So excited to see that Oprah.com has an article on skin picking! I feel like BFRBs are becoming more well known and I’m glad that there are more skin picking articles like this on the Internet. Anything that can spread awareness and good information is an awesome thing.

I think how the article explains that everyone picks but it becomes a disorder when it interferes with your life. Author June DeMelo writes:

I started picking my skin when I was around 11. I figure I’ve spent 15 minutes every night since then in front of the mirror, which means I’ve wasted about 2,192 hours of my life on this icky ritual. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve repeated these steps: Squeeze bump. Curse pain. Await scab, tear it off to reveal…fresh skin! Once, I had to wear a bandage on my chin after attempting to lance a pimple with a needle. And at the restaurant where I used to work, I mangled a blemish so badly while on break that I had to cover it with the orange chalk we used to write out the daily specials.

Definitely encourage you to read it.

An article on The Mighty focuses on the problems of living with dermatophagia, a BFRB where people bite their skin compulsively. Skin biting can include many different behaviors including biting of the cuticles, biting of the skin around the finger nails or even cheek biting. Biting of the fingernails is not usually including as part of dermatophagia, since it has its own name: onychophagia.

Biting of the skin can become very severe in that it can cause bleeding. This usually leads to secrecy, isolation and shame. The author, Ryan O, writes that he felt the effects of his dermatophagia every day and tried to cope somehow:

As I progressed through high school and into college, it became — and has become — a full blown addiction. Sometimes (and unfortunately still to this day) I would walk into class, hiding my hands and/or crossing my arms because of the gnawing during the lunch hour and during prior classes. Sometimes I would sit down in my desk, smearing blood all into my notebook or over my clothes because I hadn’t even noticed I was bleeding.

What I found interesting was that there is this huge amount of shame which leads to poor self-esteem. Ryan writes:

I’m a person with a monstrous problem, not a monster with a personal problem.

I can relate to this quote very much. For many years I felt like a monster. I felt terrible because I was causing this myself and because I was scarring and disfiguring my own body. What kind of person does this to himself? I think that understanding that there’s a compulsion and you cannot normally stop yourself has helped me accept my BFRB. Ryan paints a great picture of what it’s like to live with dermatophagia and how it has impacted his life.

While scrolling through my Twitter feed, I came across an article from Lifehacker called “Why You Probably Shouldn’t Pick Your Nose“.  This post essentially is highlighting a video from Business Insider and the video itself features Dr. Erich Voigt, an otolaryngologist at NYU Langone who talks about why it’s not a good idea to pick your nose. I don’t have much of a problem with the video itself because I think it’s informative. However it does not address the issue of nose picking as a body-focused repetitive behavior.

It’s good to know some of the science about why nose picking is not healthy (because it may introduce germs into your body). But they don’t address that it’s a compulsion for many people and they cannot stop doing it. Compulsive nose picking is called rhinotillexomania and it’s not well known how common it is. Wikipedia has this:

“…some surveys indicate that it is almost universal, with people picking their nose on average about four times a day.”

I recommend reading the Wikipedia article but it’s not perfect either. Whether it’s a compulsion for some, it appears that nose picking is almost universal. People don’t like to admit to doing it. People hide it and are shamed if they are ever caught doing it in public. There’s also a sense of disgust to nose picking (and other BFRBs but that’s another story). Here’s the first paragraph from the Lifehacker article:

“Picking your nose probably won’t kill you, but it’s not exactly a healthy habit either. Not only does picking your nose look gross, it could be leaving the door open for dangerous bacteria that want to call your nose home.”

I cringed when I read the word “gross” and “habit”. Words like these can further stigmatize those who have BFRBs and drive them further into shame, silence and secrecy. I wish the video would have addressed nose picking as a compulsion and as a BFRB. I also wish that I did not read any of the comments to the post or to the YouTube video.

People who are “caught” picking their nose in public are often shamed and called “gross”. There are scenes in movies and books where nose picking is considered gross too. I hate seeing things like BFRBs being portrayed negatively but don’t know what can be done to change this. Raising awareness and speaking out is one way perhaps.