Luke Combs is opening up about his battle with obsessive-compulsive disorder, aiming to encourage others who face similar challenges.

“I do really well with it for the most part. It’s something in at least some way I think about every day,” Combs said to  “60 Minutes Australia” in an interview.

The popular country music superstar is known for his powerful voice and chart-topping hits like Beautiful Crazy and Forever After All. Rising to fame with his debut album This One’s for You, he has become one of the genre’s most successful artists, earning multiple awards and a dedicated fan base.

Combs talked about how his OCD presents. “It’s thoughts, essentially, that you don’t want to have… 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.”

He continued, “It’s really tedious to pull yourself out of it. It takes a lot of… you have to know what to do. I’m lucky to be an expert to know how to get out of it now.”

The Mayo Clinic describes OCD as “a pattern of unwanted thoughts and fears known as obsessions. These obsessions lead you to do repetitive behaviors, also called compulsions. These obsessions and compulsions get in the way of daily activities and cause a lot of distress”.

“Ultimately, you feel driven to do compulsive acts to ease your stress. Even if you try to ignore or get rid of bothersome thoughts or urges, they keep coming back. This leads you to act based on ritual. This is the vicious cycle of OCD.”

“OCD often centers around certain themes, such as being overly fearful of getting contaminated by germs. To ease contamination fears, you may wash your hands over and over again until they’re sore and chapped.”

Combs clarified that, unlike the visible compulsions often linked to OCD, such as repeatedly flicking light switches, his compulsions occur internally.

“So for someone like myself, you don’t even know it’s going on.”

Fortunately, he is able to manage his condition when it flares up.

“The way to get out of it is, like, it doesn’t matter what the thoughts even are. You giving any credence to what the thoughts are is, like, irrelevant and only fuels you having more of them,” Combs said.

He added, “It’s learning to just go, ‘It doesn’t even matter what the thoughts are.’ Like, 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, hate it, drives me crazy, but then you just eventually… the less that you worry about why you’re having the thoughts, eventually they go away.”

He described the thoughts as ranging from “intrusively violent” to those about religion and self-reflection, noting that they often fixate on questions without clear answers.

“That’s what fuels the anxiety is 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 [think that] it doesn’t matter what the answer is, is the freedom to just go, ‘I don’t have to have an answer to that question.’”

Combs revealed that his OCD can flare up while performing, describing it as “all-consuming” when it strikes. He admitted that during severe episodes, intrusive thoughts can dominate “45 seconds of every minute for weeks.”

The When It Rains It Pours singer believes he first experienced symptoms around the age of 12 or 13 and shares deep empathy for children facing similar struggles.

“It’s 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’s like… it just ruins your whole life for six months. And you’re back to where you started.”

“I have the tools now… when it happens now, I’m not as afraid of it.”