On the brink of retirement, this NFL player turned to psychedelics to help with his OCD

While players were in the battle of the NFL season, Braden Smith was fighting a different one: the one going on inside his own mind.

While NFL players were in the trenches of a grueling season, Braden Smith was fighting a different battle: the one going on inside his own mind. In the middle of what was meant to be a playoff-contending season for the Indianapolis Colts, Smith instead was consumed with thoughts about his faith. What started out as the formative steps in his religious journey quickly became an all-encompassing struggle. But he wasn’t just coming to terms with his faith; he was also learning about his obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). In particular, Smith was dealing with religious scrupulosity – a subtype of OCD where individuals become “overly concerned that something they thought or did might be a sin or other violation of religious or moral doctrine,” as described by the International OCD Foundation. As he dove into learning everything he could about his faith, Smith found difficulties equating his own past and daily actions with what he was reading in the scripture. “I was having a court case in my mind all the time – pleading myself to the jury – because my mind all the time would be like: ‘You know, God can hear your thoughts,’” Smith told CNN Sports.