picking skin...?

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i've had this problem for a while. I pick my fingers all the time, usually without even thinking about it. I'll be watching a movie and i will have started to pick at them. It helps relieve my stress, but i want to stop. I didnt even know there was a name for it lol

I don't think so -- "phagia" means chewing or eating, not picking.

Like someone else says, dermatillomania.

Yeah, I do that too: mostly the skin on my fingers (it would be euphemistic to say I restrict myself to "hangnails"), but also zits, scabs, dandruff, my ears, and lately, ingrown hairs. When I was a kid I picked the callouses off the bottoms of my feet until they bled. Gross! It's a bit embarrassing because I find it almost impossible not to do, and it leaves my fingers (and lately my legs) looking pretty messed up. I did once manage to stop for almost a year by wearing gloves all the time. I haunted thrift shops and bought a lot of those pretty gloves that ladies used to wear...

I am notorias for scratching myself, whenever I come out of the shower I always have scratch marks on my back, I also like to explore the different areas of my skin. I often pick of my pimples but I am trying to stop as I hear that makes it worse.

I think it's pretty common to most of us. We can't stand these imperfections and desire everything to be smooth and aesthetically correct. We can't help ourselves. It's one of the few OCD traits that I have. Drives the husband insane. I hear, "honey, stop picking", when I don't even know that I was doing it! I do it absent mindedly when my hands have nothing else to do. Gotta keep those suckers busy.

The weird thing for me is that it's not about aesthetics, it's just about picking. I really think it comes from the old practice of picking bugs off, only taken to extremes.

I tend to pick my nose occasionally but not usually my skin. I usually stop before doing any damage. I know its socially unacceptable and do not do it in front of others but I find its the best way of getting rid of dried mucus. It probably an OCD thing as I have some of the traits of this disorder.

Yay someone else I am not alone, please don't judge me. I also have a wart on my finger it is very anoying but won't go away, I often pick at it, I think I got it from stressing and getting sweaty hands, I used to have another next to my knee which I picked a lot even to the pint of bleeding.

I usually only pick at my skin when I need to relax. Sometimes it causes undue damage, but for the most part it's not an awful habit.

I've been picking at myself since the 4th grade.
And I can remember trying to stop this habit
(unsuccessfully) many times since then. It drove
my mother crazy. I usually pick my arms, but
lately it's been at my legs. When I was having
girlfriend problems I started to scratch my head
heavily. No one could see the sores.

I do it, too. I think it developed when I was being harassed in middle school, and I haven't been able to stop it since. I mostly pop pimples on my arms and face. With my face, its not so bad (I cover it with makeup, and my hair hides most of it), but my arms look horrible, all blotchy from the scarring, I tell people they are birth marks.

The sad thing is, I'm nowhere near patient enough for any of it to heal, I'll go through phases where I'm good about it but then regress just days later. Has anybody had success with stopping such behavior? Let me know how you did it! Thanks!

i have always felt like a groomer.... give good massages too

I have a really bad habit of picking and popping my zits. Its really addictive. I do it because I don't like zits and because it feels good. I even pick my zits until blood comes out. With me, its a compulsive habit that seems hard to break because it looks like I have no self-control. I wish I didn't do this.

When I was young I used to pick at my lips, they'd go hard and then crack and bleed. Then I moved on to my fingers, down the sides of my nails but since aged 15 I've been picking at my scalp.

I tear off finger & toe nails. I feel their texture & when there is a rough bit, I constantly rub it until I start to tear at the nail. Smooth textures don't do anything for me. Rougher textures seem to excite my brain.

BUT, now that the weather has cooled down, I usually wear socks. So I don't notice the toes. So they start to look pretty good. But by summer! Ugh...

I don't pick at my skin, but I usually stretch & scratch toros on waking up. Nothing much though, just some red marks that go away after a few minutes.

I scratched myself aLOT as a kid. A lot of it was because I had BAD skin eczema & lots of things made my skin itch. Heat & humidity(I'm from Louisiana), allergies, & stress & being angry made it aLOT worse. I scratched till I bled alot & i had LOTS of sores. I kind of gradually outgrew it in my teens but some of that is probably because I wasn't as stressed out from skewl & being bullied. It gradually came back after I moved to Vermont but I think some of it is because our heater is a floor furnace which drys out my skin. It got pretty bad around my ankles & knees. I had lots of sores there from scratching. Things got a lot better after I started taking 20mg of Prednisone 5 days a week. I really should use moisturizers & creams on my skin but I always HATED the feel of that & I fought my parents like hell when they tried to put it on me as a kid.