Don’t treat skin picking or hair pulling as anxiety or OCD #BFRB

[Ellie-qqzm]

Thank you so much for sharing this! I think its easy for parents to confuse trichotillomania or dermatillomania as being ocd disorders because they are sometimes labeled as “ocd spectrum disorders” even though they aren’t actually forms of ocd, they are BFRBs like you said.

[thisrhymeisacrime]

I saw this a while ago and it has helped me find the correct treatment. Thank you

[Sleepiestbilly-]

I have anxiety and this causes my skin picking as a stim

[JKThom-]

Thank you. I've been taking Luvox and it doesn't work at all for my skin picking. Excited about finding this.

[KateBrown-hszd]

So I have severe hair pulling that recently started this year. I had trick as a child pulling out my eyelashes and eyebrows, but I was able to stop that when I was thirteen, fast-forward to now and I'm 43 years old. I've started hair pulling on the top of my head. And I feel like it is an OCD thing. I'm feeling around for sharp little hairs, crinkly hairs, thick hairs, something that's super sharp coming out of my scalp. And if I do not get that freaking sharp hair out, I can't handle it. I will take the tweezers and I will pull all the hair off the top of my head until I get that one sharp hair. And I end up pulling out hundreds of other hairs too. It's like I have to get that one poke hair. So I feel like it isn't OCD thing. It's a compulsive thing that I cannot stop until I get that sharp and pokey hair out. I have thousands of these tiny little colics all over my scalp where the hair growth out of the follicle at an angle. So when I'm feeling around my scalp feels like in the areas where these colics are, is where these complete hairs are growing out of.

[mangooo]

perfect timing, i rlly needed this, tysm!

[Orangutan_loverr]

I actually pick the skin off my lips and I really wanna stop but I can’t. My dad is like “whenever you see yourself touching your lips just stop. It’s not that hard! 😡” I mean I really wanna stop but I just can’t. It’s so hard. It bleeds. And seeing the dry skin on my fingers that I just ripped off my face just gives a sense of relief and im guessing this falls under skin picking disorder? Pls let me know

[aaobataiye]

When I daydream if lock my hands tight and bite my lips

[bobstevens]

I pick my scalp so bad and I really dig in I'm scared my hair will stop growing coz of scaring. What is it if not anxiety ?

[veronicacardoza]

I need help please I can't do this alone anymore

[PDXDiamond]

I thought that BFRPs were in the OCD cluster of the DSM-V?

[anitagarner]

So why is memantine looking promising 🤔

[christianbaughn]

What makes dermatillomania a BFRB and not an OCD? Simply saying it's not anxiety, but instead is a BFRB, is saying nothing apart from introducing a fancy abbreviation. What is it about the cause of dermatillomania that means it belongs with the BFRBs and not the OCDs? I really hope the answer isn't "because it's a repetitive behaviour that is performed upon your body".