Is using AI exclusively as a brainstorming tool cheating?

I have a story I've been trying to work on for a while, but I have trouble thinking clearly enough to properly plan things out. I have severe brain fog, to the point that even when I can force myself to sit at my desk and open my document, I just can't get the words to come in the first place.

To that end, I've been using ChatGPT as a tool to bounce ideas off of. I very specifically do not use it to write the story for me. I don't even use it to ask for plot details or how to resolve a dilemma I'm facing; those are the things I want to come up with myself. All I use it for is to ask me questions to help me develop the characters and the setting. In the instructions, I directly told it not to give me any suggestions, and to not write anything for me, but only to ask me follow-up questions based on what I tell it. It helps me to get the ball rolling on my writing and to find what I'm trying to say in the brain fog.

But even with those constraints, I'm still not sure if that's "acceptable." I'm not sure what criteria I'm defining that by, given that I make it a point not to care about other people's rules in my writing, but that's somehow still how it feels. I try to brainstorm these things myself, or search online for stuff to help manually, but nothing works. It seems that the main factor here is the conversation aspect of it; I've gotten similar results when I brainstorm with friends or online communities for suggestions. The problem there is that I don't have many people to do so with, and I don't want to keep pestering them with my ideas all the time. And I've tried talking out loud to myself or to a "rubber duck," but that doesn't work, I need responses. ChatGPT is the only solution I've found, but that brings up the current dilemma.

Does anyone have any thoughts or feelings on the matter? Or reasons to swing one way or the other? I mostly just needed to say this somewhere, but I am open to input.