Where do you pick?

My skin picking areas have varied over the years. When I was little (around 5) I use to pull out my hair and eye lashes. I was fascinated by the roots. As I grew up, I picked at the callouses on my hands and picked at my scalp. I also picked at my lip a lot. Then, around middle school, I began to tweeze my eyebrows. I would tweeze until they were bloody and raw and completely misshapen. I got teased a lot about it. I also picked at my face quite a bit. It's around this time that I also started to pick at my back and arms. In high school, I finally got the brow tweezing under control. But the tweezing moved to my pubic hair. It sounds incredibly painful but it was just the hair above my genitals and never actually on my privates. I would sit against the wall of my bathroom for literally hours and tweeze until I bled. I used a needle to dig for hairs and sometimes, the needle would go so deep, it would hit a nerve. This is extremely painful. But I would just keep going. Luckily, this stopped about a year ago (I'm a senior in College). That area has healed up. Still some slight skin discoloration. Now I mostly just pick my back and scalp. My back is very scarred and I hate wearing a bathing suit. I keep my hair long so I at least have something to cover the scabs.

Mostly face, but also back of neck/shoulders. But i also get into spurts of compulsive scratching at my legs, back sides. And i have picked at my feet, fingernails, split ends, head, anywhere really! but am back to the face recently. Been doing this as long as i can recall and am almost 30 now.

I pick my lips (mostly bottom) and my cuticles. Scabs if I have them even if it's bad like i've had stiches. Though it's not skin, I rip at my nails to the point there's nothing there but bloody quick.

Hmmm...face, scalp, chest, stomach, arms, vag area, buttocks, legs, feet, toes, fingers, hair line, back...did I leave anything out? I tend to leave my face alone, except my chin....I take sev medications for anxiety but none of them stop me from picking. ESPECIALLY when I lie down or go to bed. Thinking and picking, thinking and picking, repeat. :o( My staph infection is now going away with antibiotics and Neosp and bandgages - breast turned red and hot and pus was just oooozzzzing out and I have lymph node nodules that are patruding out.

My nose, scalp, buttocks, i bite my nails and have bit my toe nails. I feel disgusting finally opening up about this.. but I will never beat it if I don't face it right?

I'm so relieved to know that I'm not the only one! It's always been soooo embarrassing but I can't seem to help it. I've been picking the inside of my mouth with my teeth since I was a little girl (I'm twenty-five now), but in the past few years I've progressed to my left foot and my fingers (to an extent). My foot is my favorite, there is something so satisfying about picking the really thick skin on the heel. I can't seem to convince myself to stop...I'm worried that I'll let myself start picking more and more, places that I can't hide.

Before I was five, I bit my nails. Then picked them, to bloodiness. I always picked scabe, and could not wait for them to be completely ready for removal. I enjoy picking at acne, and search skin for hidden clogged pores. I love to remove the impurities - the sebum, coarse skin, skin tags, skin flakes. I have raised scar tissue on the back of my head, hidden under my hair. I chew the insides of my cheek. I try to make my lips completely smooth by picking away any part that feels rough, which is impossible to do so it starts an endless cycle of picking to smooth them. My lips frequently bleed, and sometimes it won't stop quickly. There are days when I know everyone can see it, It does cause me to lose confidence. I don't think it is usually visible, but last week, I noticed somebody else had done a little bit, and it was really visible. Now I think, it must be even worse that I had thought. It is rare for anyone to ever say anything, except for my mother who nags and still slaps my hand down. I am trying now to file down the tougher skin with an emory board, and am experimenting with exfoliants that may help maintain softness that will not entice me to pick. I think staying really hydrated helps, as does vitamin C and silica helps healing. Neosporin is great. I also pick the callouses on my feet. I interrupted this by getting a few manicures and pedicures, and I think it helps to build a sense of creating health and beauty. I can stop the heel picking if I keep the skin soft enough and don't let calloused skin build up. I suspect some chemicals promote the callousing... I am experimenting with different scrubs. Salons are expensive, so I am trying now to regularly groom. I hate polish, but I love the natural beauty of buffing the nails. I love to see my lips when they are all healed, it has only happened a few times recently because getting past the point where the old skin is ready to flake off of the new is almost totally impossible. It is stress, and feeling the imperfections. I am 56 and really beaten down by it all. I've been in therapy most of my adult life. I'm currently with a very good therapist, and I think I'm making progress on self-confidence and managing my damaging thoughts. I have a good job. I wonder if I ever will be able to completely stop, but it would be so nice to have soft lips and beautiful cuticles, and not waste time picking.

