Navigating obsessive-compulsive disorder hasn’t been easy for former Nickelodeon host Marc Summers.
The television personality, 72, tells Pvnew in an exclusive interview that the condition, from which he has “been suffering” since he was a child, “still affects” his life.
Summers went public with his diagnosis in the ’90s and dealt with it via medication and then behavior therapy classes, and he says he “is still working on it” to this day.
According to the Mayo Clinic, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) “features a pattern of unwanted thoughts and fears known as obsessions,” which lead a person “to do repetitive behaviors, also called compulsions,” that can “get in the way of daily activities and cause a lot of distress.”
For Summers, these “obsessions” led him — during the height of his fame — to clean before a housekeeper came to his home and then again seconds after she left. He would also spend countless hours straightening out the fringes on rugs.
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The former “Double Dare” host finally sought help after his wife, Alice Filous, caught him doing it at 1:30 a.m.
Part of Summers’ therapy, not surprisingly, centered on his compulsion to clean.
“I wasn’t allowed to clean the day before [the cleaning lady came], but then after the cleaning lady left, how long could I wait?” he explains.
“Well, the first time, I had to wait five minutes, which was painful. And then double it each time until it was 10 minutes, 20, whatever. Until I could get through the whole week without straightening anything. And it was a challenge.”
The “Unwrapped” host acknowledges the irony that he was struggling with OCD while hosting a kids’ show that required him to routinely be in close contact with neon green slime.
Although he “loved” the game show, the second filming finished, Summers says he “would start to take [his] clothes off in front of the kids.”
Unable to stop the behavior, the Food Network personality was whisked backstage to his dressing room, where he was able to shower and put on new clothes.
“So, it was a challenge every day,” he says simply.
Summers can currently be seen in the one-man off-Broadway show “The Life and Slimes of Marc Summers,” which is described as “part interactive game show” and “part memoir.”
He says the show’s message is about “overcoming obstacles.”
“People have dreams and people have goals and hopefully passion,” he tells us. “But a lot of times, if a wall is put in front of them, they walk away, and they give it up.
“And I guess part of the question is, why do some people figure a way to go over, under, around and through that wall and other people just retreat and don’t move forward?
“I just keep pushing forward.”
