Luke Combs has opened up about his “particularly wicked” battle with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
Combs revealed in an interview with 60 Minutes Australia that he suffers from purely obsessional OCD, also known as Pure O, a form of OCD that manifests internally with intrusive thoughts rather than outward rituals.
“It’s thoughts, essentially, that you don’t want to have,” he shared. “And then they cause you stress, and then you’re stressed out, and then the stress causes you to have more of the thoughts, and then you don’t understand why you’re having them, and you’re trying to get rid of them, but trying to get rid of them makes you have more of them.”
Combs explained that he started experiencing symptoms when he was around 12 years old, and his obsessive thoughts ranged from disturbing violent images to existential concerns about his identity.
Revealing the impact on his life, he continued, “It held me back so many times in my life, where you’re trying to accomplish something, you’re doing really great and then you have a flare-up and it just ruins your whole life for six months… and then you’re back to where you started.”
He suffered a particularly difficult flare-up in January but is now better at coping with the symptoms.
“I just have to accept that they’re happening and then just go, ‘Whatever, dude. It’s happening. It’s whatever.’ It’s weird, sucks, hate it, drives me crazy, but… the less that you worry about why you’re having the thoughts, eventually they go away,” he said.
Luke Combs hopes his story helps others with the mental health condition to realise that “it’s possible to continue to live your life, and be really successful, and have a great family, and achieve your dreams”.
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