Skin Picking

Hi, my name is 16joan. I'm here because I suffer from skin picking on my fingers and toes.

#MightyTogether

*I am 18, I just haven't graduated high school yet*

I've been struggling with skin-picking as long as I can remember, and have actually had two minor surgeries to correct severe ingrown and infected toenails. Both surgeries were completely traumatizing, and at the end of the second one the doctor told me that continuing this way would not be good for me in the long run, and I responded by saying I had struggled with dermatillomania for years and I was aware of the issue. He dismissed me, and my father later said he probably thought I was just another teenager reading too much on the internet. My dad also said right after the surgery, "this traumatized me more than it did you" (He was present for the procedure, I was only 14). I was furious. How could someone so dear to me say something like that about something he witnesses daily. It consumes my every moment, and he wanted to say that he had it worse because he witnessed some of it?

Sadly, the views of my parents haven't changed since then, but that's not why I'm writing this.

I currently attend a performing arts high school, and my skin picking is hurting me when I play my instrument (cello). The damage to my cuticles and around my nail beds gets so serious that my hands start to bleed after rehearsal, and at home I don't bother practicing because of the mental anguish it gives me that I can't do what I love. I need help, and don't know how to change anything when I already have so many other problems (possible narcolepsy, autism, adhd, depression, anxiety, etc).

I read so many success stories about people who manage to live their lives in spite of the issues that pull them down, but I'm not sure how to bounce back from all this.

#Dermatillomania #Selfharm

Does anyone else have a compulsion of rubbing a baby blanket still. I also want to stop skin picking so bad but my attempts suck

I have been diagnosed ADHD since early childhood. I didn’t start picking at my skin until I was around 14 though, which was when I started to develop bipolar 2 and borderline.
I really struggle with intense skin picking, to the point where I stand in the mirror for 30 minutes and try to pop every single pore I can find. I get hyper fixated and almost dissociated. I cause myself acne and scarring, but I can’t seem to stop when I’m doing it. It usually gets worse when I’m stressed or bored. I do it mostly on my face, but arms, legs, and chest. I’m wondering if this is from ADHD and if other people experience it? Or is it a form of OCD or from my personality/mood disorders? #skinpicking #ADHD #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder

I've never been diagnosed with any skinpicking disorder formally but I used to pinch myself, hit myself etc when I was young because I was the one who should be hurt.
Fast forward at least 25 years and sometimes when I come back in from a bath, I'm happy with my skin, how the soap made it feel and smell... Until I find anything that stands out. I know I shouldn't pick because I'll be mad at myself about what if someone sees blood on my clothes?
It's like every time I'm fine with how I look, the next minute, I'm pinching, trying to pop something. Then my mental rumination goes on,
you're ugly
you don't know how to care for yourself
you're evil
you're a coward for not committing suicide
you're shit.
Everyone's using nonverbal gestures to talk about how awful you look
they say one thing, maybe a compliment but they're meaning the extreme opposite

I dissociate, but don't notice it until some time passes and my partner on the inside is calling my name, the name I use because I hate my given name,
he's trying to get my attention because I'm bleeding. Bleeding? What? Who? me probably.
Shit. I know I'm evil. Have to get the evil out, right? Only way to do that is to make it flat.
inside partner manages to come out, wash the hands, put something like menthol on the cuts.
I come back.
Mental rage begins.
My parents always made fun of me for having pimples, and even more so when their cleanser etc acne stuff didn't do a damned thing. They made fun of my teth.
And I can't get those words out of my head.
I need something that feels the same, making the same motions but not on me. We once got some oranges. for some reason peeling them felt like picking but wasn't. The same goes for peeling boiled eggs. But neither of those is portable or easily renewable. So how do I not do this? I don't know if it's anxiety, wishing to flattening the bumps to hide them or if it's me punishing myself but doing it in such a way that even if everything is taken away from me that I can still hurt myself. Rationally I don't want to, but emotionally I just hate myself more than anything or anyone on this planet. I don't want to exist. But I know the others in our bands do want me to, and do care. I'm the one who wants to fight by fighting myself, to run by not being myself, having someone else just take over all the time. That last one I'm getting better at balance between letting others who are safe enough and want to come out do so, but also being myself. I just don't know what this is, and because we have a lot of others inside who struggle, it's hard to find enough time to ask about this. Most of the people I know inside have something like this that they do. For some, the evil isn't as strong, but for me and one other especially lately, it's hard, sometimes impossible not to do this. It's like I'm not allowed to feel like I'm anything other than evil. Not evil like ruin the world evil, evil like I should be a worm crushed beneath someone's shoe. Evil like repulsive and a shame to the world. I know fixing my view of myself will take time, but I really need some things, with descriptions not pictures, that others use to make the same kind of feeling in a safer way. Please. I would really appreciate it. I'm picking before I know I'm picking. #CPTSD #Dissociation #ChronicDepression
#Dermatillomania

