Everything Freezing

Good Morning!

What are my best options at this point?

First, don't update the OS expecting to fix issues like you report. It could complicate things.

Second, if you are using any external drives, temporarily disconnect them and test after a restart. I've seen post here lately with similar symptoms to yours where a cheapo USB portable drive clobbered performance until removed.

Finally I recommend posting a system configuration report to show us RAM usage, drive perforamnce, potentil software interferences, etc. Fortunately there is a safe, secure way to do that without our playing a protracted game of "20 Questions" with you that could go on for days.

We can quickly and within the confines of these forums help you determine what issues are at play if you use EtreCheck Pro, available here:

https://etrecheck.com/index

The free version will do nicely for this purpose, although the app is worthy of our financial support.

It is the only way in a forum setting where we can see hard data about drive performance, software conflicts, and RAM usage. Etrecheck is the development of a long-serving and trusted contributor here expressly for displaying information in these forums to help us help you. It will not reveal any personal or secure information.

Please see this excellent user tip on posting long text reports like EtreCheck's:

How to use the Add Text Feature When Post… - Apple Community

Uninstall the VPN, even though you are not using it if it is installed, it could be creating problems.

I also suspect the HD portion of your Fusion Drive may be failing. I would recommend running a DriveDX report on the HD. DO NOT run the report on the Fusion Drive or the SSD, only the HD! If ANY errors appear that confirms the HD is failing.

It could be your HDD failing.

Using disk utility , repair permissions and repair disk

That might take a while, so best to do it from either installation process or target mode.

You can also check out some icloud syncing that you don't need. In my experience, that could lighten the process.

I never used Malware on my mac, never had a virus. And these "malware spy" can slow down your mac...

I'd uninstall the VPN for a start.

Tell us more about the connected drives, I also suspect iDrive & the shopping Apps to cause at least intermittent problems, but worst of all likely...

Unless you're using a true VPN tunnel, such as between you and your employer's, school's or bank's servers, they are not very secure from a privacy standpoint. Read these two articles: Public VPN's are anything but private and Former Malware Distributor Kape Technologies Now Owns ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, Private Internet Access, Zenmate, and a Collection of VPN “Review” Websites.