Skin picking of the degree you’re describing definitely sounds like talking to a professional would make the biggest difference to understand where the behavior is coming from (compulsive vs impulsive, Skin Picking Disorder or something else, etc). But in the meantime I recommend looking into CBT worksheets for Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors. That framework can help you isolate the times you’ve picked or scratched, identify what triggers the behaviors, and then you can work on assigning yourself invention behaviors to break the cycle. I was doing these worksheets for myself earlier today and they genuinely help a lot when you commit to doing them regularly. This book has worksheets in the back that I use and I found it at the library!
Nov 20, 2024
Related Recs
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Sensory Cognitive Affective Motor and Place aka SCAMP is the self-monitoring technique that has dramatically improved my own issues with BFRB, specifically skin-picking disorder. You do a little bit of homework recording all the moments in your week where you slipped up or got carried away and hurt yourself, note all the triggers in that situation that fall under the SCAMP acronym and then set a predetermined replacement behavior. You need to keep practicing until it becomes second nature, but when I’m good and do the work this therapy technique is literally so effective it is LIBERATING.
Fellow skin-picking disorder-lings and other body focused repetitive behavioresses this is the book: Overcoming Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors: A Comprehensive Behavioral Treatment for Hair Pulling and Skin Picking. Check for it in your local library (that’s where I found mine) or get it in InterLibrary Loan if you’d rather not buy til you try. There are worksheets in the back which I recommend finding online or just remaking in a template doc for yourself.
Mar 31, 2024
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Whenever writing doesn’t help me cope anymore I obsess over changing my clothing style or my skin care routine or any habits that I wanna change in general like reading more or doing more exercise than usual.
I must 100% believe that I’m improving though. Fake it till you make it type of way!
It’s an easy, quick, and fairly healthy distraction from whatever is messing with my head.
Feb 27, 2024
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Writing shit down helps? Also stopping people when overwhelmed and telling them to give you 1 small piece of info at a time. Also being aware of your rejection sensitivity and being nice to yourself about it and not lashing out
Definitely not better or equal to diagnosis and meds but it’s a not unhelpful small coping strategy
Hope things get better ❤️🩹
May 19, 2024
Top Recs from @bumbythefool
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I’m sick of feeling powerless so my new coping strategy is to not let a stupid system bully me into quiet despair. I’m learning how to use my state’s General Assembly’s online bill tracker and I’m subscribing to email updates for the agendas and the public hearings of the legislative committees I’m most concerned about. I’m memorizing all my legislators‘ names and emailing and calling regularly.
Also: Check to see if your state’s Legislative Library has Libguides that explain in layman’s terms what bills are passing in your state and other educational/legislative resources you have freely available to you!!!
Nov 20, 2024
Apr 16, 2025
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You will make about 60k if you're lucky unless you become a manager, and you will have 35k of debt or more from grad school (online grad school is cheaper sometimes and no one cares where you get the degree anyways). And sometimes you work for a university (which is essentially a corporation) or the government. But in general everyone in your field will believe in a code of ethics that raises the dignity of humanity above the mire of misinformation and censorship. And you help empower people with the information literacy to move through the world as confident capable individuals/professionals/scholars. Community college libraries are my favorite environment I've worked in so far because the students are cool, driven, and diverse in age and background. Public libraries also do amazing social work in 2025 to provide services to their communities like harm reduction, networks of resources for unhoused people, language teaching, professional development, basic technology training, literally just being a third space, I could go on forever. It definitely is a career that exists because of neoliberalism I'm not going to lie, like American public libraries only exist because robber barons in the 1900s donated a mind boggling amount of grants to towns across the country to build them (not sure about other countries' history with this to be fair). All that being said I decided I wanted to be a librarian when I was 16 and I've been committed to that path for 11 years with no regret.
To add a personal note to this rec and emphasize how meaningful this work really is, I'm going to indulge in a story because I could genuinely cry thinking about all the kind, interesting people I've met who have chosen to be vulnerable with me about their needs and goals. A couple years ago I helped an older man for multiple hours to remember his email login so he could get a copy of his birth certificate from his son-in-law who had emailed a scan of the physical copy which was in another country. The stakes were incredibly high and the task seemed virtually impossible because we didn't even have an email address to start. He was having trouble reaching his son-in-law to ask for help because of the time difference, and he needed the scan ASAP. We were together for so long I learned a lot about him. He talked to me about Islam and Christianity and angels. And then we got it! It's probably one of the defining moments of my career and to me is one of the most impactful things I've ever done.
So there's my job rec lol!
Mar 13, 2025