Luke Combs opens up on 'scary' reality of OCD: 'You're having this battle with yourself'
Moderator - Tomas Kauer 
Country music star Luke Combs has opened up about the reality of living with obsessive-compulsive disorder, sharing how the condition can leave him feeling "mentally exhausted."
Speaking on the On Purpose with Jay Shetty podcast, hosted by Shetty, 38, the multi-platinum artist offered an insight into how the disorder affects his day-to-day life - and the tools he has learned to manage it.
Combs previously explained he experiences Pure O, short for purely obsessional obsessive-compulsive disorder, a form of OCD that centres on intrusive thoughts rather than repetitive physical behaviours.
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While many people associate OCD with visible compulsions like checking or counting, Pure O manifests internally. Instead of physical rituals, sufferers encounter persistent and distressing thoughts that loop continuously in the mind.
Those thoughts, often described as "rumination," can revolve around a specific worry, question or fear that the brain struggles to resolve.
For Combs, 36, the mental cycle can feel relentless.
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"From opening your eyes to closing them at night, you're thinking about this thing, and it's causing you a tremendous amount of anxiety and mental anguish to try and find the answer to this unanswerable question," he admitted.
"It's scary."
The singer explained his OCD often operates through changing "themes" - meaning his mind fixates on one type of fear or scenario at a time.
"Let's say I was having intrusive thoughts about committing violence against someone or something, and they're causing me all this stress, and I'm like, 'What does that mean about me? What does that say about me?'
"And then if my theme were to switch the next day, I'm like, 'What if I was a schizophrenic and I didn't know it?' And you're completely panicked, and you're all consumed by that."
Although those thoughts can dominate his mind for weeks or months, Combs said they can also suddenly disappear, leaving him wondering why the worry ever felt so overwhelming in the first place.
"You're like, 'That was so stupid. Why did I waste three months of my life stressing about that thing?' But when you're in it, you don't have the capability to turn it off," he revealed to Shetty.
"Your brain's just constantly bombarding you with these life-or-death feelings of, 'You need to address this issue. It's a big issue and it has to be addressed right now.' You're almost in fight or flight mode all the time, and it's just exhausting. You get so mentally exhausted having this battle with yourself."
Despite the challenges, Combs said his experience has helped him better understand his own mind.
Over time, he has learned techniques that help him recognise when intrusive thoughts are tied to OCD and how to manage them when they arise.
He said having faced some of his lowest moments mentally has given him perspective.
"I know what bad is. I've been to the bottom in here," Combs said, gesturing to his head. "I'm not there. I still have the proclivity to go there if certain things line up and I were to have an OCD moment. But those moments are few and far between, and they're a lot shorter-lived than they used to be."
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"And I'm not afraid of those moments anymore," the country star added.
Combs has long been open about his mental health, previously sharing how he suffered symptoms of OCD from a young age and has continued to work through them as his career grew.
The Fast Car singer is currently gearing up for the release of his next album, The Way I Am, due out on March 20.
Two songs from the upcoming record are already climbing the charts, with Combs achieving the rare feat of landing two tracks in the top 10 of the Billboard Country Airplay chart. Sleepless in a Hotel Room sits at No. 10, while Days Like These is at No. 8.
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