He was sitting at the Christmas table when it started what would be the greatest of his crises\u2014or the biggest of his “blows,” as you call them. Son of a family from Alentejo, he had in front a plate of lamb brains, with bread, salt and pepper, which the uncles had brought, as was tradition, when a simple question arose: “What if the lambs have mad cows disease and you don’t know?”.<\/p>\n
Comedian Ant\u00f3nio Raminhos says that “what if” is the gateway to all his obsessions — even if they don’t make “any sense” — and there was no different. He was immediately ill-disposed and unable to eat anything. He also put the question to a veterinary cousin who was also there \u2014 half seriously, half a joke \u2014 but not even the answer of a specialist rested him anymore. He went home, vomited, went two days without sleep and ended up clinging to Google, researching the symptoms that have been chasing him since he was still in elementary school.<\/p>\n
He was 26 years old and what he found on the internet surprised him as much as he reassured him: after all, he was not alone. All over the world there were thousands of stories just like yours. From there to diagnosis was a step: he had obsessive-compulsive disorder. In this interview, the comedian talks about how “the disease of doubt” came to make him almost not leave the house, afraid of being contaminated with some disease, and the crises he was overcoming \u2014 which could go from compulsive hand washing to fear of running over someone without realizing or uncertainty about his own sexual orientation.<\/p>\n
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