Skin Picking in Autism: Causes and Management
Skin Picking in Autism: Causes and Management
2 reactions I have been skin picking since I was a child. Not to any dysfunctional degree, but I can spot it in pictures and remember picking at scabs. I have struggled with anxiety and depression manifesting in different symptoms and behaviors but skin picking/dermatillomania/excoriation disorder has really been wired into me to a dysfunctional point since college (10 years ago).
It has bee manageable at times and really devastating to my mental health at other times. I am speaking with a therapist for general anxiety but she is not specialized in this specifically and I would just like some anecdotes of people with a similar issues and what they found helped them to change that behavior.
Thanks for any stories/advice!
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August 10th was my first full day of not skin picking.
It was a pretty easy day. I had some moments of course but I focused on playing with my puppy and my writing and I - with the help of God - managed to conquer them.
Then today, I cut my left ankle. Not bad but it did require a bandaid. My initial response after "Ouch" was "This is going to be a test 😂"!
Having more moments of difficulty but I've been focusing on my puppy, spending time with my family and watching reruns of NCIS. That seems to be working 😊👍.
I know I have a long road ahead of me but I know with the help of God, my family, my puppy and my support groups...I will be able to defeat this.
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Hello fellow members 👋😊. I joined this group because I have been battling a skin picking disorder for 35 years. It is due to all the bullying I endured in school and the discrimination and rejection I have suffered because of my having learning disabilities. I primarily pick at my nails which leads to hang nails that I picked at. Sometimes I bleed. Sometimes I just have sore, red marks.
Whenever I get a cut, I will put a bandaid on it but end up putting on another one because I have picked at the scab.
I have tried numerous times to stop. I even went as long as a year without picking. Thought I had beaten it but had a relapse.
Recently my desire to pick as increased because my elderly parents have just started to need more care. Not in a major way but it has happened so suddenly... it has been overwhelming sometimes.
This past week, I had noticed my left toe nail was getting long so I decided to pick at it and tore the whole thing off! It bled and there was mild throbbing and sensitivity. I was angry at myself for myself to say the least.
I really want to stop especially since I finally know why I have been doing it. It's just a matter of getting myself started. With my parents' changing health, I want to be able to be there for them whenever I'm needed without this burden.
My family knows about this condition. In fact, they have been encouraging me for years to stop.
I watched a YouTube video about how to stop. The counselor said, "Find a reason why you want to quit". I have found it. I want to quit for them because I know how much they love me.
I want to quit for me too. I'm middle aged now and I am so sick and tired of dealing with this!
I know that I can beat this. I think to myself, "If I can stop for a year, I can stop for good".
With the help of my faith, my family and the support groups I have found especially on here, I know I can do it ☺️👍.
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How many of you have had to quit school due to chronic health problems?
WARNING ⚠️ the rest of this post is lengthy!!!
I have been working on my bachelors in community health through online courses (one class at a time) for the past seven years. A few months prior to beginning my degree program I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia following a car wreck that required a neck fusion surgery. From there my chronic illness diagnoses have continued to accumulate. I now have chronic migraine, endometriosis, interstitial cystitis, chronic fatigue, degenerative disc disease, tinnitus, IBS, C-PTSD, and a long list of food and environmental allergies. I have 2 sons and 2 daughters. My youngest son (15yr) has serious ADHD. Both of my daughters (21yr & 20yr) have long lists of chronic health conditions. They live with me and probably will for their whole lives due to the impact of the disability that their issues cause. Neither girl can drive either. The oldest has Asperger’s, fibromyalgia, Ehlers Danlos, ADHD, C-PTSD, severe anxiety, depression, Eosinophilic Esophagitis, IBS, mild Ulcerative Colitis, numerous food allergies and possible Borderline Personality Disorder. The youngest has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Dysautonomia, C-PTSD, depression, anxiety, disordered eating, restless legs, Eosinophilic Esophagitis, constant skin picking, and numerous food allergies. All three of us girls and my youngest boy has severe sleeping problems. Me and both my girls have applied for and been turned down for disability. Up until 2022 I had been a stay-at-home, homeschooling mom. At the beginning of 2022 me and my 2 girls and youngest son ( oldest son is in college and pretty much living on his own) loaded up and left my narcissistic abusive husband of 16 yrs. and began to start over in a tiny apartment in a small town with me re-entering the work force and starting a full time job in retail and officially divorcing him at the end of that year. My youngest daughter has since tried to commit suicide twice and my oldest has had several mental breaks that were extremely hard to deal with. Throughout the whole time I have continued with my school classes. Determined to finish what I started. However, my health has continued to decline from all my illnesses and the stress of my life and it is taking a toll on my cognitive abilities. I took a 8 month break from my classes but have started back recently and I’m struggling to keep up with the assignments and not learning as I know I should be. I only have 6 classes left, that will take me the next year to complete due to the schedule I’m following, but my body, mind and finances seem to be making it extremely hard for me to keep going. I’m really considering quitting, but feel like I would be a real failure if I didn’t finish it.
