The week of October 1 through 7 every year is dedicated to BFRB awareness week, and since it’s coming up, I figured now would be a good time to spread awareness about this OCD-related disorder. To start off, BFRB stands for Body-Focused Repetitive Behavior and these include disorders such as trichotillomania (compulsive hair pulling) and excoriation disorder (previously known as dermatillomania and also called skin-picking disorder). According to the TLC Foundation, about one or two in every 50 people develop some level of trichotillomania in their lifetime, and 2 percent to 5 percent of the U.S. population struggle with excoriation disorder sometime during their lives. Additionally, the majority of these disorders affect women; however, men can certainly be affected as well.
It wasn’t until the release of the DSM-5 that excoriation disorder was included as a psychological disorder (and listed under OCD, although some experts are still debating this), and trichotillomania had previously been classified as an impulse control disorder, but has since been changed and is now listed under OCD along with excoriation disorder. However, people have been struggling with these disorders for a long, long time. Some people never even realized BFRBs were a mental illness and just thought they struggled with a bad habit alone. I’m writing about this because I want to spread awareness about these psychologically hindering disorders and shed light on the issues that some people struggle with everyday.
I myself have struggled with skin picking disorder since high school, when I first began getting teenage acne. It started out with the simple urge to pop a pimple (an urge many people have!) and soon turned into a vicious cycle of scanning, picking, and scraping my skin. Many who struggle with anxiety and stress are more likely to develop a BFRB, as it can be perceived as a relaxing or stress-relieving activity. However, the damage done by pulling hair and picking skin can easily become detrimental. From bald patches and skin lesions, BFRB sufferers can develop extremely low self-confidence because of unwanted attention received by peers who do not understand or a distorted self-image. Additionally, other consequences can include serious infections such as cellulitis (infection in the lower levels of skin tissue) and higher susceptibility to staph infections. These disorders are not just skin-deep. They can have lasting effects on a person’s mental and physical well-being.
So, as the week of October 1 through 7 passes by just like every other week, I encourage everyone to remember how important this week is for those who suffer from BFRBs. Spreading awareness about mental health issues is one step in normalizing what it means to struggle with mental illnesses. Bald patches and skin covered in scabs doesn’t indicate weirdness, or ugliness, or scary contagious diseases, but simply indicates a struggle one deals with that happens to be a bit more outwardly visible than struggles every single person deals with on a daily basis. Just because my anxiety can often be seen on my skin doesn’t mean I’m weaker because of it. Mental illnesses need not to be pitied, but simply understood more widely. And to my fellow BFRB sufferers, happy awareness week and never be ashamed to keep standing up and speaking out!
Photo and statistic courtesy of bfrb.org.