Living With Skin Picking & Dermatillomania | CalmCovers™

For people who live with chronic skin picking, it can be difficult to explain why something that seems so simple — just stop picking — can be so incredibly hard to stop.

I know because I’ve lived with skin picking for decades.

For me, like many people with dermatillomania, also known as excoriation disorder, the fingers and skin around the nails can become a particular target. A tiny rough spot, a piece of dry cuticle or an uneven edge of skin can suddenly become almost impossible to leave alone.

You tell yourself you’re only going to fix that one little spot, and then you look down later and realize you’ve made it worse. The skin may be red, sore or raw, and sometimes it bleeds. Then, as the area begins to heal, the uneven texture can become another temptation to pick. It can feel like an endless cycle.

Skin Picking Is More Than a “Bad Habit”

Skin picking is often discussed as part of a group of behaviors known as body-focused repetitive behaviors, or BFRBs. These include behaviors such as skin picking, hair pulling and other repetitive behaviors involving the body. But clinical terminology doesn’t necessarily capture what it feels like to live with it.

There can be an almost automatic quality to picking. You may find yourself doing it while watching television, working at the computer, reading, thinking, feeling stressed or simply sitting with your hands unoccupied. Other times, you are very aware that you are doing it — and still find it extraordinarily difficult to stop.

That can be one of the most frustrating parts. You know picking is going to make the skin worse. You may desperately want your fingers to heal. Yet the urge to smooth, remove or pick at an imperfection can override that intention.

When Skin Picking Affects How You Feel About Your Hands

There’s another part of dermatillomania that doesn’t always get enough attention: self-esteem.

Our hands are visible. We use them when we meet people, hand someone a credit card, sit across from someone at lunch, have our nails done, take a photograph or simply gesture while talking.

When the skin around your fingers and cuticles is visibly damaged from picking, you may become very conscious of it.

I know what it is like to look at my fingers and wish they looked different.

People who don't struggle with skin picking may see damaged cuticles or irritated finger skin without understanding what caused it. That can leave someone feeling embarrassed or ashamed about something they already have difficulty controlling. And unfortunately, shame rarely makes a BFRB easier to manage.

The frustrating cycle can look something like this:

A rough or uneven spot → an urge to pick → picking → irritated or damaged skin → healing skin and new uneven edges → another urge to pick.

For some of us, simply allowing the skin enough uninterrupted time to heal can be difficult. And that realization eventually became very important to me.

Sometimes a Physical Barrier Can Make a Difference

After living with dermatillomania for decades, I became increasingly interested in something very simple: What if I could just put a barrier between my fingers and the skin I wanted to pick? Not something that promised to “cure” dermatillomania. Not something that required me to suddenly develop perfect willpower. Just something that could physically cover the area. That idea eventually led me to develop CalmCovers™.

I wanted a small, practical cover that could be positioned around the finger and cuticle skin I tend to pick. The notch around the nail was especially important because so much picking happens along the delicate skin surrounding the nail and cuticle.

The concept behind CalmCovers™ is remarkably uncomplicated: cover the vulnerable skin and make it less accessible to your fingers.

For me, having that physical barrier can provide some much-needed relief from the constant access to an area I might otherwise continue picking. And perhaps just as importantly, it can give delicate, already-irritated finger skin an opportunity to remain covered and protected while it heals.

CalmCovers™ Came From Lived Experience

I didn't develop CalmCovers™ because I discovered skin picking as a business opportunity. I developed them because I am a skin picker. I understand the experience of looking at your fingers and being unhappy with what you see. I understand knowing you should leave a spot alone and finding yourself picking it anyway. And I understand how incredibly frustrating it can be when the very skin you're trying to allow to heal becomes the thing that triggers you to pick again. Over time, CalmCovers™ grew from the original finger and cuticle covers into different options, including clear covers, smaller covers for kids and covers designed for toes. But the idea behind all of them remains the same: Cover. Protect. Redirect.

Sometimes something as simple as putting a physical barrier between you and the place you repeatedly pick can interrupt the pattern long enough to give your skin — and yourself — a little relief.

If You Pick Your Skin, You’re Not Alone

One of the reasons I wanted to write about my own experience is because skin picking can be surprisingly isolating. We tend to hide the evidence. We may hide our fingers, cover damaged areas or feel embarrassed when someone notices them.

But there are many people living with dermatillomania and other BFRBs who understand exactly what that experience feels like. I don't believe the answer is to shame ourselves into stopping. For me, it has been far more useful to recognize the behavior, understand my triggers and find practical ways to make picking a little more difficult while protecting the skin that needs a chance to recover.

CalmCovers™ grew out of that experience.

They are a very small thing. But when you've spent decades fighting with your own fingers, sometimes a small barrier can make a surprisingly meaningful difference.

Let's tackle this together...Stacy

CalmCovers™ are protective barrier/support products and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent dermatillomania, excoriation disorder, BFRBs, or any other medical condition.