#derma tw

[respectissexy]

I've been flossing my teeth for the past year because I'm trying to stave off a root canal, and here's what my dentist should have told me: Once you get past the bleeding stage, flossing actually really satisfies the "remove some gunk from your head and feel cleaner because you got the gunk out" urge that previously drove me to do things like pop/pick at zits and stick the q tip way deep in my ear.

[comfy-whumpee]

Hi! I was wondering if maybe I could request whumpee turned caretaker as the whumpee picks at their scabs, and the whumper-caretaker has to hold them to stop them from picking at their wounds the whumper made?

You can add your own OC's, but possibly having just "whumpee and whumper-caretaker" as the characters by chance? Its great you're back! Good to see you again!

(Also, would you mind tagging @cherrywhump? Thats me:) )

Hi @cherrywhump! Thanks for the request, I’m happy to be back <3

Whumper grabbed Whumpee’s wrists with a suddenness that made them flinch and half-curl, shoulders falling forwards and head ducking defensively, but no pain came. Whumper’s annoyed breath was the only thing that folowed in the tense silence.

“Stop picking.”

It took several seconds for the order to sink in, and when it did, Whumpee could have laughed. They twisted, pulling at their hands, but Whumper’s grip was strong as ever. “What do you care?”

“Don’t make me tie you up again.”

“You’re the one who cut me open!” Whumpee shot back, trying to work their hand around to scratch at that perisstent itch on their back, along one of the shallower cuts. Their voice was bitter. “I thought you liked me bleeding.”

Whumper yanked their hands down to the floor and reached for the rope, frown severe and grim. “You’re mine to hurt. Not yours.”

[nochainsbrokennosacraficesmade]

what do you m e a n ripping my skin off isn’t going to improve my life

[normakuhlings]

4mg ativan tsf?

“Sarah, hold my hands please,” Ava murmured to her girlfriend who was perched beside her on the couch.

Sarah looked at her with a confused look but did as she asked, taking the surgeon’s hands and holding them securely. It didn’t take long for her to realize why, the faint redness gave away the fact that Ava had been picking at her healing scratches and needed the physical distraction.

[wyrdify]

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. It’s been plastered all over every social media website I’ve been on, and I’ve had friends on other sites talking about it. I’ve also seen it on here, and I decided I’m going to continue my trend of being open about my own mental health. In doing so, I have a few goals: to help lessen the stigma surrounding mental illnesses, to let others know it’s okay to talk about what they live with, and to just get my brain to move onto another topic.

So, let’s get down to it.

My brain works great when I present stuff in list or outline format, so that’s what I’m going to do to start with.

These are the mental illnesses I live with every single day:

Dermatillomania

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Major Depression Disorder

OCD

Trichotillomania

A couple of these may seem unfamiliar to folks, and there are definitely preconceived notions about all of them, so I’ll share a little bit about what they look like for me in another section.

My family/personal history that contributes to my mental health:

Alcoholism (namely family members, but I bordered on becoming an alcoholic before I was 21)

Emotional abuse / gaslighting

Involvement in a cult

Loss of family members

Neglect (namely medical)

Other shit I’m not quite comfortable talking about in a public setting

What these mental illnesses look like for me:

Dermatillomania: It means I like picking at my skin, particularly recently acquired cuts or wounds. For me, my brain likes to make myself bleed, and it perceives that feeling, that pain, as good.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder: I worry about things and blow them out of proportion. Worst case scenarios are easy for me to imagine, and I overthink just about everything. Big surprises, the unknown, and anything outside of my control can make me panic.

Major Depressive Disorder: I’m tired a lot, and I often have trouble focusing or concentrating for long periods of time. Small things like putting something away takes extra effort, and I’ll often lose interest in things I normally enjoy. Since I was at least thirteen years old, I’ve also experienced thoughts of self-harm and suicide.

OCD: This links back to my anxiety, and it’s connected to the derma/trich stuff. I don’t do well when I don’t know something, or there’s any sort of uncertainty. I need things to be done in a certain way, and often in a certain order, or my brain will figuratively set itself on fire. I also need things organized in a specific way, or I get the same result. That’s the obsessive part. The compulsive part comes from following a somewhat strict routine along with counting in specific patterns, arranging my stuff in specific ways, and stuff like that.

