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Ellen DeGeneres revealed she’s been diagnosed with Osteoporosis, OCD and ADHD.
In her new Netflix comedy special, For Your Approval, the former talk show host, 66, updated fans on her litany of health issues.
“I don’t even know how I’m standing up right now. I’m like a human sandcastle. I could disintegrate in the shower,” the comedian confessed.
According to DeGeneres, she discovered she had Osteoporosis after undergoing a bone density test. Osteoporosis is a bone disease in which a person’s bones become brittle. It often develops when “bone mineral density and bone mass decreases, or when the structure and strength of bone changes,” according to the Mayo Clinic.
After experiencing “excruciating pain” one day, the actor went to see her doctor assuming she’d torn a ligament. She then proceeded to get an MRI, which led her doctors to believe she had arthritis.
“It’s hard to be honest about aging and seem cool,” she added.
Elsewhere in the special, the A-lister confessed she’d started going to therapy after toxic workplace allegations came out against her in 2020.
It was in those therapy sessions that she came to understand she had obsessive-compulsive disorder, otherwise referred to as OCD.
“I may have OCD because a therapist said so and I said, ‘Yes I am very organized,’ because I thought that was the O. I didn’t know what OCD was,” she explained. “I was raised in a religion, Christian Science, that doesn’t acknowledge diseases or disorders. So when I was growing up, nobody talked about anything. There was no discussion of anything.”
The National Institute of Mental Health considers OCD to be a long-lasting mental disorder where “a person experiences uncontrollable and recurring thoughts (obsessions), engages in repetitive behaviors (compulsions), or both.”
OCD can cause distress and severe anxiety, as well as affect a person’s everyday life.
Now understanding what OCD is, DeGeneres believes her father had the same disorder. She said: “He would check the doorknob 15 times before we’d leave, he’d check the faucet 15 times, he would unplug all the appliances before we left the house because lightning could strike and it could catch fire. They say it could be hereditary.”
Later in the episode, DeGeneres went on to reveal she also has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which makes it extremely difficult for her to focus and sit still.
“Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects a person’s ability to focus, control impulses, and be active,” the NIMH states.
ADHD has no “known cure,” however, therapy and medication are two avenues that help manage symptoms.
“So, I have ADD, I have OCD, I’m losing my memory,” DeGeneres candidly said. “But I think I’m well-adjusted because I obsess on things, but I don’t have the attention span to stick with it, and I quickly forget what I was obsessing about in the first place.
“So, it takes me all the way around to being well-adjusted, I think,” she added.
The Netflix special, available to stream now on the platform, begins with DeGeneres standing in front of a slew of headlines, labeling her the “Queen of Mean” and a “villain.”
