This is an exposure

...in the form of AI generated editorial cartoon art

OCD is a nasty companion to have inside your consciousness. For me it involves spending a lot of my waking hours organizing my time so that I’m less likely to encounter exposures to topics and situations that are very likely to send me into an OCD spiral, a truly paralyzing and frightening experience that interrupts and disrupts whatever I was previously doing. At the same time, an important element of therapy, or treatment, for OCD is working with a therapist as a kind of guide who helps you design and attempt intentional exposures. You start small and as you build your ability to tolerate the intense discomfort of your OCD reactions to the exposures, you plot your next, more challenging exposure.

What does progress look like? For me it looks like this: on January 1, 2025, I couldn’t work at all, I was so afraid of leaving the house that I rarely ran errands, I couldn’t take part in social gatherings and I spent a lot of hours in my bedroom. I couldn’t read, watch or listen to any news or any commentary regarding current politics because they were such intense OCD triggers.

On June 13, 2025, I am working 20 hours a week though my work responsibillities have changed (I no longer serve as Israel Affairs Specialist at Reconstructing Judaism and my responsibilities are limited to areas in which I develop resources and provide consultation to congregations on topics that aren’t enmeshed in my OCD). I still get anxious running errands and leaving the house, but most days I’m able to do it. I still don’t read, watch or listen to any news or political commentary. But, I have done intentional exposures in which I have read about issues adjacent to current political issues, and in which I have written about that research.

Very recently I’ve started taking another step with exposures. I have started using generative AI platforms like Sora to create editorial cartoons that express feelings and opinions about some of the political crises of the moment. This is a big step for me and I don’t know if it will be too destabilizing to continue. But here I am.

You’re welcome to do anything you like with those examples that I share on this platform. As always, I appreciate the support of folks who’ve been reading about my OCD experiences in this blog.

Here’s a series of cartoons I put together using Sora:

I also prompted Sora and then did some editing to end up with this one: