Luke Combs Reveals OCD Disorder On Australian TV
While Luke Combs was in Australia to play shows recently, he sat down with 60 Minutes Australia and shared details of his bouts of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder).
Luke said in the interview, “I do really well with it for the most part. It’s something I think about in some part every day.”
The country star said he has an “obscure” form of OCD and suffered probably his worst flare-up leading into his recent trip to Australia and in his initial time there.
Combs explained, “It’s thoughts, essentially, that you don’t want to have. 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.”
Luke said his thought patterns were “really complex” and “really detailed.” He said he had become “an expert” on how to manage flare-ups.
RELATED: 5 All-Time Kings Of Country Music
He noted that he started having OCD around 12 or 13 years old. He added that he has dealt with intrusive thoughts on stage, thinking about it “45 seconds of every minute and thinking about it for weeks.”
Combs continued, saying, “I think the craziness of the particular disorder that I have is… the way to get out of it, it doesn’t matter what the thoughts even are. You giving any credence to what the thoughts are is irrelevant and only fuels you having them. It’s learning to go, ‘It doesn’t even matter what the thoughts are.’ The less that you worry about having the thoughts, eventually they go away.”
Luke wants to help kids with the same disorder, saying, “I definitely want to spend some time at some point in my life doing some outreach for kids who deal with this. 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 ruins your life for six months.”
Combs says he now has the tools to not be as afraid of the disorder. His message to others dealing with the disorder is: “It’s possible to live your life and be really successful” with OCD.