Trichotillomania: Similar to the dermatillomania, but with hair. Often without thinking, I’ll pull my hair out. Sometimes, I do it purposefully because my brain thinks it helps with anxiety. This has also led to me having general issues when it comes to my hair in general.

What that family/personal history looked like for me:

Alcoholism: A lot of people in my family, including both parents, are alcoholics. They consume a lot of alcohol. I was pressured to start drinking alcohol when I was around 13-14 years old. When I was in my late teens, I would drink just to make myself feel better. Due to my intense fear of throwing up, though, I never let myself progress past tipsy. I don’t drink any alcohol now due to my medications and the knowledge that I could easily fall into alcoholism.

Emotional abuse: This is wide-ranging and extensive, honestly, and gaslighting was a huge part of it. What I’m going to do instead is link some things that explain what I lived with for most of my life. With this article from PsychCentral, I can check off every single thing on that list. This link from womenshealth.gov also covers what I dealt with.

Involvement in a cult: Insert nervous laughter. Starting around the end of middle school to the start of high school, my parents started getting involved in a cult that centers itself on therapy and self-help with some spiritual elements. Therapy through them was the only way to get help, or it wasn’t valid. My family is still involved in this cult, and I managed to get myself out of it when I moved back in 2013.

Loss of family members: In 2005, I suddenly lost my godfather, my dad’s brother. I saw him as more of a father than my biological dad, especially considering he curbed or otherwise acted as a buffer for my dad’s abusive behavior. In 2011, I lost my paternal grandmother, someone I was incredibly close to and trusted more than my parents. She also helped curb my parents’ abusive behavior, and her house was a safe place for me to go.

Neglect: I’ve said this before when talking about my epilepsy, but I was not allowed to go to doctors. Any medical issues, which included mental illnesses, I had were my fault, too expensive, inconvenient, or all in my head. It is also my belief that my mother pressured my pediatrician to tell me that my seizures were not neurological when I was sixteen years old. To this day, my parents are still very anti-doctor and borderline anti-vax.

Whoo, that was a lot of stuff, and I’m not even done---because of course not. Now, as the last part (I think), I’m going to list some things I do and personality quirks as a result of all this shit.

Confrontation/angry voices scares the ever-loving shit out of me. I shut down. I dissociate. I freeze, or I otherwise try to escape. Sometimes, this will come across as me trying to find ways to change the subject, not saying anything at all, or just agreeing with things because it’s easier.

I cry when people tell me they love me, and I often have to stop myself from saying things like “Thank you”, “Why?”, or asking for further explanation.

I doubt my memory and emotions a lot. To combat this, I keep logs, paper trails, and notes of just about everything. If I remember something that someone else doesn’t, or I have a different emotional response than someone else, I tend to assume the other person is right.

I feel guilty for everything. Somehow, everything becomes my fault, my responsibility, and I have to fix everything. This leads to apologies being my go-to responses for a lot.

I have trouble advocating for myself or saying that I need something. Needing things = bad in my brain.

I info-dump. My brain tells me people should have all of the information possible, so I do it. This includes telling people when I’m going to bed for the night or when I’m going somewhere.

I only feel safe crying when there’s no one else around.

I overthink every single thing I say and type.

I put everything in alphabetical order if possible.

I use writing to cope with feelings and other issues I’m dealing with.

I will listen to sad or otherwise emotional songs over and over again to help me get feelings out.

I will often perceive my issues as “not as bad as what other people deal with” and not talk about them. I’ll downplay what I deal with and shove it under a rug while trying to help others because, otherwise, I’ll feel selfish, self-centered, and attention-seeking.

If I can’t have my bowl of cereal for breakfast in the morning, it has the power to ruin my entire day, and I feel rather silly about it.

Lots of all or nothing and black and white thinking. Perfectionism also plays into this. If I can’t do something right the first time, or if things aren’t done perfectly, my brain will not let it go.

Physical contact without my explicit and verbal consent makes me cringe and feel incredibly uncomfortable. It can get to the point that even the thought of it happening triggers nausea. 