If you read all this……Thank you! 🙂 #ChronicFatigue
#Fibromyalgia
# Migraine
#IBS
#InterstitialCystitis
#ChronicPain
#EhlersDanlos
#c -PTSD
#Autism
#Anxiety
#Depression
##BrainFog
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Hi! I have skin-picking disorder. My family has tried to get me to stop and I have tried to stop on my own. I pick until I bleed, and in the moment it feels good, but I end up getting blood on my clothes, and I even got an infection once. My mom bought me fidget toys (Pop-Its, fidget spinners, etc). I’m not trying to be ungrateful at all, but fidget toys just don’t work for me, and I’m not sure why. Nothing else feels as good for relieving my anxiety as picking (it feels awful afterward, of course). I’m just wondering if fidget toys don’t work for anyone else or if I’m the only one.
#Dermatillomania #ExcoriationSkinPickingDisorder #Anxiety #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #MentalHealth
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I’m on disability and have been for 10 years. I live in a community area that is specifically targeted for seniors and those on disability who are low income. My neighbor of 3 years is bipolar and narcissistic. She has told me this herself. I have major depressive disorder, CPTSD, Anxiety, Hypersensitivity, Skin Picking Disorder, Insomnia, Agoraphobia, Self Hate, and OCD. I have 2 family members with her same diagnosis. Two of my counselors and my psychiatrist finally got me to cut the two family members out of my life for my mental health safety. It was the best thing I did for myself as they wouldn’t respect my boundaries once I started to put them in place. Unfortunately I’m not able to do that with my neighbor. I can’t even have a private conversation in my own home without her ease dropping on it. I caught her getting close to my windows as I saw her feet. I said “OMG she’s at my window as I can see her feet. I can’t even have a private conversation in my own home!” I was having a telahealth meeting with my previous counselor. He tried to get me to talk to our property manager about it back at that time. I finally did speak with our new property manager about it last week from the urging of my new counselor. I looked into moving into another unit in my complex but I can’t afford to do it. My counselor suggested putting a radio in front of the window in the room I’m choosing to have a conversation. But how do I start to set boundaries with my neighbor. I rarely saw the two family members in person. They mostly did their damage through phone calls, texts, Facebook posts and messenger. So it was easier to take care of dealing with them. But this neighbor I have to see on a regular basis. Before things got tense between us I was the one who did all of the driving to any place we went. She never said thank you, offered a bit of gas money or said I’ll buy your lunch since you drove. I drove her to her colonoscopy appointment last year when gas was over $5 per gallon. I figured it up and it cost me $62 dollars round trip to do that. She didn’t pay me for any of it, breakfast or say thank you. Someone please help me figure out what I can do to protect myself from the manipulation, guilt trips and gaslighting that I receive from her. #bipo #NarcissisticPersonalityDisorder #majordeprissivedisorder #CPTSD #Gaslighting #Agoraphobia #SkinPickingDisorder #OCD
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Muscle dysmorphia is a subtype of the obsessive mental disorder body dysmorphic disorder, but is often also grouped with eating disorders. In muscle dysmorphia, which is sometimes called "bigorexia", "megarexia", or "reverse anorexia", the delusional or exaggerated belief is that one's own body is too small, too skinny, insufficiently muscular, or insufficiently lean, although in most cases, the individual's build is normal or even exceptionally large and muscular already.
Muscle dysmorphia affects mostly men, particularly those involved in sports where body size or weight are competitive factors, becoming rationales to gain muscle or become leaner. The quest to seemingly fix one's body consumes inordinate time, attention, and resources, as on exercise routines, dietary regimens, and nutritional supplementation, while use of anabolic steroids is also common. Other body-dysmorphic preoccupations that are not muscle-dysmorphic are usually present as well.
The distress and distraction of muscle dysmorphia may provoke absences from school, work, and social settings. Compared to other body dysmorphic disorders, rates of suicide attempts are especially high with muscle dysmorphia. Researchers believe that muscle dysmorphia's incidence is rising, partly due to the recent cultural emphasis on muscular male bodies.
Signs and symptoms of body dysmorphic disorder include:
-Being extremely preoccupied with a perceived flaw in appearance that to others can't be seen or appears minor
-Strong belief that you have a defect in your appearance that makes you ugly or deformed
-Belief that others take special notice of your appearance in a negative way or mock you
-Engaging in behaviors aimed at fixing or hiding the perceived flaw that are difficult to resist or control, such as frequently checking the mirror, grooming or skin picking
-Attempting to hide perceived flaws with styling, makeup or clothes
-Constantly comparing your appearance with others
-Frequently seeking reassurance about your appearance from others
-Having perfectionist tendencies
-Seeking cosmetic procedures with little satisfaction
-Avoiding social situations
-Preoccupation with your appearance and excessive thoughts and repetitive behaviors can be unwanted, difficult to control and so time-consuming that they can cause major distress or problems in your social life, work, school or other areas of functioning.
You can refer to this:
1 reaction Hi, my name is 16joan. I'm here because I suffer from skin picking on my fingers and toes.
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*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.
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