Skin picking disorder, also called dermatillosia or excoriation disorder, is when you repeatedly pick at your skin to the point where it causes damage, scarring, or distress. It’s not just ...

Skin picking is often brushed off as a bad habit or a lack of willpower, but for many people it is neither simple nor ...

I sat nervously in the exam room, staring at the floor as my mom sat nearby. At age ten, I’d never been to a dermatologist before, and I didn’t know what to expect. My pessimistic mind pictured a ...

Dan Baumgardt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...

When I get super anxious, like right before a date (or…during a date), it’s hard to resist picking at my cuticles or fiddling with bumpy patches of skin on my arms. I have obsessive-compulsive ...

I have always been a picker. I remember it from my earliest playground knee grazes—the irresistible urge to peel off the scab as soon as it formed; to see the bright white flesh beneath. I knew I wasn ...

A fear of being alone triggered my new habit. It was almost the holidays, and another good friend — one of the few left unmarried — became engaged. Immediately, the fear I'd had since childhood of ...

One thing that has become abundantly clear to me is this is less of a ‘cosmetic’ surface-level skin issue and more of a mental health one. Lydia agrees, noting that “skin picking is one in a set of ...

A woman living with dermatillomania has revealed how the compulsive disorder causes her to pick at her skin for hours on end, until her face is bleeding and hurts to touch. Many people might find ...