by Howie Mandel
My mind works in strange ways. I have uncontrollable, repetitive thoughts that just won’t go away, regardless of how illogical or unreasonable they might be. This is a hallmark for my obsessive-compulsive disorder. I say “my” obsessive-compulsive disorder, as though I own it. I promise you I share it with millions. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that we’d rather give it away than share. Once that trigger is pulled, it sets off a reaction that can consume my entire day. That’s why I don’t shake hands. I used to shake, but it became a trigger. It’s one of the many dichotomies of my life: I’m in the public eye, yet I have a fear of shaking hands.
My therapist will sometimes sit with me, hold my hand, and tell me that I’m supposed to face it, deal with it, and be aware that I’m going to survive. But it’s really hard for me to wrap my head around that.
When I do shake hands, my thoughts are the same as many people’s. You might think that the person’s hand you are touching is covered with germs and you now have those germs on your hand. That’s not an abnormal thought. You would wash your hands and go on with your day.
I would have the same thought and go to the sink and wash my hands. But I would make the water hotter than necessary, maybe even scalding, and rub my hands frantically. Then I would dry them and try to go on with my day.
But I cannot because I’m obsessed with the fact that those germs are still there, and I have a compulsion to wash my hands continuously. The feeling would be as if the sand fly larvae were crawling under the skin of my hands. I wouldn’t be able to focus on anything or even have a conversation until I washed my hands again and again and again and again. It would take several hours to rid myself of those thoughts. Four years ago, I stopped shaking hands. If you come up to me on my book tour and try to shake my hand, I’ll know that you haven’t read this chapter.
I’ve always been known as a germaphobe, but the real issue is OCD. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, “Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, OCD, is an anxiety disorder and is characterized by recurrent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and/or repetitive behaviors (compulsions). Repetitive behaviors such as handwashing, counting, checking, or cleaning are often performed with the hope of preventing obsessive thoughts or making them go away.” This is uncanny. If there were a place in the dictionary to look up Howie Mandel, it would read, “Howie Mandel is an anxiety disorder and is characterized by recurrent, unwanted thoughts (obsessions) and/or repetitive behaviors (compulsions). Repetitive behaviors such as handwashing, counting, checking, or cleaning are often performed with the hope of preventing obsessive thoughts or making them go away.”
I have a seemingly normal life with my wife and three children—at least I’m told they’re mine. In my house, the two most commonly uttered sayings are “I love you” and “Wash your hands.” People constantly ask me how I maintain a marriage and help raise babies. I can hug, kiss, and touch. My big issues are hands and airborne germs. The use of masks and rubber gloves at opportune times has allowed me to carry on normal relations. I use the word normal because I don’t know what the real word is. I imagine that until the age of six, my children probably thought their daddy was a surgeon and he just wore work clothes around the house during cold and flu season, which is probably a doctor’s busiest time. My mental issues have gone through ebbs and flows. As crazy as this may sound, I have changed diapers. That being said, once all the crap was cleaned and the diaper was on, I refused to shake their hands. As far as my wife goes, I have no issues of touching or kissing. There was a lot of that involved in the making of my three children. However, no matter how amorous I feel, should she sniff or cough I quickly retreat to another part of the house.
Having spent most of my life trying to hide these issues from the outside world, I long ago learned to embrace the shower as my place of comfort and solace. The state of California has suffered in the past and continues to this day to suffer from a water shortage. I feel somewhat responsible for this. There, I said it.
Back when I was doing The Howie Mandel Show, I was still shaking hands. I debated switching to the fist bump but decided to continue shaking because at the time I hadn’t revealed publicly that I had any issues. I can’t tell you how much just the thought of shaking hands on camera was freaking me out. In any other situation, I could excuse myself and repeatedly scald my hands or go home and suck up the rest of California’s water allotment in the shower. But in the midst of a television show, where as the host I had to be there for the entire hour, neither of these options was available. I asked Richard Rosenberg, a friend of mine who’s an orthopedic surgeon, to give me surgical soap. Before and after each taping, I would scrub my hands with this medical solution. During that time, I also became aware of Purell and would use vats of it.
