Does anyone have any tips on overcoming dermatillomania? I pick at my skin for hours every day... So bad that sometimes I can't leave the house in fear of people looking at my skin. It started when my ocd symptoms did (about 14 years old). I'm now 24 and just learning that I have ocd (intrusive thoughts, tapping, checking, counting, involuntary blinking, excessive cleaning of myself and house)... I wasn't diagnosed properly until now. I also have anxiety about writing emails, googling, social media, texting etc in fear that I've said something horrible or offensive or that my intrusive thoughts are going to somehow take over and type for me .... Lol so this took me about an hour to finish writing and to post.... Had to read it precisely 30 times just to be sure ;) thanks for reading ... Also does anyone else suffer from the writing messages and ocd thing ??? Or just me? ?

I'm afraid I don't have any experience on minimizing that, but I can assure you that I have similar issues. Not only do I perform multiple cleaning rituals (picking at my eyebrows, skin, lips, etc.), but I also over-audit everything I say or write before sharing it. It's rough. The only thing I can offer on the latter issue is that I am starting to reach a point (at least in some aspects of my life) where I feel confident that I can just say something now and understand more later, whether I need to apologize for offense or I otherwise don't have the full picture and need more details. It's incredibly difficult to take that risk, and there's no rushing it for anyone - but I sincerely hope for you that you will make progress towards a point where you feel comfortable initiating a conversation in some form or another and facing the responses head on. It'll be messy for sure, but I genuinely think this can be counted as progress. :)

Hey, this definitely sounds like OCD although I don't struggle with the same compulsions. A lot of people view OCD as an umbrella and some people even have changes in their symptoms over time. Since I was a child, I've always picked at my lips when they are chapped, even to the point of bleeding. I've just made a habit of always carrying lip balm to avoid having flakes because I know if they're there I will pick them. The best known treatments for OCD are ERP and ACT. The first is exposure and response prevention where you gradually engage in situations that might cause you to perform a compulsion, but resist performing it, so that you condition yourself to do it less often. ACT is similar to mindfulness, and I know a lot of people on this app try to do guided mindfulness meditations because they really do help. Sorry I couldn't address some of those compulsions but believe me, a lot of people here understand what you're going through and wish you the best!

I have trichotillomania (I pull my eyebrows out when I'm anxious). It bothered me for years but then I just stopped caring when people thought.

Thankyou for your comments , means alot ☺️