Navigating Misunderstanding
One of the most common questions among the community is how do we tell our loved ones about these disorders, and those posts are always met with many responses of advice. But what about when we have told someone...
Skin-Picking Stigma
Here at CBSN, we often talk about the stigma that comes with BFRBs. Spread the Word. Break the Stigma. That’s one of our main taglines, but while we talk about stigma a lot, we don’t really speak about...
Choosing a Fidget
Keeping our hands busy from picking, pulling, biting or any other BFRB is probably one of the most difficult things to accomplish. Finding something that accomplishes that same behavioural need, or is at least powerful enough to distract us...
Take Heart, Find Courage, Keep Talking
Hopefully you haven’t heard anything too terrible while you were raising awareness for BFRB Awareness Week, but if you did, don’t let it discourage you. Unfortunately, there are people out there who will say negative, ignorant things, such as...
Awareness Week 2014: Meli
I’m Coming Out Dermatillomania and dermatophagia sounds like bad words, and those closest to me know I rarely curse. Many people pick at their skin. It is not out of the ordinary to remove a hang nail, bite nails,...
The BFRB Conversation
Discussion is an important part of awareness—the good, the bad, the theories, the speculation, the triggering, the non-triggering, and whatever may fall in between. For BFRB Awareness Week, we want to start those kinds of discussion to break the...
BFRB Back-to-School Tips: Kindergarten to Grade 12
Back to school can be difficult for many reasons, and for those of us with BFRBs it can be even worse. Maybe over the summer, our pulling or picking got significantly worse. Maybe we are worried about how we ...
Dermatillomania vs. Self-Harm
I can understand why people would think dermatillomania is self-harm. Back when I was first trying to figure out this skin picking thing, I though it must be self-harm, too, but now I understand it differently. I used to...
Real World Awareness
We live in the age of the internet, where we can type literally anything into a Google search and find information and answers on anything we want to know. And yet, a lot of people still don’t seem to...
I Shaved My Head To Stop Pulling My Hair Out: A Trichy Tale
A guest post by peer support group leader Julie Mason. ——– On January 17th, 2014, my hair and my head were in rough shape. I would say that about half of my hair was gone. After ten years of...
“Trichy” Parenting: Tips for Parents of Trichsters
I wanted to write this blog because I know that while those with trichotillomania have many questions about treating their disorder, I know that parents do, too. In fact, they may have even more because all they want to...
Dolls and Disorders: Interview with Chloe McCarty
Recently, I came across the story of a young girl named Chloe, a 14-year-old trichster who was giving away a number of MGA Entertainment’s “True Hope” bald Bratz dolls. Ironically, it was in the dermatillomania Facebook groups that the...
B.F.R.Bs and L.O.V.E.
I was one of those people who thought I would never be in a relationship. A lot of different things made me believe that, but one of the biggest reasons I thought that was because of my skin picking...
Tips for Ingrown Hairs
Those of us with BFRBs know that ingrown hairs can be a battle, whether you’re a picker or a puller. Many struggle with how to handle them and how to combat them. One of our CBSN members had the...
The Importance of Conversation
Every year since 2010, Bell Canada has run their Bell Let’s Talk campaign. Being a phone company, we might be inclined to think that it would be some cell phone promotion, but instead it is actually a mental...