Ten people. Ten different experiences of skin picking disorder. Anonymous, candid, and real. Because the most useful thing someone in the middle of this can find is the voice of someone who's been there too.
"Knowing it has a name has already changed something. I'm a bit less horrible to myself about it. Which I think is probably step one."
Read Mia's story →"For me it's largely sensory. Finding a particular texture on my scalp and picking at it feels like completing something. During it, there's nothing wrong."
Read Nadia's story →"The shame is the worst part and it's also the least useful part. I spent fifteen years being ashamed of this and it didn't make me pick any less."
Read Kira's story →"People talk about a picking episode like the damage heals in a few days. For me the marks last six months to a year. I feel like that part of the story isn't talked about enough."
Read Priya's story →"I run cases with multiple moving parts, I present in front of senior partners. And then I go into the bathroom at work and I pick at my face in the mirror. It's like a different person takes over."
Read Emma's story →"Chronic doesn't mean managed. It means you've adapted your whole life around something without ever addressing the thing itself."
Read Claire's story →"My older one asked me directly why I never come swimming and I said my back hurt and felt terrible about it. He's nine. He doesn't miss much."
Read James's story →"I didn't know the word dermatillomania until I was forty-seven. Thirty-one years of doing something every single day without knowing it had a name."
Read Sarah's story →"Working from home meant nobody to interrupt me. Six hours into a deadline I'd realise I'd been picking my face for most of the afternoon and hadn't finished the work either."
Read Tom's story →"My GP used the word excoriation and I had to look it up. Then I had to read it twice. Thirty years of something every day, and it's actually a thing with a name."
Read Marcus's story →