Kate Gloufchis entered Australian Survivor with a purpose in mind: to help tackle the stigma surrounding OCD, a condition she’s had her whole life.
During an interview with Chattr, Kate opened up about the challenge of competing on Australian Survivor with OCD, explaining that she feels compelled to do things repeatedly. Otherwise, she believes that something bad will happen to the people she loves.
“I do things lots of times,” she explained. “And the reason why I have to do it again is because of my brain. I get obsessed with thoughts — bad thoughts — and I think that something bad’s going to happen.
“They’re very particular thoughts, too. I’ll think, you know, someone’s going to die — my loved ones. And then I have to do it again until I imagine them becoming an old person.”
Kate’s experience with OCD on Australian Survivor
Kate explained that her OCD held her back in certain ways while she was on Australian Survivor, but she pushed herself to continue competing and spoke to her fellow castaways about what she was struggling with.
“I think a lot of people don’t even know what OCD is. When I explained it, a lot of the tribe mates were like, ‘I didn’t even know that’s what OCD was like. I had never seen that before,'” she said.
Kate said that when she first arrived on the beach, her OCD symptoms weren’t as pronounced because she was distracted by a new environment.
However, she explained that as the game progressed, she experienced more and more symptoms, like counting the number of times she’d pour rice for her campmates or walking back and forth into the ocean.
“It definitely flared up towards the end, because the end is when we were the most starving. The end was when we were so, so tired, and it was getting really, really stressful, and you were voting at people that you didn’t want to vote out.
“It just became so much towards the end. At the end, I was doing things a lot. I cried a lot about it. I was holding up the tribe. Sometimes, we were ready to go [to a challenge] and people would have to wait for me.”
Kate wants to raise awareness about OCD
Kate said the reason she joined Australian Survivor was predominately OCD related – she wanted to tackle her own OCD head-on, raise awareness about the condition, and help remove the stigma surrounding it.
She told Chattr that she knew her condition would pose difficulties when she was placed in a mentally and physically demanding environment.
“I didn’t go in Survivor thinking I was going to win $500,000. I went on Survivor being like, I want to try and get as far as I can. For my own self, because I’m just like, that’s such a huge challenge, and also to show people as well that you can do whatever it is you want.”
“I’d been hearing stories — because I have OCD — of people telling me about their teenagers being the same, and that just hurt my heart. So I was like, You know what? I’ve just become such a better person that I’m confident with [my OCD], I can still do things in life, and that’s exactly why I wanted to do the show.”
The DJ and dancer shared a Story to her Instagram account shortly after being eliminated from Survivor about her OCD journey, and she said the response she’s received is overwhelmingly positive.
“I think because [being open about my OCD has] helped me so much, I want to help other people feel the same way. A lot of people have sent me messages since I did that. I’ve had so, so many messages come through — amazing messages, and that’s exactly what I wanted. People being like, Wow, that’s so inspiring.”
How Kate’s OCD helped on Survivor
Kate’s main objective for going on Australian Survivor was to tackle her OCD head on and show the world that it wouldn’t hold her back — and shouldn’t hold others back. However, she said she discovered that her condition actually benefitted her in the game, listing her strongest skill as her “mental strength”.
“I think having OCD actually helped me in that sense. Obviously, my OCD was a burden on the island as well, and it made it really, really hard. But I think genuinely, when I had challenges where I had to hold on to things for a really long time, and it hurt, I just feel like I do that in my everyday life.
“Sometimes I’ll sit up and down in bed, or I’ll do 1000 squats before I go to sleep, just because I’m getting OCD, and my mindset is I have to do this or else something bad will happen.
“So I just went back to that space in my head,” she explained. “Sometimes doing things a lot of times can get a bit painful. It can get a bit sore on your muscles. And I just went back to that mind space and being like, you do that all the time to yourself, you can hold on. So I think my OCD mentality actually really, really helped me.”
What an inspiration! It’s no wonder Kate is so loved by her fellow Australian Survivor castaways and fans.
Stream Australian Survivor 2025 Sundays – Tuesdays on Channel 10 and 10Play.
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