Country superstar Luke Combs opened up about his experience living with purely obsessional obsessive-compulsive disorder, informally known as pure O, in a recent interview with “60 Minutes Australia.”
Combs, 35, has struggled with the condition since he was 12 years old. He experienced his “worst flare-up” of mental compulsions in years while in Australia on tour in January and described how this subset of OCD affects him.
“It’s thoughts, essentially, that you don’t want to have,” he explained last month. “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.”
The singer and songwriter described the condition as “particularly wicked,” as his intrusive thoughts are sometimes violent.
“I just have to accept that they’re happening and then just go, ‘Whatever, dude. It’s happening. It’s whatever,’” he said. “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.”
After more than two decades of managing the condition, Combs has learned how to navigate its challenges. He considers himself “lucky” to be an “expert” in getting through episodes, but acknowledged how overwhelming they can be.
“When it hits, man, it can be all-consuming,” Combs said. “If you have a flare-up of it … you could think about it 45 seconds of every minute for weeks.”
Looking ahead, Combs is no longer afraid of his condition and hopes to use his platform to support others facing similar struggles.
“I definitely want to spend some time at some point in my life doing some outreach to kids that deal with this,” he said. “Because 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.”
Despite the challenges, Combs wants others to know that the condition does not have to define them.
“The message is if there’s someone out there that’s struggling with it, it’s possible to continue to live your life, and be really successful, and have a great family, and achieve your dreams, while also dealing with things that you don’t want to be dealing with.”
