Finally getting my life turned around at 37...feeling DEEP regrets about wasted time. What strategies should I use to move forward?

So, I've had horrible OCD for years. So bad I basically lost 13 years of my life hiding from the world. I could barely work. I didn't know how to pursue my goals. I wanted to exit this plane of existence every day for most of those years, and that depression kept me locked in a state of no progress financially, personally, romantically, creatively.

After a particularly bad bought of anxiety, I decided I needed to completely overhaul my life. I stopped drinking. I started going to the gym religiously. I got my diet and microbiome as healthy as possible. After over a year of work, I went from barely being able to leave my house to being able to go out and be part of the world.

What is happening now, being in a state that almost seems like normalcy, is that I am DEEPLY regretting my wasted time. If I had wasted 1-3 years, that would be one thing...but 13? 13 years? I literally threw away my PRIME years as a man, and I never once thought about the harm I was causing myself. I never once thought about how I may be able to get out of the depression and anxiety. The entire time I just wanted my consciousness to end, and I only managed to go from one day to the other. That was all I could do.

I passed up the chance to pursue a music career. I passed up multiple chances to date amazing women who really liked me. Not one of my gifts did I use to better myself or provide the world with anything useful. All of the good things I COULD have done for my family, my friends, myself, the world...and I did nothing at all. There is just a void of over a decade of wasted time, staring back at me, threatening to swallow my whole, and I absolutely cannot for the life of me understand why it took this long for me to get to the light at the end of the tunnel. I don't understand how I never once valued myself to any level. How could I have been so utterly blind about myself and my potential?

OCD stole SO much from me. I kept thinking that if only I could beat it into submission and take control of my life, that I could one day be able to enjoy life, but what I am finding now is that the obsessive fear and anxiety that used to be focused on my standard OCD themes is now focused on what are - I guess - new OCD themes related to regret of wasting my youth and not embracing all that life had to offer, and of being such an utter coward and lazy self-loathing POS.

Has anyone else gotten significantly better from this condition, only to be stricken with horrific levels of regret over wasted time and potential? On some levels, I should probably be proud of myself for being able to wrestle out of such a crippling level of OCD, but I feel no pride whatsoever; no, in the wake of my recognition of my value as a human being, I apply that new standard of awareness of myself and my newfound functionality in the world to my old self, and I feel absolute disgust that I was so weak and so pathetic and so wasteful. The man I used to be makes me feel great shame. That man robbed me of the best years of my life. Of being young and attractive. Of being a performer. Of making a career doing something I was good at and that I loved.. Of having wild sex in a loving relationship. Of travelling the world and seeing awesome things.

The OCD version of myself literally shut the door on my best years and never batted an eye. It is almost as though that man I used to be only went away when sufficient damage had already been done; when enough time had been stolen from me. Now that I am getting older, that dysfunctional version of myself seemed easy to make go away. Why couldn't I have gotten rid of him in my early 20s, when it mattered most? How could I have been so stupid?

Anyways, if anyone is reading this and they are in their 20s...for the love of all that is sacred, PLEASE do everything you can to get in touch with yourself and what you genuinely want and value out of life. Do NOT live as I did if you can avoid it. FIGHT for your freedom. Don't end up like me. I am in a state where I may always wonder what my life COULD have been if only I had found the courage to fight this disorder earlier. Don't be a coward. Find your courage and resolution and get this horrible condition under control. You don't want to allow the nihilism that can result in the face of unmitigated anxiety to hold you in stasis long enough for a large swath of your best years to be stolen from you. Work on yourself every day. You CAN get better. If I can, you can.

If anyone here has gotten better from this condition in a later age, I'd love to read about your strategies for moving forward in the face of wasted time.

Thanks for reading that.