Howie Mandel on Managing His OCD

I don't think these are happy people, all the people you mentioned. I don't know that they were happy. I don't know that. I'm not happy. So, you know, and I'm this goofy... But you seem happy. I know. You seem happy when you're around people. That's the scariest thing. Nobody's more confused than me. And right now, as I talk to you, I'm incredibly medicated. And I am. What do they get you on? I'm not talking about what I'm on because people... It may not be good for you. I don't want people to take... Well, that's very admirable of you. Yeah, but I do. I get help. I'm surrounded by people. The dichotomy between how I feel and what I do is huge. You know, I'm a fucking mess. And you know, I deal with depression and anxiety. It's unfortunate because you're such a nice guy. Every encounter I've ever had with you has been so pleasant, so fun, and so nice. I always walk away going, Howie is like the nicest fucking guy. Thank you. I always feel that way. Thank you. I'm like you that doesn't feel well, that gets depressing. I'm like, God damn it, when he's around people, he seems so happy. I'll tell you why, because like in this moment, I'm talking to you. So I'm in this moment, you know, listening to you, responding to you. Right now you're happy. I'm distracted. You know? So I am. Because the worst thing for me is quiet time. You know, I don't like nighttime. I don't like when I get into my own head. That's why I like stand up comedy. Because in those moments, you're just in that moment because you have to be. You know, I could, if I veered off into the darkness that is me, and not listening to a word you're saying and not trying to respond, I'm just trying to, you know, I feel like I'm balancing on this little ledge all the time. And these words and these interactions hold me, are my cable that hold me on this side of it without falling off. Wow. Wow. It's heavy. It is heavy. It's like OCD has become a vernacular for a joke. I can't tell you how many times a day somebody comes up to me and they go, you know, I'm a little OCD-ish. I want all my stuff lined up. I like to stay clean too. That's not OCD. Right. That's, they've used that as a word for being fastidious or neat. OCD... Slightly compulsive. It's not obsessive compulsive. Well, the obsession is the part that when you are obsessed with a thought and you can't get a thought out of your head, no matter how dark it is, or you can't get a ritual out of your head and you can't move on, you think about Howard Hughes was probably one of the brightest, most productive engineering, you know, marvels of our time in so many in technology and artistry and everything. And his last few years, he was in the fetal position naked in his room, pissing into a bottle. Right? And I tell people at any given moment when you're with me, I can't tell you, I'm not that far from that. So I'm always just trying to toe the line and be on this side of that door. You know? Have you done anything else that helps other than meditation? Have you tried other than medication? Have you tried meditation? I've tried meditation and I do meditation. I've tried everything outside of the, and I'm not opposed to it, the psychedelics and mushrooms and things like that. I don't know if anybody would recommend that to you. Well, here's the problem for me. In order to do that, you'd have to get off your medication. Right. And to get off my medication, I don't know that I could survive that bridge from my medication to doing that. So the medication is for me, my lifeline. So you would have to be like very, very closely supervised during that entire time. I wouldn't know how anyone would approach something like that because I think you're dealing with a very specific kind of case. And most of the people that advocate for psychedelics do not advocate it for people that are really struggling mentally. Just to keep it together right now, you know, and to get off the medication, which is helping you keep it together, it probably doesn't seem wise, but there's ways you can do it without drugs. There's like the holotropic breathing. There's some people who practice. I have never experienced this. So this is me talking out of my ass, but I have direct connections with people that have done Kundalini Yoga. There's a specific style of Kundalini Yoga, specific way that you can achieve these bizarre states altered states that are similar to like mushrooms or a DMT experience. They're similar to psychedelics. According to people that I know that have actually done the psychedelics and have gotten obsessed with Kundalini and they say they can get to that place on their own, which is really fascinating. If you know somebody, then give me a card before I leave here today. I do not know anybody. I know some martial artists that have done it, but they don't teach it. But I do know that there's a great place in LA that teaches Kundalini Yoga. Well, if anybody's listening to this and I'll read the comments if you have any recommendations. Yeah. Again, this is not, I don't have personal experience with this. So I'm just relaying other people's anecdotes and seems interesting. But regular yoga for me, I really like a lot. I run. Running is great. But running, I use it as a meditation. I just, I don't even listen to music. I just listen to the, I do it on a treadmill and I just listen to my feet hitting the treadmill and my breath and I'll do that for an hour every day. That's fantastic. It's good for my physical health, but it's also better for my mental health. So to me, that's kind of a medication. It is a meditation. Yeah, it is a medication. And a meditation. And just staying crazy busy is my other form of I'm really busy. That's good though. Yeah. And I think everything you're doing you enjoy. So even though you're busy, you're busy doing fun stuff. Most of the time, but I have this overlay of terror to think whatever I'm doing is going to end. Whatever I'm doing will get me in trouble. The truth of the matter is when I found stand up, stand up was the most freeing thing in the world. It was the one place where unlike acting, I didn't have to recite any lines. I didn't have to hit any marks. You could do anything. And that's why I've been such an advocate for you and all the people that we talked about earlier, because they seem to be incredibly free.