A place to anonymously vent about the stuff in our brains that we feel ashamed of, scared of, can't tell anyone else.
Compulsive skin-picking - I found something that helps me
TW: Compulsive skin picking, brief descriptions of what I pick, urges, etc.
So I managed to stop biting my nails when I was a young teen, and I couldn't stop picking the skin around my nails. I also chew the skin on my lips and pick at spot-like things on my legs, but for some reason I don't do that so much.
But I found something that helps with the bits around my nails! Surgical tape.
It started out by me feeling distressed about how bad my fingers were looking, and I had some of those cut-to-size plaster/bandaid strips in a drawer, so I cut some to the size of the bad bits and stuck them on. Every now and again they'd fall off or I'd need to shower, so I'd take them off and see how long I could go before urge to pick, rising. And then when the urges got bad, I'd put more plasters on. Gradually the wounds healed and got less pickable, and I was able to not wear plasters or pick for several weeks just because my fingers were all healed up.
Then a few weeks later things got stressful, and the skin-picking started up again.
A few days ago, I was getting annoyed with how easily the plasters were falling off, and they feel thick and bulky. So while I was in the pharmacy for something else I bought a little roll of micropore tape - the good stuff.
I started out cutting strips and wrapping them totally around my fingers, and after a while I learned that just cutting a square to the right size and sticking it over the wound works fine - it doesn't need to be wrapped all around my finger, it sticks really well. And I can't find the rough skin that catches because the tape is in the way, and I can't chew it because the tape is in the way and it's fluffy and makes me go pfththtpfphphpfhth. It gives my fingers a chance to heal without there being thick tape or padding in the way, so I can still feel stuff. And I change it sometimes when it starts to get unsticky from handwashing, about once or twice a day. I also take it off while I'm sleeping sometimes. And I think you can get more for your money than with plasters, because there's a lot on the roll.
So there we are! I hope this helps. :)




This seems like a really neat idea! Do you ever get the urge to pick the tape itself? I worry that would happen to me if I tried this - when I sometimes need to put plasters on if I've made myself bleed, I often end up picking them off quickly anyway.
Hmmm, not so far! I don't think I've ever had the urge to pick dressings of any kind. Just bits of me, like scabs and dry skin and spots and stuff. When it gets ratty I just take it off and give my skin a rest for an hour or two and then wash my hands and dry them and put new tape on.
Edit: If I did start picking the tape off I would probably still keep putting it back on, because picking tape is definitely preferable to picking skin!