I’m about to keep it really real, friends. This is the antibiotic I was given yesterday, to treat the infected spot where my skin picking and hair pulling unfortunately collided a few weeks ago via a pair of tweezers.

If you think that’s shocking or gross, don’t worry, I’m fine. For me, this is normal. And I can pretty much guarantee that it’s normal for someone you know or love or maybe are.

But your person probably doesn’t think it’s normal. They may think they are disgusting. Weak. Shameful. A moral failure.

Those are the cruel words that an absolutely beautiful and brilliant young acquaintance used about herself when we talked earlier this week. That was after I casually mentioned in a group chat that my skin picking has been worse lately due to pandemic stress, and I shared an image of my tried-and-true fidget rings that I’ve gone back to wearing. Until that moment, she thought she was the only one in the world hiding her hands under the table in meetings because she’d made her cuticles bleed, again.

The fact is, there’s a LOT of us. It’s hard to know exactly, because there is so much stigma, but it looks like maybe 1 in 20 people experience some form of this behavior. It’s just a thing our bodies do. Like being born into a body that turns out to be color-blind: sometimes inconvenient, but in no way a character flaw.

We can get medical treatment of various kinds, depending on what we want. We can learn coping strategies. We can get peer support. And that’s where I come in.

If you ever – and I mean EVER, from this moment forward with no expiration date – want to talk with me or send your person to me for a chat, please ping me by any method we’re connected. Please.

I’m not a professional, I can’t and won’t diagnose, but I’ve lived with this in some form since my earliest memories. I have links to medical research and online communities and hand toys. Plus damn near 50 years of my own accumulated arsenal of tips and tricks that sometimes work and sometimes don’t but so far have a perfect 100% success rate of getting me through to the next day.

Bodies are weird. It’s amazing that they function at all. Everybody’s got something they wish their body would or wouldn’t do. I just happened to be born with “busy hands,” as we say in the picking/pulling community. I used to be ashamed, but I’m not anymore. These days I just work on ways to get my body what it needs – whether that’s a kinder method of self-soothing in a stressful moment, or an antibiotic.

Sending love out to all of you in your respective struggles. Because everyone’s got something, right? Especially lately. Hope this helps you give gentleness to yourself or anyone who needs it, someday.