#wolfbiter

Ever since I was a little girl, I have struggled with dermatophagia. Dermatophagia is a psychological condition, in which the person who has this disorder picks or chews or gnaws at their skin, mostly around the fingers. Dermatophagia is honestly kind of new to doctors, but it really does affect you.

It affects me in many different ways. Growing up as a little girl, my parents often told me that nobody would like me, or want to marry me or hold my hand because of them. I frequently got told that my hands felt like leather (even though they don’t; I use moisturizer a lot of the time nowadays). I frequently got told bad things, and had pictures of raw hands hung in my room. It was emotionally scarring to be told I wasn’t “normal.” The problem is, I would try and stop but I just couldn’t. My brain was wired in a certain way.

One day, I went to Disneyworld when I was about 10 years old. Since I was an “adult” under Disney terms, I had to provide a fingerprint from my thumb. My parents were VERY angry to find that I no longer had my fingerprint on my thumb. Dermatophagia had ruined my fingerprint on my thumb.

Dermatophagia affects about 3% of the population - but that 3% does suffer. If you see someone with dermatophagia, try not to bring them down; instead, try and uplift them. They struggle, and they are human beings just like you. Having dermatophagia doesn’t mean you aren’t normal. You are a perfectly fine human individual with problems, and you were born with a disorder - so what? You can’t control that.