Howie Mandel is best known for being a judge on American’s Got Talent and the host of Deal or No Deal. But the Canadian-born comedian is also a spokesperson for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), conditions he lives with every day.
Mandel has written and speaks about his OCD and ADHD
In 2009 the game show host went public with his OCD in a book called “Here’s the Deal, Don’t Touch Me.” His famous fist bump developed on the show was a clever way of avoiding touching people and avoiding germs.
“The biggest fear I have is being triggered, and if I’m triggered and I get some sort of weird thought in my head that can’t go, then my day is, is stopped. My life stops,” Mandel explained.
It’s a common theme for OCD sufferers who can’t stop the obsessive thought loop and the repetitive control behaviors that go with it. It can be debilitating. When Mandel combines the OCD with the adult ADHD he also suffers from, he acknowledges that often times only medication can help him through public appearances.
His goal is to de-stigmatize the disorders and treatment for them
During a 2012 interview, Mandel said, “You know, in the middle of a workday, wherever you work in America, if you got up and say, ‘I’m gonna go see my dentist,’ nobody would even flinch; but if you got up in the middle of the day and said, ‘You know what, I gotta go, I’m having a little issue. I’ve gotta go to my psychiatrist. I’ll be back in an hour.’ I think that people would [react by saying] ‘Did he just say he’s going to the psychiatrist?’… There’s a stigma.”
Laughter connecting us all, leading to understanding
Mandel is working to relieve the stigma by talking openly and including personal anecdotes in his comedy routine. He truly is prescribing laughter as the best medicine.
Sources: ABC 2020, Examiner
