The Journal of Psychiatric Research asserts that 2.82% of 18 to 29 year olds have a skin picking disorder, which makes skin picking most prevalent among college-age students. By my count, as someone with a skin picking disorder, I’m about one in 35. That’s maybe someone in your first-year writing class. Or your two hour computer science lab. Or someone in line with you at Ricks. Or at least, someone 20 feet from you on your Commuter North ride.
Skin picking disorders aren’t uncommon, they’re usually just hidden. For example, Lindsay Gellman, reporting for the New York Times, followed Deborah Hoffman, a Texas woman who picks at her back, an affliction she was able to hide from her husband for 21 years. In fact, one of the most common places to pick at skin is behind the ear: another perfect place for concealment. Unfortunately, my scabs and scars and wounds and welts aren’t in a concealable place on my body because I pick at my fingertips.
Skin picking disorders are part of a collection of body-focused repetitive behaviors. BFRBs are, most generally: repetitive self-grooming behaviors that can and often do lead to physical damage and social impairment. Just some examples of BFRBs include hair pulling, cheek or nail biting, and skin picking.
The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology investigated BFRBs’ relationship with the COVID-19 pandemic and concluded that 67.2% of people with a BFRB experienced increased symptoms over the course of the pandemic. What I wish the Academy of Dermatology had investigated instead was the number of people whose BFRBs’ origins lie amidst the pandemic. Based on anecdotal evidence found in Reddit threads and FaceBook support groups, I think the pandemic jump-started a significant amount of BFRBs — including mine.
There are two avenues from which skin picking disorders can originate: obsessive compulsive disorder and boredom. For me, it began with boredom. My go-to coping response in the face of boredom has become picking and peeling at my fingers and quite unnervingly, I usually don’t notice until my fingers are raw and bloody. During the pandemic, I had the privilege of being extremely bored. I was not an essential worker surrounded by the virus, nor was I on the frontlines combatting the virus in emergency rooms; instead, I was sitting at home, developing a (so-far) unconquerable skin picking disorder.
In public, I keep my hands in my pockets or folded slyly under my armpits. I don’t want people to see my fingers, which they would if my hands were out in the open. They are perpetually scabbed, red or bleeding — so much so that people notice in passing. I carry around silicone thimbles, hoping to scratch them instead of tearing up my skin. I struggle to hold pencils because sometimes the stylus must rest on an open wound. I can’t do the dishes without gloves because the soapy hot water stings. And man oh man do my fingers hurt. All the time.
***
King Midas’ story is tragic, and niche-ly similar to mine. The myth of King Midas begins in Ancient Greece, where he ruled over Phrygia (modern-day Turkey). He was a kind, gentle leader with only two flaws: He was foolish — the coded mythological word for dumb — and, he loved gold … to a fault. One day, King Midas, true to his character, invited an injured, starved satyr into his castle for refuge. Lucky (or, soon to be unlucky) for him, this satyr was a mentor to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and pleasure. Dionysus, in turn, granted King Midas a wish. Foolishly, as was his nature, he wished that everything he touched would turn to gold.
Maybe it was greed, maybe it was fated or maybe King Midas was just plain witless — because this wish, he would soon find out, was a curse. At a feast celebrating himself, Midas would discover that the food he touched turned to gold. He couldn’t eat. He grew scared, eventually falling to his knees and begging for a hug from his daughter. She too turned to gold.
The most poignant aspect of this myth is that King Midas had no escape. He could never heal. His affliction was so immediate and so severe that he had no choice but to watch the world he loved turn to gold. In this way, I am a derivation of King Midas. Everything is at my fingertips, but my fingertips are damaged. In an almost repulsive way, in a way that prompts unwarranted comments from my professors, in a way that people belittle me for, and mostly in a way that scares people. The world in my grasp, until it sees my fingertips.
***
My fingers have gotten me into real trouble before. The first thing I remember from when I got into my car crash were my tears; fear-driven tears, searing tears, the kind that make the whole world stop and order you to feel each one as they come. When I tried to dial 911, my fingers, I remember, were healed. But with every battle won, there seems to be another to conquer. This time instead of bleeding, sore fingers, it became fingers marred with scar tissue. I had gone through the cycle of picking and then healing too many times to count on my perpetually blood-stained fingers. When you pick at scabs or at scarred skin, it grows back — stronger: Scar tissue becomes an inevitable condition of healing — a poetic evolutionary trait — but also a troubling one. For example, scar tissue often causes problems with repeated heart surgeries, c-section recovery and, apparently, skin-picking disorders.
The reason I said I was trying to call 911 — not that I did call 911 — is because my thumbs wouldn’t register on my phone’s screen because of the scarring. Me and my face soaked with prickling, searing tears were helpless. Scar tissue was my body’s final attempt to stop me from hurting myself. A fresh, thick layer of skin which fails to conduct electricity enough for me to hit the nine. Or the one. Or the one.
***
I think a reader’s natural response by now is something along the lines of if it’s gotten you into danger before, and it hurts and it renders living in the world so difficult, then why don’t you stop? I think the answer lies within my very human relationship with pleasure and pain.
Neuroanatomy would point out the obvious: Pain and pleasure originate from the same place: the amygdala. Just as you can’t scratch your scalp without incidentally messing up your hair, you can’t activate pain neurons without lighting up the pleasure neurons, too. The neural circuitry of the way humans perceive pain and pleasure can, in some cases like mine, confuse the recognition of the two, so I don’t even realize it hurts until the blood is flowing.
***
There are 19 steep steps, worn from use, leading into my apartment. The path is narrow, and I often feel compelled to push against the time-yellowed walls, hoping to somehow spare myself the imminent suffocation the stairway threatens.
Being awoken by a fear-driven scream is a remarkable sort of haunting. The change in mental state is severe: a benign lack of thought to a malignant brace for attack. But this scream, emitted from one of my roommates, was fueled by the sight of blood. I had Rorschach-ed the path’s wall with blood — King Midas style.
After I managed to brush the event under the rug, and sent all of my roommates back to bed, I sat on stair number 16 and let my tears burn my face. One day, I will win — I will end this skin picking disaster. Until then, I think I just need some grace — someone to assure me that everything I touch won’t wear my Midas red.
Statement Columnist Sammy Fonte can be reached at sfonte@umich.edu.