming unaware of my ineptitude is a way harder thing for me to stomach)
VI. Progress
(There’s something in the static)
The lived experience of carrying this project out was mind-blowing.
When I started—I cannot overstate this—I was the most terrified I’d been in years. My gut was screaming at me not to upload that first video. It’s not just basic stage fright; it’s an existential, burning desire not to be perceived.
At my clinic, we were routinely asked to rate our anxiety on a 0-7 scale, with 0 meaning “chill” and 7 meaning “near-death panic attack”. I rated the experience of doing that first take a 5.
The second day mostly followed suit, feeling like a 4. Tons of vocal cracks entered the take despite sounding much cleaner in practice, and I again had to really push myself to upload it anyway.
Something very interesting changed my course on day 3. November 8 ended up being one of the worst days I’ve had in my entire adult life for unrelated reasons. I really didn’t feel like singing, but I decided to take the opportunity to be very intentional—dare I say, expressive—with my song choice. I did the entirety of “Fire Escape” by Foster The People, a heartbroken song revolving around a feeling of alienation. I shared no context around what this meant to me on that day, as were the rules, but I felt ownership over what I was doing for the first time, and something clicked. My anxiety was down at a 1.
From there, every single day brought a new sense of accomplishment. My anxiety hovered around a 0-3 with little exception after that. I would still generally be nervous about how it’d be perceived each day, and some days I’d be disappointed in things that fell short in the recorded take, but I was getting reps; I noticed that, no matter how bad I felt, I kept living, my friends kept supporting me, and I felt more optimistic about starting over the next day.
This exercise put me back in touch with music in a really nice way, too, after years of slow burnout. Some highlights include:
Strengthening my bond with Noah Kahan’s music (bro’s my age and sings about mental illness and having a strange relationship with your hometown… made for me, frankly)
Embracing the absurd, natural swing of the music taste (I randomly broke into early-2010s crooner rock, covering Maroon 5 and Matt Nathanson, after realizing it fit me suspiciously well)
Getting to be cheeky with my selections (I covered Phoebe Bridgers’ “Halloween” on Thanksgiving; did a Brian David Gilbert song after seeing him live in LA; covered “Stop Making This Hurt” by Bleachers when I learned it was my top Spotify track of the year; did “Tequila” when I really needed to head out in a few minutes; etc.)
Beyond the selections, the exercise itself also evolved. The goal of ERP is to intentionally prolong the anxiety exposure, so once I realized this project was getting easier, I was able to gas it back up in a few ways:
One week in, I made the IG account public (it was initially private so I could control who I trusted with seeing this; it was now anybody’s game).
A couple weeks in, I shortened the practice limit to 15 minutes; this only raised my anxiety from a 0 to a 2 compared to the day prior.
Towards the end, I started getting more creative with the piano arrangements on more unique songs, even trying to trip myself up with multiple instruments.
The strangest thing started to happen: Inside the surrounding context of fear, I was starting to have fun.
VII. Arrival
(I think I’ve been having revelations)
Stepping back for a moment: a whole month before this project (and my IOP) ended, I sang a couple songs in-clinic with another patient (“Growing Sideways” and “Young Blood”, both by Noah Kahan). Giving a performance like this in a room full of people was, when I entered the program, an “end goal” level of exposure—something I didn’t think I’d be capable of until much later. Merely thinking about it made me want to step way back from the edge of the pool.
I was so impressed with myself for getting to it that quickly, which left me some time to dig further in and try to really understand what this was doing for me. There were still a handful more performance-oriented ideas that brought me right back to peak anxiety when I envisioned myself doing them: doing TikTok dances solo; doing over-the-top physical slapstick (like, rolling around on the ground, getting in peoples’ faces, etc.); acting like an enthusiastic Nickelodeon child star; broadly speaking, anything that made me cringe at myself.
And I’d already noticed how quickly I cringe when observing myself in any recording. I played some of my old childhood video projects for people, and it took everything in me not to shut it off as soon as I’d start speaking. Each video would usually end with a minute or so of teenage me giving a YouTuber-voice “hey guys! thanks for watching! remember to like and-” type of outro.
There was one video in particular where, after the sketch ended, 2012 Matt proceeded to verbally apologize for its flaws, claiming that I’d butchered the British accent and explaining that I only had a few hours to edit it. All the therapists audibly laughed alongside me as I realized—actually, quite helpfully—that these compulsions of mine run far deeper than I thought.
Finally, I had a breakthrough with my program therapist. I was detailing how I don’t even need to be seen by anyone else to feel psychic pain being a certain level of expressive; I don’t even want myself to experience it, not even if I’m completely alone in my apartment.
She asked: “Do you deal with body dysmorphia?”
I said, no, I’m generally at peace with my body type, if a little self-conscious. But she explained that it encompasses more than body type. It can include voice, mannerisms, gait, speech patterns; an existential discomfort at merely perceiving myself.
Oh, God. Those are all the things I can’t stand about myself.
Everything made sense, and we moved from there over my final couple of weeks. I did lots of my hardest exposure work around observing myself—making eye contact in the mirror, recording myself singing & dancing and watching it back, pushing myself to be as over-the-top as possible in a few performances…
And viewing my singing as objectively as possible. Assigning no value to it, positive or negative.
VIII. Finale
(Coming to in the front seat)
As I got to the end, although I’d still be nervous, I was no longer entirely inside my head. I really enjoyed a very intentional final few days of selections.
On the 4th to last day, “Paprika” by Japanese Breakfast, a song (on a Bloomington, IN label!) about the nature of performance and overcoming the perceived need for self-criticism:
On the 3rd to last day, “Not Strong Enough” by boygenius, a blatantly mental health-oriented song that puts into words much of what I’ve felt over the years:
On the 2nd to last day, “The View Between Villages” by Noah Kahan, a song about regressing to your old self when you’re in an emotionally-liminal environment, such as your hometown. I wanted to do something special with this one, so I replaced the narration about Vermont from the song’s extended version with a John Green voiceover about his strange appreciation for Indianapolis.
(Green, by the way, is the author of Turtles All the Way Down, the book that’s visible on my piano in many of the clips. It revolves around a main character with OCD who does not attain the romanticized goal of “being cured”—but learns, realistically, that she can live a fulfilling life regardless. Green is an outspoken OCD patient himself.)
Lastly, on the day I was discharged from treatment, “All Eyes On Me” by Bo Burnham. To me, the song is draped in layers of paradox and irony surrounding the superposition I’ve found myself in: Wanting, fundamentally, to be both admired and disregarded at the same time. It feels like the thesis statement for my lived experience.
IX. Ad infinitum
(Go home)
This experience—my treatment as a whole—is the most important thing I’ve ever done. On standardized psychiatric assessments for OCD, my symptoms dropped from “severe” to “mild” over the course of treatment. And I feel it.
My life’s problems aren’t resolved. I’m still terrified of many things, including everything mentioned previously. But you go to therapy for new sets of tools, not cures—the work doesn’t stop, and the work itself is what’s crucial.
My hope for anybody reading this who may feel stuck: Embrace the baby steps. I’ve come a long way in a few years but it started with, like, making it through a single phone call with a stranger without folding. Doing 10% of a good thing is better than doing nothing, unless you’re talking about antibiotics.
Please embrace the support and existential significance of friendships, and please seek professional consultation if you don’t feel right. This blog post is not medically reviewed and is not a substitute for therapy.
OCD really sucks—more than I ever gave it credit for—but treatment is effective and recovery is possible.
Other resources:
NOCD, an online treatment platform specializing in ERP