Oh hey, it's me! Spoiler: Spoiling warning for somewhat graphic description of skin picking I've been living that tricho life since elementary school and I've been skin picking for as long as I've had reliable control over my fingers, so, probably not when I was a baby? For me it seems to be a stimming thing. I don't get that urge to remove imperfections, if anything I kind of cultivate them so that I'll have more stuff to pick. It's not working out too great for me, been walking with a limp off and on for months now cause my right foot is missing its top layer of skin :/ I don't really have a way of dealing with this other than rotating between foot-picking, hair-pulling, finger-chewing, etc etc etc when one of these becomes too painful. The sides of my fingers were real bad for a while there, do not recommend, it hurts a lot and takes forever to heal.
I bite the inside of my mouth so badly that it's actually broken my teeth. Dentists drive me nuts because their suggestion is "bruxism mouth guard?" until I explain for the third dang time that I don't grind my teeth at night, I do this while I'm awake, and I use my front teeth to do it and not my molars - at which point their suggestion is "...don't do it?" and it's like okay. Sure. Thank you, that's been very helpful. Excuse me while I try to remove my palm from my face now. I seriously don't know what to do about it. Sensory chews/stim toys kind of help, but it's limited. Gum is good but not always socially appropriate. What I need is probably to make it part of a sensory diet, where I do lots of chewing/biting in a safe way to give me that kind of input before I go seeking it out on my poor inner cheeks or lips, which really want a break.
sits right down in this thread i've had a habit of nail biting for aaaaaaaaaaages, been making a bit of progress on it tho i tend to feel very anxious when in public with noticeably torn down nails? which leads to either 1) hiding hands, 2) more nervous nibbling :v when at home it's more of a boredom/needing-to-move-to-concentrate habit that i barely notice/care about unless i end up making myself bleed. (i also have a small chip in one of my front teeth which i'm p sure is a result of the way i bite them) i've been buying myself a lot of nail polishes recently, i hope that having them can be a motivator to let myself have Nails so i can show 'em off. with growing them back, something that really helped was trying to start a habit of using an organic nail + cuticle care lotion every couple of days, as well as trying to keep clippers nearby so i can use them instead of my teeth after noticing a Problem in the nail shape. i also bite at the skin on my lips and pick at bumps on my legs, the latter of which isn't done to much damaging effect
one pickless picking solution i enjoy: i like to put a little bit of sand in my hair and scratch it out, the sand particles kinda feel like scabs and i like when they get under my fingers and how it feels being scratched on my scalp
iiiii...definitely have a problem with this but I really don't want to own up to it. cause it's one more problem behavior to correct when there's already so many, and it means I'm technically doing SI, which is...kind of a weight on me, since I'm trying my best to be kind to myself
@Birdy Working on other things (mostly brain things, some environmental things) ended up helping me reduce my picking way more than actual efforts to "stop picking" ever did. That is to say, if you're working on other things (even if it's just to try to keep them from getting worse) it may end up benefitting you in this regard as well.
yeah...I really mostly do it when I'm bored. maybe a stim toy would be good, just to keep my hands busy
^^^ what @Shingleback said, ive found that when im the least anxious i pick less also, another tip: putty! or slime, i guess, but i bought those really pretty multichrome silly aarons thinking putty and theyre soooo good for busy hands unfortunately i cant use it all the time, like when im in lab, so i also have a spinner ring which works...ok? i feel like getting a spinner ring with more spinny bits (stares covetously at the tarot card one) might be better. hmm
Shrieks gently bc I never realised this Counted as a diagnosable thing- I've been skin-picking since I was really young, like I don't remember ever not picking. I think it's probably a stimming thing for me, it's something I do because I'm bored and understimulated and the sensation helps take up brainmeat that's otherwise just buzzing pointlessly. Also is pica a bfrb? Or something that looks like it- I have a Thing for chewing on and eating Things That Should Not Be Ate, like bricks and chalks and mudstone fossils (:'D) and thinking about it, it kinda works the same way as my skin-picking, the focus of the behaviour being on the action rather than the result, and the purpose being self-stimulation via that action. Either way, both of them are really fucking annoying and solidarity to everyone here dealing with this shit :')
I cannot resist worrying at scabs and making things last way longer than they should. The feeling of peeling a scab is just so goddamn satisfying. Even if it's way too early and it bleeds. I also have a tendency to pick skin off the soles of my feet until I make them bleed. I have an issue with spontaneous heavy callusing on my toes and heels and often instead of filing them down constantly I forget until they crack, and then I pick at the cracks until they bleed and get painful ...
I've been picking at my face less since I got a cyst on my chin removed, since i still have stitches in and i don't want to touch that in case I mess it up. but I have to get them removed today so hopefully I can just go back to putting on those blister bandages to absorb t h e o i l s instead of picking at zits
so i was talking to my psych any she said that my picking isn't really in line with self-harm cause i just sort of do it absent-mindedly
Yeah, I think there's a (not always clear) distinction between "nervous habit" and "self-harm". Also stimming.
I pluck hairs and pick at scabs and squeeze anything remotely resembling a zit or comdeone and my lips are scarred from picking them. Sigh. I also chew on my fingernails, which sometimes helps reduce the other things but not always. I tried watching videos but it just made me want to do it more. :/
yes hello I belong in this thread but I have a lot of shame tied up with BFRBs so I have to say it in lowercaps smalltext shh
Tfw you've picked and scratched an area of skin until its sore but there's one tiny flake left that itches like hell and demands to be picked
I pick the skin on my face and upper arms a lot, since I was... ten, or thereabouts, which has left me with a mosaic of tiny scars on my arms and a face that's constantly got scabs and irritated bumps. Decided to see a couple of weeks ago if I could transfer that urge to something less harmful - pulling out hairs that I don't need. So I got myself a pair of tweezers and started plucking my eyebrows, and then when I got those to a shape I liked I switched to pretty much the same thing, but with my leg hairs. Can't really see much improvement on my arms yet, but my face is definitely thanking me. And I have a giant bald patch down my shin, like I've waxed my legs and forgot to finish the job xD
(revives thread) The other day my coworker's dog was hanging out at our baseball game and i discovered plucking little bits of shed fur off of the doggo is gr8 and helpful (altho i was told off for letting fur blow away in the wind onto my coworker, oops) Edit: by shed fur i mean, loose fur that is being shed. It looks like lil clumps of feathers sort of? (gently harasses the dog)
Aw man, my cat used to get little matts and bindis in his fur and they were great for picking at. You gotta gently pull the fur apart at the base until the matt kinda pops off....good stuff. I've been a little better about picking my face lately but I've kinda noticed I've been chewing my nails more. Can't win 'em all, I guess. Except sometimes I bite the cuticle too far and owwwwwww.
