Colts' Braden Smith details struggle, recovery from severe OCD - ESPN

INDIANAPOLIS — Colts veteran offensive tackle Braden Smith missed the final five games of last season because of a personal matter.

Now, he's detailing just how intensely personal the situation was.

Smith, in an interview with the Indianapolis Star published Tuesday, said he was engaged in a lengthy mental health battle as he struggled with a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder that prompted him to spend 48 days in a treatment facility and to ultimately resort to a psychedelic drug that he believes helped save him.

He was so tormented, Smith said, that he contemplated suicide.

«I was physically present, but I was nowhere to be found,» Smith told the newspaper. «I did not care about playing football. I didn't care about hanging out with my family, with my wife, with my newborn son. „I was a month away from putting a bullet through my brain.“

Smith, 29, said he was eventually diagnosed with a condition known as religious scrupulosity. According to the International OCD Foundation, religious scrupulosity differs from the healthy practice of religion because it is driven by anxiety over engaging in actions that might offend God or be seen as blasphemous. This creates obsessive behavior — including constant prayer or repeated repentance — that can begin to dominate a person's daily life.

»There was only one person that was ever perfect, and that was Jesus," Smith, a second-round pick in 2018, told the Star. «When you're trying to live up to that standard, actually live that out, it'll drive you nuts.»

Smith began seeing a psychologist early last season after confiding to his wife, Courtney, that he was planning to retire after the season if his condition didn't improve. Smith eventually checked into the mental health