Hi all, not sure whether there have been topics on this before, if there are then I'll comment there. But anyway, I seriously need some help/advice. Basically, I've suffered from dermatophagia for as long as I can remember. For anyone who doesn't know, it's compulsive skin picking - sufferers are called 'wolf-biters' (found out on wikipedia). Just a precaution: I might write some things that sound quite gory and disgusting, so please don't read if you're squeamish.(:
It started when I was very young, as something I did whenever I was nervous - I would just automatically start biting and pulling skin from my fingertips, on the tip and all the way around to (and including) the cuticles. It's gotten progressively worse over the years - I spend hours picking every little piece of skin off of my fingers until all that remains is the new red layer of skin underneath, and my fingers burn with pain for days afterwards. I immediately regret it as soon as I've done it, but I just can't stop. I have to get my family to hide the nail clippers from me because I just use them to clip off skin. It gets to the point where it often bleeds, and it's made even worse that I play guitar, so whenever I do it I can't play for a week or so and it's incredibly frustrating. I know it looks horrible both when I do it subconsciously around other people, and it looks like something out of a horror movie afterwards... it's just disgusting and I seriously wish I could stop.
So, to put it simply, is anyone else suffering with this? And does anyone have any advice that will actually work (e.g. that stuff you can put on nails that tastes horrible)? At this point, I don't think I can stop simply by willpower alone. Maybe I should wear gloves until I get out of the habit?? :/ any help or comments are greatly appreciated and thanks for reading. (:
- Serah X