KEEPING HOWIE IN OUR THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS.

Howie Mandel’s OCD went undiagnosed for decades

OCD is defined by uncontrollable and recurring thoughts or obsessions and repetitive behaviors (compulsions).

Mandel’s obsessions negatively affected his wife and kids to the point where he made them engage in cleanliness activities, such as:

• washing their hands repeatedly
• putting on gloves
• avoiding touching their phones
• disinfecting everything in the house

“I don’t know if you can imagine what that is like to live with somebody who was trying to make my life so comfortable it kept my children and my wife so busy in this kind of crazy world, so she made me go to a psychiatrist; it was an ultimatum, and I got diagnosed, which lifted a huge weight off my shoulders,” said Mandel.

The fact that Mandel had been living with OCD for more than four decades before getting diagnosed is common, said Dr. Helen Blair Simpson, co-research director of the NewYork-Presbyterian Center for Youth Mental Health and professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.

Studies show that one-third of adults with OCD first experienced symptoms in childhood.

“[Delayed diagnosis] is both because the person with OCD might not know what they have and might hesitate telling people about their symptoms, and because clinicians might not ask about OCD or recognize the symptoms,” Simpson told Healthline.

Why is OCD so stigmatized?

While an OCD diagnosis gave Mandel some relief and hope that there were treatments and methods to manage his condition, he said initially he felt embarrassed and ashamed.

“I didn’t want to tell anybody that I had a mental health problem. I thought that was a sign of weakness. It was embarrassing, so as I sit here and talk to you today this is 180 degrees from where I was in my 40s,” he said.

Much of his initial hesitation to be open about OCD is due to stigma around mental health conditions, particularly OCD.

While Simpson said the stigma is far less in younger generations than in older generations, she believes it still exists.

“What I notice today is that people sometimes still discuss mental health conditions, such as OCD, in a joking manner,” said Simpson. “Just like you would go to a doctor for any physical health condition, it is critical to seek medical attention for any mental health concerns and to treat these conditions with seriousness.”

Society has moved forward in reducing stigma, but Mandel said it still remains, including in the medical field.

“I’ve talked on Capitol Hill to try to get insurance companies to [approach] the funding for mental health the same way they do for physical health,” he said.

“If you break a leg and you have an x-ray, you’ll get it fixed and paid for. If you have a mental health issue and you can’t see it on an x-ray, it’s hard to get diagnosed and taken care.”

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