Can’t leave your fingers alone? This article is for you if you scrape the sides of your thumbs, rip off your cuticles or otherwise mangle your hands. These behaviors, like nail biting, are so common that I notice them all the time. In fact, a few months ago when I was on my way to…
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How annoying is it when someone tells you to “stop picking”? Like when you’re simply sitting next to them “just” watching TV. Whether you’ve been told this by a parent, a significant other, or even by a teacher who shamed you in class with a phrase like, “stop touching your face” or “get your fingers…
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Hi I’m Annette Pasternak, also known as the Stop Skin Picking Coach. Today the topic is going to be “10 Things That I Would Tell My Younger Self” related to my skin picking. (These can be applied to hair pulling as well.) So, I’ve thought about this. There are a whole bunch of things that…
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Picking Scabs Compulsively Do you peel or pick off your scabs over and over and not let them heal? Do you have sores for months at a time that don’t heal because you cannot leave them alone? Maybe you feel like you don’t have any willpower. What you do have is this “need” to make…
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I’m guessing this is the scenario: It’s the start of the new year (or maybe it’s later when you’re reading this), but you’ve already broken your resolution to stop your skin picking habit. Again. Ok, I want you to know firstly that there’s nothing wrong with you. It’s not because you “should” have more will…
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The Dermatillomania Diaries is what I’m naming the decade of journal writing about my skin picking and attempts to stop it, which I’m sharing in this post. I’ve been an avid journal-writer throughout the years, filling a bunch of those college-ruled black and white composition notebooks. It started slowly in my 20’s – I used only one book for…
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Last week I had the great pleasure of meeting Lauren McKeaney at the TLC Foundation Conference for BFRBs (body-focused repetitive behaviors). (Btw, if you want to see the talk I gave at the conference on Diet and Skin Picking, you can watch it here.) Lauren is a relatively new voice on the scene of BFRB’s, and…
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