Dermatophagia (Skin-biting disorder)

I struggled with nail-biting in elementary school, like many other kids, but my nail-biting soon progressed into something worse, and frankly unnerving. Having small, uneven nails was bad enough, but friends began to ask questions when they saw my chewed-up, bleeding cuticles.

Dermatophagia is an obsessive-compulsive disorder of biting or chewing on your own skin. Danielle Hayden puts it quite nicely in this SELF article “Sometimes it’s a manifestation of stress or anxiety or a habitual reaction to feeling uncomfortable.” It usually goes unnoticed because it can be masked as a bad habit, and this is what happened when I first started chewing the skin around my fingernails.

I started biting my fingers right after the lockdown ended, and my freshman year of high school began. I don't really know what caused it- the stress of being around people for the first time in a while, trying to fit in, get the grades I wanted, and having to deal with eczema. All I know is, it was a coping mechanism of sorts. Whenever I was in a slightly uncomfortable or stressful situation, my fingers would automatically come up to my mouth. I wouldn't realize what I had done until my fingers bled.

My parents knew that there was a problem, and my mom started constantly chiding me whenever my fingers were in my mouth. That obviously wasn’t helpful! We started researching a bit about this and found out about Body-focused repetitive behaviors (BFRBs). I didn’t realize what I was, actually had a name and was related to my stress and that helped me connect a lot of dots!

I am still on my dermatophagia journey, and I am taking small and simple steps each day. I have become more mindful about what I am doing with and doing to my fingers. The first step is to recognize what is going on and find out how this is connected to your stress, after which we can find ways to curb those biting urges. One thing that has helped me so far is a fidget toy! Fidget spinners (throwback haha), thinking putty, pop it, slime, fidget rings.… the list goes on. Adding this list of 9 amazing fidget toys as a beginning point, you just have to find one that works for you. I will continue to share with you my dermatophagia journey, but I would love to hear from you in the comments section!