Hi there. I am so pleased to have found this forum. Not because of your problems - I wish I could take them away for you like I daily wish mine would disappear. But because it's just so nice at long last to know that I'm not alone in this. I too have massacred my body over the years. My breasts now look so disgusting I daren't go and seek any help. I so wish I could have done years ago before I wasted half my life hiding. The worst thing about it is that I let a very special relationship go because I was too scared to let myself go and show my body fully to him. That's hard to live with, knowing I could have been really happy but never daring to let myself think that he really found me attractive. I still pick. I have a problem with hairs growing on my chin and pick there so it turns into scabs. Then I pick those. I picked my lower arms and upper arms and my somach, legs, genital area. I have got better but it is an outlet for anxiety and also boredom. It's so much a part of my life that I can't stop even though I want to. It just looks so disgusting I look in the mirrir, get all wound up about it and end up thinking what the hell! I don't think it would be quite so bad if my breasts weren't so horribly textured and scarred now. I go on dates but feel like a freak sitting there and making nice when I know what's under my clothes. I just don't know how to get over it. I know anyone worth anything would look past all that and support me but it's letting go enough in the forst place to get that far that's the problem for me. It's a lonely bloody life.

Hi! Mine started with my upper arms (when I was a kid) and then eventually went to my legs. When my mom started to say sumthing about it I moved to my hip area and areas that couldn't be seen and I could cover up. I've always picked my lips and cuticles and have chewed on the inside of my mouth..cuticles were the worst for years. Picked until they bled. About 2 years ago I started the face, don't know why. But now I can't stop it. Ill go a few days and it'll clear up and look so good, then I start all over. Looks horrible, and sumtimes I make myself bleed. My boyfriend knows and trys to help, he is the one that helped me find this site to kno I'm not alone. But as muchas he tries I always go back to doing it. I still do it today and get so angry at myself for doing it, wish I could find a way to stop this horrible habit.

I started picking my skin when I was a kid...not sure how old maybe 4. I would pick at my chin until I bled sometimes, then I would have scabs. I remember once while playing with friends in the court a neighbour asked if I had chicken pox...I was devastated. Well from then I developed acne at 15 and my picking became extreme. I would spend hours in front of the mirror picking my face until it was red and inflammed, scabby and bleeding. Then I started picking my back, chest, neck, scalp and shoulders. As I suffer with keratosis pilaris on the backs of my upper arms I also picked there too. Over the years I'm 32 I've learn't to control my picking with awareness, knowing my triggers and shear will power!! I had depression for along time, and it has taken me years to get to where I am now, with the help of heaps of inner work through books and workshops involving spirituality and self love. It's still a work in progress as today I just found this website and I had a picking episode last night....grrrr I'm glad this website is here so we can share our experiences and not feel so alone and ashamed. I have alot of scarring from picking but it's all faded and just small white marks which I notice, but my friends and sister say they don't. I'm determined to end this issue for good and I'll be having a session with a psychodermatologist on Thursday.

This is my first post, first day discovering a website describing this condition! I researched it a few years ago and found nothing and now there is an actual term for it. I was both shocked and relieved to know there is a medical term for it. I am 25 now and have been picking as long as I can remeber. Its always been my ears, my skin is very dry to begin with and I think it started from just scratching at the dry skin until the point of scabbing. It was history after that, I have done it always and remember in school just lieing and saying it was an infection from my earrings (that was usually where I would pick at) Now its all over my ears, and I have long hair so I usally wear it down so I don't have to explain myself to anybody. I think so many of you can agree with me that its so time consuming and annoying but gratifying all in one! I will spend hours picking my ears, dissapearing into the bathroom and having to come up with excuses as to what I was doing. I have only been albe to stop this picking one time in my life and it lasted for a period of 6 months maybe. I got fake nails (never needed them before because my nails are nice strong and long, which is terrible for me with this condition) but once it was time to get them off I started scratching again until I could pick. And with in the last few years I finally discovered tweezers which has made the condtion much worse. I do pick until my skin is completly raw and bleeding. Sometimes I will pick the same scab twice in one day, i do it whenever I can on the way to work in bed whenever I can. Aslo I do believe this is hereditary my mohter has always done this as well she does it on her face tho! But she dosnt like to talk about it all tho even tho for the past few years I have been saying there is a condition! I want help I dont want ot have kids and they have this same problem!

Wow, I am so glad I found this site. I specifically remember the first time I seriously started picking: just before my eighth grade graduation, I picked all those tiny white bumps at the back of my upper arms so that they wouldn't show with my spaghetti strap dress. Of course, the tiny white bumps were replaced by tiny sores. I've been picking ever since, and I'm almost 22 now. I pick mostly my back, upper chest, and shoulders, as I have acne there. Thankfully I've never had much of an acne problem on my face, so I don't really pick there, but I will demolish the occasional blackhead, should it arise. I always felt like such a freak because when the acne head would pop, I felt a release, as if some of the things I disliked about myself were leaving me, as if I was literally pushing them out of me. I do feel fairly nervous in unfamiliar social settings, but I power through them the best I can and really, truly, love and enjoy my friends. Still, at the end of an evening with friends, I pick at my skin as if I am not in control. It always happens. Always. I don't know why because I am very successful in school and am pursuing a career that I really love. I know it's a social-anxiety-thing, but I don't even know why I have such social anxiety - I mean, I have friends! I'm a social person. I just can't help it. Most of the time, I don't even know I'm doing it. I'll be watching television, studying, writing a paper, or worst of all, speaking to someone. I just do it without thinking. I hate it.

