Hello again — here we are scabby and red,” wrote Tallulah Willis in the caption of a recent bare-faced selfie on Instagram. She continued, “Feeling out of control so zeroing in on something I CAN control, thus fingernails met face, facialist and dermatologist sighed, and the healing process commenced.
It’s not the first time illustrator, fashion designer, and mental health advocate Willis has gotten candid about her battle with skin-picking disorder, also known as excoriation disorder or dermatillomania, which is a mental illness related to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) that consists of repetitively picking at one’s own skin.
But her willingness to speak publicly about the struggles of living with skin-picking disorder, which affects as many as 1 in 20 people according to the International OCD Foundation and is experienced by women more often than men, continues to be invaluable in raising awareness and lessening stigmas around it.
Given the impact that the global pandemic has had on mental health, it’s a fitting time to delve deeper into what skin-picking disorder is, how it manifests physically and mentally, and what can be done to treat it. Here, three different experts weigh in.
What is skin-picking disorder?
“We all pick at our skin on occasion, but for individuals with skin-picking disorder, it can be very difficult to stop,” explains Lisa Zakhary, M.D., Ph.D., the medical director of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for OCD and Related Disorders (CORD) and co-founder of the MGH Comprehensive Skin Management Clinic. Read More: vogue.co.uk
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