BFRB Week Reflection
In honor of Body Focused Repetitive Behavior or BFRB week coming to an end, I want to share some recent discoveries and conclusions I’ve made along my bfrb journey. I’ve come a long way over the past year. My skin is clearer, leaving little to even attempt picking. I’ve even at moments wondered if I still belong in this community. However, this week has been illuminating for me. And I’ve come to the realization that my experience with bfrb’s may be broader than I previously believed.
After struggling for most of last year, I’ve managed to completely avoid picking my face. However, I’ve cycled through picking different areas of my body before, which seems to be the case now. I have been picking and biting at my cuticles and lips. Even as I write this, I’m doing it. It’s gotten more intense over the last week or so. I believe this is due to removing my acrylics and the stress of job hunting. These aren’t new habits. I’ve done this long before I began face picking. During my middle school years, you’d rarely see me without a couple band aids on each hand covering up the mess I made of them. While the severity has declined, I have yet to completely shake these habits after all these years. The aftereffects of picking/biting at my lips and cuticles are less obvious, as these are much smaller parts of my body. Also, these behaviors do not fall under dermatillomania as I previously thought. These actions are better described as dermatophagia or dermatodaxia. And to be frank, because this doesn’t affect my appearance as much as dermatillomania did, I’ve taken treating it less seriously.
According to Health Grades Medical Writer, Sarah Lewis, dermatophagia is a compulsion to gnaw or bite one’s own skin, with the most common type involving biting skin around nails and cuticles. Lip biting also falls under this categorization. Comorbidity and overlap within bfrb’s is common. However, I had no idea that there was a term that more precisely described what I’ve always done. This is an obvious downfall of self-diagnosis. Not having the wealth of knowledge diagnosticians do, I was just eager to make sense of my maladaptive habits. As soon as I recognized a hint of similarity between what I was doing and what I understood dermatillomania to be, I stopped digging deeper. But even though my skin has cleared, and my skin picking isn’t as apparent, my bfrb treatment journey is not over.
So… why am I sharing this?
Conversations around mental health awareness often feel incredibly limited. Mainstream mental health discourse doesn’t lend itself well to the inclusion of lesser known or largely misunderstood disorders. Not to say disorders such as Generalized Anxiety or Depression aren’t highly scrutinized. However, I’ve experienced first-hand the differing receptions I receive when talking about social anxiety versus dermatillomania. When people ask me in person what I write about on this blog, I don’t explain in too much depth to spare myself. I’m uncomfortable with what I’d imagine some people would say about the fact that I pick my skin compulsively. I hope that by opening up here, that will eventually change.
Mental disorders are often invisible illnesses. This invisible status leaves sufferers misunderstood. Most body focused repetitive behaviors are evident through the marks they leave on skin or the hair loss they cause, but they can still be concealed. While I’ve learned to be particular about where I pick, for me that isn’t what overcoming this disorder looks like. The process of overcoming a disorder isn’t linear. One day I may resort back to picking my face and other areas I fight every day to avoid. I’ve come to terms with the fact that this is a lifelong battle. Extending grace to yourself is the greatest gift you can give yourself while managing any mental disorder.
Please know that I don’t constantly peel back these layers of myself without hesitancy or shame. I don’t share all this personal information just so I have something to write about on a blog. I do still feel reluctant to share this journey. Stating that I have dermatophagia, which translates to skin eating, is scary. But I want to exemplify what someone thriving with these disorders looks like. I owe it to myself and my community to continue finding answers. Destigmatizing lesser-known disorders is my ultimate goal, so that those who identify with my story have less to be afraid of.
Happy BFRB Week! And Special shoutout to Imani!!!!