Healing the Shame of  Dermatillomania: Personal Insights & Stories

For most of my life, I didn't believe I was worthy of love. Somewhere deep inside me was a belief that said: I am worthy of love only if I’m good enough. Successful enough. Only if I don't make mistakes. Only if my skin looks perfect. Only recently have I come to understand how deeply that belief shaped my life. Worthiness was conditional One day, when I was in the first grade, I received an “F” on an assignment that I clearly didn’t understand. I remember walking home with t

Have you ever looked in the mirror and wished you could look away? For those of us with dermatillomania, the mirror can become a place of judgment rather than reflection. We see the wounds. We see the red spots, the scabs, the scars. We see everything we wish we could change. But what if, instead of looking at everything we don't like, we could find one small thing we could love? For me, that was my eyes. In my last blog, I focused on self-love. I encouraged you to begin by l

Acceptance of my skin got much easier after I learned that I had a documented mental illness. Dermatillomania was added to the DSM-5 in 2013—about forty years after I started suffering from this undiagnosed and virtually unknown disorder that is estimated to affect about five percent of the population. That moment of awareness changed everything for me. Once I realized I wasn’t the only one, a major shift occurred in how I reacted and responded to my skin. In my memoir I shar

What if I told you that the first step to healing your skin is to accept it, just as it is? And what if, just by accepting yourself just as you are, skin and all, you were finally able to feel positive? When was the last time you actually felt positive about yourself? Please don’t say, “Gee, I’d LOVE to feel positive, but most days I can’t even come close!” Why? Because wishing for something is the exact opposite of what we should be doing if we want something bad enough. Foc

Healing begins when you start forgiving yourself — for everything.

Dermatillomania, trichotillomania, and onychophagia are anxiety disorders. Dermatillomania sufferers uncontrollably pick at their skin. Trichotillomania sufferers uncontrollably pull out their hair, one strand at a time. Onychophagia sufferers uncontrollably bite their nails and/or cuticles. People with one or more of these disorders, which are known as body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs) experience great fear of being judged, which leads to intense worry about what o

For those of us with dermatillomania, it can be the furthest thing from our minds to embrace our disorder with gratitude. How can we possibly say thank you to this thing that we called "It" before we even knew it had a name but we absolutely knew that "It" was destroying our self-esteem? It may have been destroying any enjoyment of our lives in general as we walked through each day, hiding our wounds behind makeup or under our clothes or hats. I believe that being grateful fo

Dermatillomania, also known as skin picking disorder, is a condition that affects about five percent of the population and can cause significant emotional and physical distress. I struggled with this compulsive behavior for over fifty years, trapped in an uncontrollable cycle of picking, healing, and picking again. However, my journey took a transformative turn when I discovered the potential benefits of cannabis. In this post, I will share my personal experiences, the challe

Journaling about feelings and experiences fosters increased self-awareness, which can then lead to a deeper understanding of the emotions that drive skin picking.