Over the past several years, Luke Combs has established himself as one of the most high-profile and successful country music artists on the planet, and it sounds like he overcame some serious hurdles to get to that point.
Combs, who recently made history as the first country music headliner in the history of the Lollapalooza Music Festival in Chicago, recently opened up about a health diagnosis that he has dealt with for most of his adult life.
During a guest appearance on Dax Shepard’s “Armchair Expert” podcast, the 35-year-old country music star revealed that he has dealt with obsessive-compulsive disorder since his diagnosis at age 21.
Luke Combs Shares His Diagnosis
During the recent podcast appearance, Combs shared that he was diagnosed with “Pure O” or “purely obsessional” OCD, which he said means that he doesn’t display any “outward compulsions.”
Unlike most people who deal with OCD, Combs claims that he does not have any physical compulsions. Combs explains that his compulsions are purely mental with his symptoms causing him to think the same thoughts repetitively.
“There’s a lot of themes that are very recurrent for people that have this,” Combs said on the podcast. “Religion is one. 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.
“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.”
Combs Thrived Despite This Diagnosis
Combsexplained on the podcast that there are no “good parts” of his disorder, adding that “definitely the course of my life has been dictated by that at certain times.”
Despite these struggles, which have obviously made it difficult for him as an artist and a songwriter, Combs has thrived, becoming one of the most successful country music artists on the planet in recent years.
Combs won three Country Music Album of the Year awards for his hit album What You See Is What You Get back in 2020, and has won multiple Country Music Artist of the Year awards throughout his career.
Clearly, Combs has not let his diagnosis slow him down.
