Dermatillomania?

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I think i have "dermatillomania." Ever since i was maybe a pre-teen i've had a habit of skin-picking.. It was annoying when i did it to my face a lot as a teenager, because i ended up with scabs all over my face.. but lately i haven't been messing with my face quite as much, but i can sit around for hours picking at my scalp(this is better, because it's not visible.. i'm doing it now!), but i pick at other areas sometimes too. I don't really see it as a problem at the moment because it is relaxing, and i don't really care if i give myself a red spot or scab. In some ways it is like a complicated stim.. It is kind of similar to the relaxation i get from rocking.

Anyone else here have a skin-picking habit? Does it give you a similar feeling to stimming, or do you just do it because you feel compelled to?

ive never picked sores.. but i used to like sticking things into my skin and piercing my skin over and over esp with pins..One day when i was a child, to my mothers disguist, I sew my hand completely shut with needle and thread. This sticking myself with pins was calming to me.

I was wondering when someone might mention this.

I've had it since I was nine, when I switched to public school (tough transition). I started by cutting pieces of my fingers off with a fiskers in class, just out of boredom, but then started biting any remaining bits of skin off. Then I switched to picking. Yeah, it sounds bizarre and creepy. I assure you I'm not completely psycho, I just have a thing for cutting things up (i.e. paper, veggies, carpet, hair) and tearing them. Maybe I should have been a hairdresser, but then again, after cutting my little playmate's hair so extensively when I was four that she had to be shaved bald, I think the shears are best left out of my hands.

I mostly do only my fingers, but sometimes my scalp, too. It's horrid. I wish I could stop, but it's so relaxing. Unfortunately, my hands are constantly bleeding. I don't feel pain too well, so that's not a problem. But it's so embarrassing when a classmate or potential love interest sees my poor hands for the first time.

Actually, it has gotten better in the last five or six years. I used to pick all the joints, around the nail and the entire underside of all my fingers. I still have some bad scarring from that, but now I stick mostly to the cuticle and up to the first joint on my ring fingers.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to stop, after fourteen years of picking, I'd try just about anything.

Even though I'm past puberty, I still get acne on my face and shoulders, especially around the time of my period or during times of stress. I have a bad habit of popping pimples and picking at the scabs that form afterward. These wounds take weeks to heal. I also like clipping the skin off of my feet with nail clippers.

My mom and psychiatrist don't like me doing these things, and they can't understand why I keep doing them. I can't give them an answer because I don't know why I do them either. I just find it very relaxing for some reason.

Popping pimples - you can still do that in your 50s. Not that I would know. Oh no.

I frequently chew my fingers to the point that I have calluses all over the knuckles of my left hand, and some of my right hand. The photo in the Wikipedia article on Dermatillomania looks just like my left hand: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Dermatillomania#Causes_and_treatments

Personally, I am not convinced this is dermatillomania. I think it is dermatophagia: chewing or eating the skin. I read a journal article about dermatophagia which described symptoms exactly like mine (calluses over the all knuckles from regularly chewing). In my case, I think it is a substitute for chewing fingernails or chewing pens. I managed to ween myself off chewing fingernails in my late childhood, but still chew pens incessantly. With the advent of computers, I am less likely to be holding a pen ... so I started chewing my bare fingers without even noticing it. For a long while I had no idea where the calluses came from ... until I realised one day that I had my finger in my mouth and all the calluses lined up exactly with my molars.

i eat my hair

i am not asd, but i have issues with skin picking (one of my ocpd traits). its found in a lot of disorders. i pick at scabs primarily, or rough spots on my skin. i am really struggling with it right now due to increased stress the past few months. i have a spot on my wrist thats 1"x2" and started as a mosquito bite last year, and a couple scab spots on my legs that are about 3 years old. one of my downfalls is that even after ive managed to let the scabs heal and repair, i am left with a spot of scar tissue, which then draws attention because its a raised or rough spot.

there was a thread on it in the parenting forum a few weeks back, if you want to read that thread its at http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp2853132 ... t=#2853132

ill just copy here what i wrote in there for helping to reduce it. in addition to these methods ive recently started cutting my fingernails shorter. this ends up with me digging harder at my skin, but with a lot less success.