oy oy oy. I'm isolated, lonely, and one of my other people has been triggered to hell and back. Sorry to rant but I have one friend who moved away last year. I'm living in an apartment complex that doesn't feel safe, the faintenance guys and such just come in whether or not you're there, with no call in advance. I'm on lists for government subsidized places but no dice yet. I think if it wasn't for my inside people I'd be even worse than I am. Lately there's been a lot of confusion for me about what makes me my own individual aside from them, for example a lot of us love stones. I love stones too, collecting them. I used to be easily able to define myself, I love Russian as my favorite language. Over the summer we had several months of stress and someone new came out. He got me into music in turkish and I feel I can't be a person who likes that because I have loved russian for so long and I still do, but I'm confused. Part of me thinks I should be static, that things about me as a person should stay the same. I feel like I'm recreating myself over and over with each version having some things in common will its predecessor but some things are different. Also, have noticed that my skin picking is getting worse. I think it is less about anxiety these days than it is about a way to hurt us without seeming to. A lot of mh providers I have talked to say it's always about anxiety and it wasn't until years after I first found out about it that I was reading a blog by another person who lived with abusive parents and she said picking was about anxiety but more about SH for her. Oh, and did I mention therapy session are always too short to talk about all this? Sometimes I send my therapist my journal entries like this one but never know if she finds the time to read them or not. Sorry this is all over the place because my worry wheel is on overload.

For almost a year i’ve struggled greatly with skin picking. I have marks all over my hands, down my arms and scattered on my legs. People noticed and begged me to stop but I couldn’t. I’m proud to say I was finally able to stop. I’ve gotten my nails done which makes it really hard to rip my skin open so I can botice when i’m doing it. My scars are healing externally and internally and I hope my skin goes back to normal. Pictures from a few months ago show me covered in infected wounds and scabs. Now, it’s just faded marks. I’m so proud I did it and am receiving help I need! #MentalHealth #Dermatillomania

#Dermatillomania is a “www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/dermatillomania-skin-picking, is a psychological condition that manifests as repetitive, compulsive #skinpicking .” Approximately  www.bfrb.org/learn-about-bfrbs/skin-picking-disorder of the population has a skin picking disorder. So that means that approximately 11,500 people in the U.S.A. have a skin picking disorder. I am not alone. And if you do this, you are not alone either. If you don’t, please have compassion without judgment.My first memory of picking my nails until they bled was before kindergarten. I picked at my toenails. I am not sure why I did this, but that’s when it started. It was during nursing school that I really got carried away with my fingernails. Some days, all fingertips would be covered in bandaids. I frequently had to clean both my toenails and fingernails with hydrogen peroxide and cover them in triple antibiotics to prevent infection. I went through a lot of hydrogen peroxide and triple antibiotics during nursing school.To try to prevent me from this self-harm and to look better, I went to nail salons for fake nails. The workers showed my nails to each other and spoke in a foreign language with shock and amusement. They said “no nail” in English and then, they did their work. I sat in embarrassment as my ugly nails were inspected under magnified light. I felt beautiful and “normal” for a while when the lovely new nails were complete. But without much nail bed to hang on to, fake nails fall off quickly only to reveal a worse situation beneath. Putting on fake nails is also damaging to the natural nail…picking them off as I did after losing one or two…isn’t a great idea for beauty either.

My teenager has fussed me so many times for picking at and over filing my nails. It drives them crazy. I know it’s poor role modeling too but, I file away. As a young child, I was soothed by rubbing my mom’s smooth nails. Now, if my nail isn’t smooth, I will go to the store to get a nail file if I can’t find one. Ironically, because of this bad habit, my nails will never actually be smooth.Before you comment on the many ways that I can overcome this bad habit, I have to tell you that I don’t need to. I have consulted with doctors and counselors; it’s not pretty or the healthiest coping mechanism but I’m ok with it right now. The stress of trying to quit is greater than the stress relief of just continuing. It’s not as bad as it once was and I’m not trying to cover it up with fake nails. Getting past the body shame has been good for me. That’s where I am right now and it’s ok.