Charlie's Angels star Jaclyn Smith has gotten candid about her longtime OCD. As reported by People, she opened up about her experience to the outlet in their cover story.
"It's really an unusual form of OCD," she explained to the outlet. "It all revolved around loved ones and prayer and sacrifice and manifesting. It just eased my anxiety and my nerves on the people I love so much, and I didn't want to lose them."
Her OCD started after her uncle died from alcohol addiction at just 54 years old. She said that she first heard about the condition while she was at college studying psychology. The symptoms really resonated with her.
"It's not fun being diagnosed (or self-diagnosing) with a psychiatric disorder, but at the same time I felt relieved. There was a name for it, and I wasn't alone!" she wrote.
Since then, the Charlie's Angels star has managed to figure out some mechanisms to limit how her condition affects her. But, like with other conditions, she still experiences it - especially when her kids are involved.
"You just want to catch every raindrop," she explained. "But I've learned as I've gotten older that you can't control everything. You just can't."
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The 'Charlie's Angels' Star Originally Thought She Would Never Have Kids
Smith thought at one point in her life that she would never have kids. Her OCD brought about a lot of stress, which, as you may know, can show up physically.
And one of her symptoms when she was a teen was "a missed period". Her doctor said her hormones were "all messed up", and that she "might have trouble having a child."
She reflected on that day, "On a purely human level, it felt cruel to tell an anxious, grieving adolescent girl that she could be infertile. He was the doctor, so I believed him, and my anxiety doubled instantly."
But, of course, that wasn't the case - and she calls her three children, and motherhood in general, "the best part" of her life. "Nothing was more important [than my kids] - today, too. I mean, they're everything. They can make or break your day - if they're not happy, it affects me. You never stop worrying about your kids."