Near the end of the run of the talk show, I noticed I had bumps on my hands. I was so freaked. Had I become a nest for the sand fly one more time? I went to a dermatologist, and he explained that these were just warts. A wart is a virus. I had disinfected my hands so much that not only had I killed every germ, I had also killed the antibodies that would fight viruses.
I no longer use the surgical scrub or soak my hands in Purell for hours. I will occasionally use a squirt, and I wash my hands normally. My personal concession is not shaking hands at all, which I admit is a little crazy. I won’t touch doorknobs or toilet handles. If by chance you happen to see me in a public restroom, it’s like watching a scene out of Cirque du Soleil. I have trained myself to manipulate lids, faucets, and doors with contortions involving maybe just a knee or an elbow. I know what you’re thinking. You could end up with E. coli on your knee or elbow. But at least it wouldn’t be on my hands. This is the logic of OCD. I could sell tickets to my public bathroom contortion performances, but this is one room where I cherish my alone time.
One of the biggest problems I have is meet and greets at my concerts. The purpose of a meet and greet is that in any local market, a radio or TV station runs a contest where you can win tickets to my show, come backstage, meet me, and greet me with a handshake. Before I made any of my mysophobia public, I would put a Band-Aid on my right hand so people wouldn’t try to shake it. By the way, mysophobia is a fancy way an author might say “germ pansy.” When somebody extended their hand, I would point at the Band-Aid and say, “Look, I can’t.”
Then they would ask what happened, which I hadn’t anticipated. I had just worked really hard onstage coming up with over an hour of comedy, I didn’t have much left. My response ranged from “I don’t know for sure” to “It’s a burn.” And then if I said it was a burn, they would ask how I burned myself. It became so mentally cumbersome to come up with a cover story that I was forced to find new tactics.
I went out and bought myself a sling. In my mind, the Band-Aid was pinpointing a specific wound, but a sling is much more general. I thought I could get by with “My shoulder is bothering me.” I just thought of something. Why wouldn’t I have worn the sling onstage? I truly believed that just having it on after the performance was a great idea.
Stupid idea. I would arrive at the meet and greet with a sling on my right arm. As people still extended their hands to shake mine, I would gesture, “Please, I can’t.” And without hesitation they would just grab my left hand. Why? Why, people, is it necessary to touch? Let’s talk. Let’s spend some time together. Here’s the deal: Don’t touch me. I would spend the rest of the night scalding and scrubbing.
I was boxed in. I couldn’t wear two slings, so what could I do? Ah-ha, the fist bump. I didn’t come up with the fist bump. The most amazing thing to me was how my little fist became such an alien thing to most people.
I would put out my fist, and they would just stare at it. They would do everything from grabbing and holding on to it to cupping it in their hands. Talk about an awkward moment. I’ve had people hold their hand out under it as if I were going to release some magic dust. Some people think it’s some sort of hip urban handshake. They would hit me on top of the fist, on the bot
tom, slap the side, and then bang their chest. I have to explain, “It’s not BET, it’s OCD.” But between me, professional sports, and Barack Obama, people now know what it is.
It’s debilitating to know I’m not in control of my own mind. It goes places, and I cannot bring it back. People close to me will tell you that during these times I seem agitated or intolerant. The best description is that I feel incredibly busy in my own mind, and that’s why I need distraction. That busyness is sometimes torturous.
I know I spend a lot of time making fun of being a germaphobe, which is such a small part of what I deal with each and every day. I’ve been able to use humor and public awareness to give myself a little comfort. But for the most part, I’m not comfortable at all. It is serious. There are a lot of people who have these issues. OCD can take your life away. People can become suicidal just to escape, though that is not me.