- barrier methods (gloves or bandaids). i use nexcare waterproof bandaids, they seal all the way around the area and have strong adhesive to stay on. thats the only thing that keeps me from picking spots into large scabs.

- distraction. give her fingers something else to do. a figdet to play with or some sort of less mutilating action to keep her hands busy (rubbing fingers together, tapping, etc).

- smoothing/soothing the affected area. i pick at rough spots, so i use lotion on those spots to make them less "wanting to be picked", and use a pumice stone on them in the shower to try to remove some of the dry callous skin. lotion and pumice will also work to both reduce any itchiness if thats a trigger, and reduce how visible the spots are if thats a trigger.

it can be really hard to stop picking. i havent managed it yet =/ its a two part process, first you have to realize when you are doing it, THEN you have to actually stop! i am getting good at realizing when i am doing it, but i really struggle with stopping once i realize i am doing it. its a compulsion.

Oh, me! Diagnosed as "Impulse control disorder-NOS." Feet, fingers, and scalp are the worst. I got MRSA on my scalp, actually, for a few years, and that was a mess. The doctor would say, "LEAVE IT ALONE!" and I'd say, "I CAN'T!" I pick all the time. I hate it.

I have trichotillomania, and this probably as well.

Not sure if I am on the spectrum. However, this is one of the traits that does get me wondering (along with a lot of other stuff.)

_________________
Official diagnosis: ADHD, synesthesia. Aspie quiz result (unofficial test): Like Frodo--I'm a halfling? 110/200 NT, 109/200 Aspie.

I used to clip the skin of my fingers off with nail clippers. Just a little bit at first, but after a while, it got to the point where I would bleed occasionally.

I've had this compulsion since I was in pre-school. Stress sets it off the most. It's soothing to pick, and it makes me feel put-together, and sometimes it feels exciting and makes me feel awake. I will also do it when I'm in an already relaxed state. Sometimes I do it in a focused way, or sometimes in an absent-minded way. I almost always have some sort of active picking spot on my body, and these sores can last for months. They're always small though. When on rare occasion I realize I don't, I feel weird and anxious and like I'm missing something.

I also enjoy biting and picking at my nails, picking dirt out from my nails, and for a little while when I was a kid I went through a phase where I would blow my nose in the inside of my shirt and the snot would dry up on my chest and it was a delight to pick it off later. 0_o I wish I were joking. Oh and I used to paint my nails just so I could pick it off my nails -_-

kind of sucks that I have eczema as well, so even when the patches aren't feeling itchy, I will still pick at them.

Tried using bandaids but they just make my skin itch

Has anyone tried liquid bandaids? I feel like I'd just want to pick that off too once it dried.

My struggle with both dermatillomania and trichotillomania started when I was 12, and my mom got into a horrible accident and almost died. I became so anxious and paranoid I would lock myself in my room and literally just pull out my hair and pick at my face for hours. I would have huge bald spots and scabs on my face that I couldn't hide...Was put on many medications over the years but I I'm 25 now and still pick and pull when stressed out, bored, etc. However, I've learned to minimize the "damage"... taking good care of my hair and skin are an incentive to not mess them up. I still do it daily but not only fleetingly and not for hours...I'll either realize and stop or family members will remind me to stop.

My struggle with both dermatillomania and trichotillomania started when I was 12, and my mom got into a horrible accident and almost died. I became so anxious and paranoid I would lock myself in my room and literally just pull out my hair and pick at my face for hours. I would have huge bald spots and scabs on my face that I couldn't hide...Was put on many medications over the years but I I'm 25 now and still pick and pull when stressed out, bored, etc. However, I've learned to minimize the "damage"... taking good care of my hair and skin are an incentive to not mess them up. I still do it daily but not only fleetingly and not for hours...I'll either realize and stop or family members will remind me to stop.

I didn't realize that this was a documented psychological phenomenon. I have been doing this since I can remember. I love picking at scabs, blisters, acne, warts, cysts, peeling skin, and callouses. I didn't think that this made me odd, rather I thought that it was odd that my peers wouldn't do the same.