[Flower]

The thing is.... im studing psychology at A level and my friend has confided a problem which im worried about and therefore am trying to find an answer to. The thing is he has got into the habbit of picking the skin around his toe nails with nail clippers.
The problem is he doesnt realize he is doing it until he starts to bleed.
i dont know what it is because i dont know the cause, however, he has been bullied for years and it makes me wonder if this is partly the cause. I think he only does it if he has has a stressful day at college or sumone has upset him.
Please let me know if any of you have similar problems, i want my friend to be happy and i need all the help i can get to restore his happines!
thankyou!

[CedarS]

Does your school have a student health center, with counseling folks to talk with? If it does, go in however you can and talk with someone, they should be able to help lots and lots. I've done it myself when at college, in concern for a friend.

I think, and I easily could be wrong, what he is doing could go under the umbrella of self injury. There are some excellent resources both here in the Self Injury forum and elsewhere on this site.

Big hugs to you also for working so hard to be a good friend. There are answers out there, there is lots of excellent information and support available, there is hope.

[meowrrr]

I dunno why or if it has anything to do with my anxiety or depression or if I have OCD, but I get in moods where I need to pick at things. I'll pick at my skin (pimples or what look like pimples), my nails (they are dry and brittle, so it's easy to find something to pick at), around my nails (sometimes to the point of bleeding like your friend), and I look for and pull out the "bad hairs" on my head (my hair is naturally curly/wavy and sometimes I get these really thick and coarse and wirey hairs that I search for when I'm bored ... you can find tiny balls of hair around the house where I've gathered up all the hairs I've plucked from my head and rolled them into a ball to be vacuumed up later, and I have really thick hair so losing a few more hairs doesn't make much difference). I also love to pick at my husband (pimples, those hair follicles on his face that have 4 or more hairs stuck together, etc.). But I've heard of other wives doing this too, like some kind of monkey grooming her mate..

Seriously, I don't think picking is necessarily a bad thing; everyone does it sometimes. But picking to the point of bleeding probably might be a sign of something else.

My stepdaughter has suffered abuse and other things, and she picks at herself until scabs form and then picks at the scabs so that they never heal. And when she gets nervous, she rubs her hands together so much that it makes her skin red and painful.

It takes a degree of self control not to pick to the point of bleeding, I suppose. I've been much better about it lately, come to think of it. I've been neglecting my eyebrows... but I think that's just my depression acting up since I just put my dog to sleep last Friday. I haven't felt like doing much of anything, much less picking at myself.

But, yea, picking until bleeding doesn't sound so good. I can only think of offering suggestions of other outlets to your friend (that's what we do with my stepdaughter) so the picking doesn't become a problem. Even just talking helps! You could turn him on to cleaning... I wish my stepdaughter would do this more often.

Good luck!!

[JustBen]

I like SarahL's suggestion, Flower. It would be a good idea to refer your friend to the student health center or some other professional. Being that you're studying psych, you're probably going to have to deal with all kinds of requests from friends and family...it's better not to take on that role. Creates a lot of complications.

[kenneth]

I Havent left the house in a year.

[Maven]

There's a form of OCD that revolves around skin picking, so it could be OCD. As meowrrr says, everyone (well, I'd say most, not everyone) picks at their skin sometimes. You really have to see a psychologist or psychiatrist for a diagnosis. If you're doing it till you bleed, though, I'd say yeah, that's a problem.