Skin Picking

[kbest]

my son has a huge issue with picking his face, acne, and will not leave the house. He has
not left the house and won't let anyone including me see him for nearly 2 years now. I have
been told there is nothing I can do because he is an adult. Can you help me with him.

[KLV001]

Im very sorry to hear that your son is suffering like this....
Im not a professional but I think he could be suffering from one or all of the following, CSP (Complusive skin picking) OCD or BDD (body dismorphic disorder) and severe depression.

I am speaking from experience as I suffer with all. As a teenager (I am now 23) I suffered with minor acne but I became extremely obsessive about my face, not just with the acne but everything in general. I started to mess with my skin by picking or stratching at anything that resembled a lump or bump. I'd use tweezers, scissors, pins and needles untill I basically made a complete mess of my face. However in my mind I was making it better. I refused to leave the house aswell because I felt completly and utterly disgusting. I developed OCD like behaviours like picking and messing with my face, constantly looking for "solutions", mirror checking up to 100 times a day, and often mirror avoidance when It all became too much.

I was diagnosed with BDD and began counselling and CBT (cognative behavioural therapy). BDD is chariterized by having extremely low opinion of oneself and a preoccupation on a Minor or even imaginary defect in appearance. And although in most cases people with bdd their situations are not as bad as they see them, for instance I knew I had acne (it wasnt an imaginery defect) but its how I saw myself which made me body dysmorphic. I saw everything as 10 times worse, I saw myself as disfigured and horrible ugly and not worthy of living, even though the reality was I had some teenage/early adult acne which isnt unusual in this day and age.

But it took alot of strength to even admit there was something wrong. Suffering with Acne and having low self esteem is devastating both physically and mentally. And in this instance I think your son may be suffering from severe depression and some of the conditions I mentioned above.

I think the way foward to helping your son is to understand what hes going through. My parents could not understand Why I shut myself away and didnt want to see them. So I gave my mother a copy of "The Broken Mirror" which gives an insight to these avoidance behaviours associated with very poor self esteem and tells stories of others who have been in similar situations. It helped her to understand because I couldnt bare to tell her face to face. Hopefully in time if your son knows you are aware of these problems he may open up to you and then you can assess how bad it is and maybe talk him round to getting some professional help.

I think its amazing that you have come looking for help for your son I hope I have been of some help, obviously I am just going by what you have told us and its not neccessarily any of these things but the situation sounds very familiar and BDD/OCD took away a large part of my life and I still in recovery now. If you have any other questions regarding this I would be more than happy to help. In the mean time I would research on the net about some of the things ive mentioned there are many helpful sights and advice on what steps too take. Being housebound for two years will make it very hard for your son to break out of, but I think if you take lots of little steps and with your full love and support I think he will be able to come through this!

Good Luck and best wishes

Some useful sights

http://www.psychnet-uk.com/dsm_iv/skin_picking.htm

http://www.mind.org.uk/Information/Factsheets/SMHI/Body+dysmorphic+disorder.htm