Luke Combs has been vocal about his mental health diagnosis as someone who struggles with Anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). And with his busy lifestyle added into the mix, he has had to find a way to control the thoughts that seem to come out of nowhere.
Opened Up About His Battle With OCD And Anxiety
The country music superstar recently spent time in Australia as part of his headlining stadium tour, where he also sat down for an interview with 60 Minutes Australia. While chatting with news correspondent Adam Hegarty, Combs opened up about fatherhood, his rise to stardom, and the flare-ups he often experiences with his ongoing battle with anxiety and OCD.
Clarifying his condition, in comparison to others, Combs said that his, known as Pure O, is an obscure form of OCD that is mainly “thought-based.” But he called it a “particularly wicked variant.”
“I feel for people that struggle with, especially what I, the particular, anyone with OCD really, but the variant that I have is particularly wicked. There’s no outward manifestation of it,” he explained. “When it hits, man, it can be all-consuming in the sense of it can take, I mean, it could be, and this is, it’s not in no exaggeration, but if you have a really bad… flare-up of it, it, you could think about it 45 seconds of every minute for weeks. It’s debilitating.”
Intrusive Thoughts Take Over His Mind During Flare Ups
Combs said the intrusive thoughts that take over his mind can range from being “violent” to “thoughts about religion” to focusing “on things that don’t have an answer.”
“No one worries about two plus two is four. That’s not what we’re talking about here,” he shared. “It’s really a question about who you are as a person that you really can’t ever get an answer to.” He went on to add that other people who experience OCD can remove their thoughts by physical action, such as having an urge to flick off a light. But, for him, intrusive thoughts haunt him, and he has no other way out but to control them internally.
Describing the domino effect his disorder can have on him if it’s not properly managed, Combs said, “It’s thoughts essentially that you don’t want to have that you’re having, 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 ’em, and you’re trying to get rid of ’em. Trying to get rid of ’em makes you have more of ’em. It’s really complex and really detailed… It’s very tedious to pull yourself out of it….you have to know what to do.”
Found A Way To Escape His Thoughts, Self-Proclaimed “Expert” Of Managing His Condition
Thankfully, Combs does know what to do. He has found a way to escape his thoughts, and given that his condition has plagued him since he was 12 years old, he has become a self-proclaimed “expert” on how to manage them.
He says, “The way to get out of it is, it doesn’t matter what the thoughts even are. You give any credence to what the thoughts are is irrelevant and only fuels you, having more of them. It’s learning to just go, it doesn’t even matter what the thoughts are. 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, I hate it, drives me crazy. But, the less that you worry about why you’re having the thoughts, eventually they go away.”
Combs says he’s lucky that he’s able to pay no mind to his thoughts that tend to creep up, and shares that even when he can’t figure out a response to what’s on his mind, ultimately, “There’s never a yes or no answer. That’s what fuels the anxiety is that you can’t ever get an answer, and you desperately want an answer for whatever this thing that’s bothering you is. But learning to be like it doesn’t matter what the answer is, is the freedom of you just go,’ I don’t have to have an answer to that question.’”
Previously Opened Up About Struggles With OCD And Anxiety
This isn’t the first time that Combs has talked about his battle with OCD and anxiety. He has gone over the subject in the past, telling The Big Interview With Dan Rather that his case “comes in waves”
“It’ll be something about my health. Like I’ll be worried that I’m about to have a heart attack or a stroke, and it becomes this very obsessive thing that you literally can never have an answer to,” he said. “So that’s kind of the awful part of it.”
“It’s a broken circuit, for sure. And you being afraid of it is what perpetuates it. So the only answer to it is living with the uncertainty,” he later added during a discussion on the Joe Rogan podcast.
Want To Advocate Those Who Fall Victim To Crippling Anxiety And OCD
Now that Luke Combs can live his life without falling victim to crippling anxiety and OCD, he says he wants to lead by example and show folks that it’s possible to achieve success with or without the condition.
“I definitely want to spend some time at some point in my life doing some outreach to kids that deal with this,” he shared. “It held me back so many times in my life where you’re trying to accomplish something, and you’re doing 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.”
“When it happens now, I’m not as afraid of it…. I know I’m not going to be like this forever now….,” Luke Combs said while hoping to spread awareness. “So the message is if there’s someone out there struggling with it, it’s possible to continue to live your life and be successful and have a great family and achieve your dreams while also dealing with things that you don’t want to be dealing with. I mean, that’s something that I hope people take away from me at the end of my career, regardless of the musical success, is like, I want to be an example for those kids that don’t have any hope that you can still go on and do great things even though you’re dealing with something tough.”