I watched The Aviator, Martin Scorsese’s biopic on Howard Hughes. At one point in the movie, Hughes is living in isolation, holed up in a dark room, naked, urinating into bottles. To be honest with you, it really scared me, because as weird as this may sound, I promise you it’s not a big leap for me to get there. I spend every waking moment trying to control myself, but it’s a battle.
Fear is probably the most powerful driving force in my life. I’m always afraid of losing control. I’m afraid of how I feel. I’m afraid of hurting someone else. I’m afraid I’m going to die in the next minute and a half. This is my life.
I feel like a pilot dealing with fear. A trained pilot is supposed to be able to function in the scariest of situations. Consider that US Airways flight that took off from La Guardia and flew into a flock of geese, disabling both engines. Captain Sully Sullenberger, though in the midst of a dire situation, kept his cool and put the plane down safely on the Hudson River. Brace yourself for this analogy. I feel as if the minute I was born, some geese flew into my engines, and I’m just trying to put this life down softly.
The worst thing in the world is to feel isolated, as if I’m the only person who has these feelings. However, a new world has been opened up since the day I talked on Howard Stern.
There have been times that I feel totally incapacitated. I keep coming back to Howard Hughes. That’s very scary to me. He was phenomenally successful, achieved things in business that were unbelievable, and had great relationships, but then he lost all control. That’s my biggest fear in life.
One of the things I can control is not shaking hands. What will be the next thing that I won’t be able to do? Or the next thing I can’t stop doing, like when I’m compelled to go back and make sure a door is locked ten times?
That really happened. One particular day, I had to be someplace at one o’clock. I left the house, locked the door, and climbed into my car. Then I said to myself, “I don’t think I locked the door.” So I went back and checked the doorknob. I couldn’t open the door, so I knew it was locked. Then I returned to my car, and I thought, Maybe I didn’t shake it enough. So I went back, shook it harder, and decided that it was locked.
Back into the car. Even though intellectually I knew I had checked the door, I was obsessed with the fact that it hadn’t been locked, and the compulsion to keep checking overtook my logic. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you I got in and out of my car to shake the door maybe ten times. I was mentally paralyzed. I could not move past this.
Eventually, I went to the door and punched it as hard as I could to inflict enough pain on my hand so that when I got back in the car, the throbbing knuckles would send a message to my mind that the door had been checked enough. Needless to say, I was late for that meeting.
That was one of the many moments when my OCD has taken control of me rather than me controlling it. Here’s my fear: That day it was the doorknob. Next it could end up with me naked in a hotel room, urinating into a bottle. If that happens, hopefully it will be a nice, very clean suite with self-locking doors.
I’m not the only one who has to cope with this. It dramatically affects everyone in my life—my wife, my family, my friends. People who have watched me on TV or at live shows often approach my wife and say, “You’re so lucky to live with Howie, he must be so much fun.” I’m here to tell you, not so much. I would imagine after this book comes out, people will come up to her on the street and hug her. She will be drowning in public empathy.
Seeking help for mental issues doesn’t come naturally for many people because of the stigma. It’s easy to tell someone at the office, “I’m going to take an hour off to go to the dentist”; no one will think twice about that. But if you happen to tell your co-workers, “I’m going to see my psychiatrist for an hour,” they might think you were a crazy person. We’ll take care of our dental health, but not our mental health. At this point in our lives, it may be too late to change that thinking. The connotation of therapist or psychiatrist is ingrained. The answer may lie in just changing titles. Maybe it would be easier telling your co-workers, “I’ve got to take a couple hours off for a little Howie Mandel.”
It’s just an idea. Hopefully that helps you. And to help me, I’d like to mention one more time something I can’t express enough: Here’s the deal: Don’t touch me.
As dark, frustrating, or depressing as any moment could possibly be, humor has been my salvation. I have always been fascinated with the sense of humor. All the other senses seem to be more definable. Someone who happens to be well dressed must have a strong sense of style or fashion. You may judge somebody based entirely on your sense of smell: “Larry stinks, so let’s not invite him to the party.” But humor is different.
