She was talking to one of her friends. Her friend noticed some blood on her fingers, and asked to see them. She tried to pull them away, but the friend was too fast. She saw before the girl could pull away. She asked what her friend was doing to herself. Surely it wasn't normal for her friend to pull apart her body like that, but for the girl, it was. She pulled her hand away, ashamed. She didn't know what to tell her friend to keep her from looking like a freak. Truth be told, she didn't want help. Sure, she wanted to stop, but telling someone about it was like suicide.
"It's nothing," she answered while folding her fingers into themselves. Her friend didn't buy it, but she let it go. The girl let out a sigh of relief. It was only a matter of time before more people noticed. Dermatillomania isn't the kind of thing that you hear about every day. It's the thing that makes people cringe in disgust and walk away after slinging mean words towards the person affected. Most people don't talk about it.
But her fingers aren't the only places she picks. She picks anywhere she can get to. Rubbing her fingers over her skin to feel imperfections dotting along the surface. But it doesn't stop there. She has to dig in with her nails, a needle, anything to get the flaw out. After, she'll walk away with a frown on her face. It's gone, but the bloody, red area isn't.
A pimple she saw in the mirror that morning? It's gone, replaced with an ugly spot of red.
Honestly, she never asked for this. She would love for it to go away, to be normal again. But that can't be easily achieved. It would take months, years, even. So for now, she goes about her daily business, slowly destroying her skin with every care in the world.