These are explanations for things I do and why I act in certain ways. They are not excuses, and they are things I’m working on to the best of my ability. I’m currently on a wait list to get a new psychologist so I can start going to therapy again since I know I need it. When I had it in the past, it was incredibly helpful and empowering to me. Since about February, my depression started to get worse, especially as I felt like things were falling apart around me. It rises and it falls. Nowadays, it’s just a little worse in the sense that I find shutting down easier, and I struggle to do anything that isn’t a video game.

Mental health is just as important as physical health, and it needs to be acknowledged as such. If sharing what I deal with helps even one person, then I consider it worth it.

That is all. I hope everyone is doing okay. If you’re not, though, that’s okay. It’s okay to not have good days or otherwise not feel physically or mentally okay. One day, that lesson will stick with me on a more permanent basis.

Love,

Kai

[olorina]

yes i hate not having perfect skin 💖 yes i will continuously fuck up my skin by picking at it and falling on the pavement 💖

[thatocdfeel]

tocdfw you have dermatillomania and there's a spot on your eyelid and you're trying so fucking hard not to pick at it because it would scratch your eye out

.

[morosexual-aziraphale]

1 ineffable bureaucracy (if you are still accepting them)? Cause I love me some angst

1. Stop it, you’re bleeding.

I tried to make this angsty but it turned into fluff, I hope you still like it! This follows mine and @anonlynymous‘s headcanon that Beelzebub has dermatillomania.

Beelzebub and Gabriel were walking side by side down the streets of central London, looking for what Gabriel deemed “the perfect patisserie.” “We’ll know it when we see it,” he’d declared, and thus began their stroll through the city.

Beside him, Gabriel could see Beelzebub’s hands fidgeting. Sometimes, ze’d scratch idly at zir face where he knew zir boils and blisters hid just under the surface of a glamour. Eventually, he sighed and drew zir aside. “You know I can see you picking at them,” he said.

“Don’t care.” Ze reached up and started scratching again, zir motions almost desperate, like it was a persistent itch ze just couldn’t scratch. Perhaps it was.

“Let me see,” he said gently.

“Why?”

“Just—” Gabriel took a breath. “Just let me see.”

Beelzebub rolled zir eyes but dropped zir glamour, and Gabriel noticed the red-black blood oozing from one of the marks. Almost without thinking, Zir hand reached up to scratch again, but Gabriel caught it just before ze could touch zir face. “Stop it, you’re bleeding.” Gabriel gently pulled the hand away from zir face. “You can’t keep scratching at them, it won’t make them go away.”

Beelzebub frowned and wrenched zir hands away, clenching them into fists. “It’zzz a bad habit,” ze mumbled. “Can’t stop picking at them.” As if to prove zir point, zir hand strayed back up to the boils and marks on zir face. “They itch,” ze complained.

“You’re going to hurt yourself,” Gabriel scolded, and pulled zir hands away again. “Can’t I try healing them?”

“It’zz never worked before,” ze said sullenly. “Truzzt me, I’ve tried.”

Gabriel’s face fell a little. “Oh.” There was a brief moment where ze thought he was going to get upset. Then, he straightened a little and miracled a small bandage into his hand, smoothing it across the blemish ze had scratched open. “There,” he said. “No more bleeding.”

Beezebub stared. “One bandage?” ze asked incredulously.

“Well, I’ll add more as needed, obviously,” Gabriel said cheerily. “Now, come on. I want to try baklava today. I’ve heard it’s delicious.” As he spoke, he took zir hand in his and began to stroll down the street, Beelzebub trailing dazedly behind him.

“Why are we holding handzzz?” ze asked him, brow creasing in a frown.

“Well, for one, because I want to. You’re cute, and humans hold hands with people they think are cute. Also, however, if I’m holding your hand, that’s one less hand you can use to scratch with.” He snapped the fingers of his free hand and summoned a small sunflower, then handed it to zir. “And this is for your free hand. See?”

Beelzebub stared at him in shock. “You… you…” Ze stopped, gripped his hand harder, looked around, and then dragged him into an alley where ze was able to sufficiently press him against the wall, stand on zir tiptoes, and kiss him deep and hard. “You angel,” ze muttered into his mouth.

Gabriel just laughed and kissed zir back happily.