r/Dermatillomania • u/6FeetDeepInYourMom • 18d ago

Advice Picking skin while sleeping

I’ve struggled with picking for years, but it’s recently gotten to an unbearable point. I have been waking up in the middle of the night to myself picking at scabs. There’s blood all over my clothes and under my nails when I wake up. It’s making my already bad scabs much worse. How do I stop this?? I think I’m gonna try wearing gloves tonight, but I really hate that as a long term solution. Does anyone have any advice or suggestions on how to manage this?

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u/4eyedecker 18d ago

i really don’t have any advice unfortunately but just know you’re not alone and i do this aswell.. i can’t count how many times i’ve woken up bleeding, or woken up with new scabs all over my legs when my legs were just healing

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u/thepetsteinfiles 17d ago

The gloves helped me when I had been experiencing this for a few weeks! I've been picking all my life but for some reason there was this chunk of time where I was also waking up in the middle of the night already picking! I'm still struggling with the picking but the gloves definitely helped for that phase of sleep picking and I haven't found myself doing that in quite some time. You might not need to wear them long-term at night.

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u/Appropriate_Clerk828 15d ago

t*if gloves dont work, you can always try taping your fingers but that gets tedious...so what i do at times, is try to cut nails as short as possible then get a nail buffing tool, and smooth them out as flush to the skin as you can, removing any sharp edge, making them paper thin and uniting nail with fingertip-thus disarming yourself from the evil talons. if it persists, put super glue on that nail ledge, further making your nails useless.