The actual sense of humor is the ability to sense humor in places where it might not be obvious. I’m not talking about the ability to laugh at jokes or even tell jokes. This sense is the ability to find the joke. Some people can find a seed of humor in the darkest, most humiliating moments. I know personally that these moments have made for some of the best stories and material in my act, and judging from the audience’s response, I was right.
I have come to believe that humor, more so than the other senses, actually defines who we are. I want to qualify that by saying the lack of a sense of humor doesn’t make you a worse or better person. Some of my closest friends and loved ones have absolutely no sense of humor, and I’m okay with that. I just believe that a sense of humor is an identifying factor of who we really are deep inside.
That being said, let me describe my sense of humor. The more awkward, annoying, or humiliating the situation is, the funnier. Many people will say that’s mean-spirited and wrong. All comedy is based on being mean-spirited and wrong. Think about it. When a clown falls down and you laugh at him, you’re laughing at his misfortune. Within the context of any joke, the humor is based on someone’s ignorance, discomfort, and even humiliation.
Let me give you an example. A person goes into a bookstore and buys a book that he thinks might be funny. By the fourth paragraph in chapter 3, he realizes it’s a book that describes “what funny is.” This idiot has absolutely no idea what he bought. But you see, the joke is on him because I already have his money.
The house I grew up in was filled with humor. My recollections range from my parents playing comedy albums to watching variety shows, talk shows, funny movies, and cartoons. Television has always been a huge part of who I am. Nothing touched me more and shaped my sense of humor more than sitting down with my family to watch Allen Funt’s Candid Camera. With all the other comedy I heard or saw, I knew that something was funny only because my parents were laughing at it or I heard the audience laughing. But I was obviously too young to understand what was going on. Watching Candid Camera was different. Not only did I understand it, but it became my sensibility.
On the show, Allen Funt would tell us the prank he was going to play on someone and then leave us to see how this poor victim would react. I understand that funny is subjective. What’s funny to one person may not be funny to another. When I was six, funny to me was the fact that Allen Funt and the
audience were just pretending something and the poor victim thought it was real. I wasn’t laughing at the jokes; I was laughing at the fact that the victim didn’t know he was part of a joke.
This set off a spark in my head. The show ignited my sense of humor. From that day forward, if I could purposefully put somebody in an awkward, uncomfortable, or embarrassing situation, or watch someone in an awkward, uncomfortable, or embarrassing situation, my funny bone was tickled. I know what you are thinking: Howie Mandel has the sense of humor of a six-year-old. And you know what I say? Correct.
After I saw Candid Camera, there was no turning back. At school I tried to do the same things, just without a camera or an audience. I would see a stranger on a bench, sit uncomfortably close to him, and make horrible, high-pitched noises just to watch the person’s reaction. It was my private candid camera. That person never thought I was funny. At best, he just thought I was annoying. I’d get a dirty look as he’d walk away. Boy, would I laugh—just me alone. I thought I had done the best joke in the world because that person had no idea that I was just kidding. Neither did anyone else. I learned years later that I had left out a critical step … an audience. Did I entertain? No. I just annoyed. Come to think of it, comedians often say, “If I can make only one person laugh, I’m doing my job.” But I don’t think they mean the one person should be the comedian.
I couldn’t help myself. I constantly did—and still do—things like this without any sense of consequence. Most kids at that age just want to fit in and be like everybody else. You can imagine that this kind of behavior resulted in my being regarded as a mental case by my peers. Even when I said I was kidding with my pranks, people didn’t know what the joke was. I thought being funny would make people accept me. This was my way of feeling accepted by people. I wanted you laughing at me or laughing with me. But these impulsive, futile attempts at humor ended up alienating me even more. Let’s just say that I had a lot of time to myself, which is not good for someone suffering from OCD.
