Luke Combs spoke candidly about his battle with obsessive compulsive disorder, explaining the ways it’s affected him since he was diagnosed at age 21.
The country superstar, 35, spoke about his mental health during the Monday, August 18, episode of Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast. Combs explained that he suffers from “Pure O” OCD — or “purely obsessional” OCD — which he said means that he doesn’t display any “outward compulsions,” like repetitive behavior. (“Pure O” OCD is not a separate diagnosis in the DSM-5, though it has become a recognized type of OCD.)
“The behaviors are all mental,” he told Shepard, 50. “Mental rituals.”
Combs described his symptoms as causing him to think the same thoughts over and over again while also seeking reassurance that the intrusive thoughts aren’t accurate.
“There’s a lot of themes that are very recurrent for people that have this. Religion is one,” he explained. “It essentially preys on the antithesis of who you are at your core, but it focuses on questions that are unanswerable. Which is like, ‘Do I really love God? Do I really believe in God?’ And then you spend over 90 percent of your day thinking about that. And that can happen for months on end.”
He added, “It’s like a bird flying by. You just go, ‘Oh, there’s a bird,’ and then you’re like, ‘What was that bird? Why did that bird fly by?’ And then the more you wonder why the flew by, the more it starts flying by. Your brain’s like, ‘I need to send that thought again, because you’re worried about it and you being worried about it must mean something.’ Really, it doesn’t mean anything. Then the more you think about it, the more it starts showing up.”
When Shepard asked whether there were any times the obsessive thoughts helped Combs succeed in the high-stress world of country music, the “Back in the Saddle” singer was quick to note that he’s never seen the condition as beneficial.
“There’s no good parts of it other than when you don’t have it,” he said. “I would say definitely the course of my life has been dictated by that at certain times.”
Combs went on to recall that he started going to therapy when he was in high school, at which point his doctor told him he had generalized anxiety disorder. It wasn’t until a few years later that he received his OCD diagnosis.
Asked about which treatments have helped, Combs said he still goes to therapy. He also credited dietary changes with alleviating some of the symptoms, adding that he’s stopped eating gluten.
The CMA Award winner noted that his kids have helped as well, because they force him to get out of his own head. Combs shares sons Tex, 3, and Beau, 2, with wife Nicole Hocking, whom he wed in 2020.
“I’m lucky to get to spend three or four days a week at home with the kids when I’m not on the road,” he told Taste of Country last year when talking about fatherhood. “We play two nights a week, and so the rest of the days I’m home with them. I’ll play some shows, and come home and … make breakfast and lunches and naps and diapers and … it’s cool.”