1. I pick at my scalp - it's easy to hide, as long as I don't stray from the main hair growth areas, though I have thin hair so it is never completely hidden (I simply like the small sense of false security I get from it, and I trick myself into believing no one can see it). It can simply be when I feel scabs, and I pick all the dry supposedly healiing skin off, when I am feeling anxious, I pick to the point of bleeding, and sometimes bleed a lot, when I wouldn't expect it to. it can look like I have really bad dandruff, so I have had periods where I meticulously combed my hair of any pieces of skin leftover after my picking (this severly damaged my hair at the ends). I've also had periods where I would have strong anxiety should I not scour my whole body whilst showering. 2. Just in front of my ear lobe or behind the lobe. These would look quite nasty, but were simple to hide, though it limited the ways I could wear my hair. 3. My forehead and hairline, and just to the right of my left eyebrow. The forehead marks bother me to the extreme, I have to always have bangs or fringe to cover this area, I cannot pull my hair back, I cannot go swimming, I worry whenever my hair is wet and I am near someone, I worry whenver it is windy... It's ridiculous, the sheer amount of stress it causes. Though it has taught me to appreciate my features, instead of being upset by aspects of my face I cannot change. 4. I am not quite certain why, but at times my legs on the inner side of the calph gets both really irritated, itchy and dry, so the marks there escalate very quickly if the skin there becomes irritated. Can be to the pkint of bleeding and pain. 5. (previous marks) My upper back, my elbows, the crook of my arm (those were my very first marks), my neck (on the very front), the middle finger of my right hand (it looks really bad, and never seems to completely go away) and bothers me especially since my hands are my pride, the corners of my nose (those I had for over a year), all over my right eyebrow ( I always had my bangs parted so they covered that eye, I always worried I would end up cutting my bangs too short, so it would show), and probably many more. 6. Cases of trichotillomania - near the end of elementary school and my first year or two of junior high I plucked my eyebrows at different spots, and completely plucked all of my eyelashes out for a good year or so... You would be amazed how observant elementary school students can be.

I used to pick severely at my toe and fingernails. I also picked my face, chest and back quite badly. Now, most of my attention is on my legs and occasionally my toes. My legs look so awful. And they take so long to heal. I feel like I'll never have nice legs again.

Wow. First off, I have to say that this site is amazing. I never knew there was a name for this, and so much of what I've read looks like it could have been written by me. I've had this problem since before I can remember, (my mom told me) and I'm 20. Here's my list: My main focus is my fingers. The underside of my thumbs from tip to first joint and sometimes a little further down, index fingers same, but not as far down on my left one, and middle fingers on the tips and sides. Ring fingers and pinkies just a little on the sides, and not as frequently. I pick and bite them, until it hurts too much and bleeds, and I eat it as well. It's embarrassing to actually write this down and admit it... They're almost always painful and/or bleeding. I chewed on my right thumb knuckle for years and made a mess of it, but managed to stop a couple years ago. I even have some tooth damage that I believe is the result of my years and years of chewing... My back is scarred from acne (old and new acne, yay) and the places I've picked acne and other bumps, lumps, and tiny imperfections that I can feel with my fingers. Same with my shoulders and chest, although not as bad. Yet. I'm also moving to the backs of my arms. It's common for me to stand in the bathroom at night for an hour or more, just picking, picking, picking. I even try to pick the white scars I've given myself. I just want to have a smooth back that I wouldn't be afraid to have people see, but my picking at it just makes it worse. I pick my scalp as well. While watching TV, reading a book, etc. I'm either biting my fingers or running my fingers over my scalp, feeling for anything to pick off. Recently I've realized that I actually pick my hairs out by the hair follicles, which is likely the reason (combined with my hair pulling as a child) for my thin hair. I don't know how to stop. I'm glad to have found this website, though. It's somehow comforting to know that I'm not the only one.

I'm not sure if I'm actually a picker, but I pick at scabs for sure. I don't see it as a problem since I adore the scars I get afterwards, usually. I'm a cutter, so I usually pick at the scabs I get from them. I don't eat them, but I usually lick the blood away. So I usually pick on my arms where the cuts are. I grew up on a beach, so during the summer when the mosquitoes were out, I'd scratch at the bites to the point of drawing blood. I also had lice constantly; a cycle of getting rid of them and then getting them back from people at school and family members. I had really long hair so the eggs would look like dandruff. I'd scratch constantly at my scalp, again to the point of bleeding. Both the bugs bites and the lice would end up scabbing over and so I'd pick at them all the more. I usually only pick at the scabs when I'm mad at myself (punishing myself, almost) and I have one account of digging my nail into leg (near the ankle) repeatedly when I'd lost something. So just anywhere that I can access. I always pick at the little amount of acne, too. And I pull on hangnails because they bother me.