Help with Dermatillomania?

Hey @Dermatillomania, welcome to the community. ❤ Skin-picking is a form of body focused repetitive behaviour, as far as I've heard and often linked with anxiety and stress. as you mentioned for yourself also. It's great you're able to recognize the underlying anxiety here, and are looking for ways to curb the behaviour.

What have you tried so far, if anything?:)

Would it perhaps help to work through the anxiety first? What makes you feel anxious, how often do you experience it, any triggers or something that leads you to pick on skin and ofcourse, eventually to find some alternate ways to cope with anxiety? To consciously make your brain attend to something else.

You can always talk to listeners here, we can all use support and a compassionate company, to have the much needed reminder that we aren't alone, and can use all the space we need.

Also, I found this article https://www.bfrb.org/articles/list-of-strategies-for-skin-picking which has a lot of strategies mentioned, while different things may work for people differently, it's always worth a try, I feel. I hope something can be of help here and/ or you can seek some professional assistance, if needed. ❤ Sending love.

@Dermatillomania while I cannot say I have something currently associated with skin picking, I used to pick and scratch at my scalp before I was diagnosed with my panic disorder. For me, over time, having another tactile sensation to distract me from wanting to pick at my scalp helped me ultimately stop doing it altogether. Stress balls or small stuffed keychains and animals were great positive reinforcements in seeking a physical sensation while I was (unknowingly) having an episode(as I called them, again this is purely based on my own personal experience). It’s also important to note what triggers your anxiety; while not everything in your external world can be controlled, you have a right to set boundaries to step away from things that instigate your anxiety and cause you to pick at your skin. Preventative measure might also be to wear gloves, especially since it’s getting colder, or maybe even bandaids on your fingers. These could just be temporary solutions, or maybe they could be a small step in keeping you from acting on this behavior while anxious. Hopefully this helps you in some way :)

@Dermatillomania I have done this for over 40 years unfortunately.  When it gets bad, I put bandaides on my fingers.  The only thing that I have found to help.  Good luck.

@Dermatillomania Ooh the other day I found these videos about this putty thing that someone made to stop them from picking their fingers. Idk how helpful it is, but maybe you can check it out?