By Angela Hartlin Along with the rest of the world, Canadians have been experiencing the devastations caused by the COVID-19 crisis. With access to effective treatments for trichotillomania (compulsive hair pulling), excoriation disorder (skin picking disorder), and other body-focused...
Having a body-focused repetitive behaviour (BFRB) can be frustrating, making it tough to be kind to yourself and easy to fall into the cycle of being hard on yourself instead. There’s this idea that we should have the power...
Those who celebrate Christmas often have a wish list of gifts they would like to receive. Sure, it might seem like something a child will do to prep for Santa, but many teens and adults also have a list...
It’s been a week of sharing and coming together. Sharing information, sharing our secrets, sharing ourselves with our loved ones, our community, and, to some extent, the world. We came together as a community on our social media as...
Having any type of body-focused repetitive behaviour can force you to become somewhat of a “beauty-guru” whether you like it or not. Many of us spend more time than we’d like in our local drug-stores or beauty store trying to...
Many of us want to share our body-focused repetitive behaviour stories on large platforms such as news sites and take the plunge, only to be subject to the stories being exploited as sensationalistic clickbait. We’ve seen the heartbreak of...
Why do we stop sometimes without even trying? This is a question that I ask myself a lot. I have been pulling my hair for 18 years and biting my nails for basically my whole life (30 years). While...
Wednesday, we went to MindFest, a one-day mental health convention. It was held at the Hart House on the University of Toronto campus, which, let me just say, was a gorgeous venue.
In the past, I’ve written about back-to-school tips I would recommend, but this time around, I thought I’d ask the body-focused repetitive behaviour (BFRB) community for their take on how to prepare for back-to-school. BFRBs are hard enough to...
In today’s world there’s a constant war between aesthetics or outward appearance and inward beauty. Seeing as we’re constantly bombarded by largely unattainable beauty standards and a narrow view of what beauty is, people rebel with ads and messages...
I hope this blog, the first after a long period of silence, doesn’t come across too awfully, but there’s something that bugs me about the community. It’s a bit of a rant, I guess you could say. “Am I...
Welcome to CBSN’s #BFRBweek Headquarters! Did you know that 2-4% of Canadians live with a Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviour (BFRB)? That equals 1-2 MILLION children and adults in Canada. There are several different BFRBs, but the most common include Hair Pulling Disorder...
Many of us with BFRBs know what it is to struggle through hot days. Summer comes along and while most everyone else is wearing shorts and t-shirts and styling their hair to fight the heat, BFRBers find themselves covering...
Dear parents, I’ve seen your online posts and have heard stories from your children. I get it. You’re frustrated because you don’t quite understand and because you want the best for your child. You want your child to be...
When most of us think of recovery, we probably first think of it in terms of abstinence. Shows like Intervention and many different talk shows that feature people who are in recovery talk about an absence of substance use....