One of a Kind? Maybe Not.

     I think it's human nature to assume that we each experience things on a very exclusive, personal level, kind of that "the world revolves around me" attitude. In some ways, the world does revolve around us. Not literally of course, but we do spend every moment of our lives with ourselves, and we'll never know anyone else more than we know ourselves. So self-absorption comes quite easy to most of us. And so does the personalization of universal thoughts and feelings and actions. In specific, people tend to think that the things they're going through no one else could possibly relate to, or that their bad habit is somehting that no one else around them does. I, for example, as you know, struggle with picking at my cuticles. I do it when I'm stressed or nervous or bored. Most of the time I don't even realize I'm doing it. Sometimes I even do it because I think it'll make it better. I try to get rid of the little tattered pieces of skin by ripping them off, which makes it worse. My brother has the same habit, and I'd say his is even worse than mine, probably because as a boy he doesn't care about having nice cuticles. I didn't know anyone besides myself and my brother who had this habit until Colleen Ballinger made a video a while ago about the exact same habit, and I realized for the first time that even these seemingly perfect people go through the same stuff everyone else does. Colleen always had her nails done and I always thought she was so put together and then I found out that behind that pretty nail polish is the same ugly ripped skin that I have. I have other bad habits as well, like eating too much junk food and picking at the skin on my lips. I don't have OCD or anything; it's just those little ticks that you can't help because they're so ingrained in you. The good thing is that whatever is going on in your life, whether you're depressed or have OCD or ADD or just can't stop biting your nails, someone else is going through the same thing at the same time.

     The reason I'm even writing this post is because I just found out about this disorder called trichotillomania, which is a disorder that causes people to pull out their hair. The way I found out about the video is actually kind of ironic. I remembered watching the video "I Dislike The Fault in Our Stars" (and disagreeing with it) and I liked the girl, Becky's, hair and since I eventually want to get my hair cut short I found the video to see what her hair looked like. I noticed that she was bald in a thumbnail on another video of hers, so I got curious and found the video where she talks about her disorder, trichotillomania. It made me realize once again that the thing that you may hate about yourself other people will not even notice. I watched her TFiOS review video again solely because I liked her hair, and she made entire videos on how much she hated the disorder that made her rip that very hair out. At first, I couldn't understand how trichotillomania wasn't extremely painful, but then I realized that most people would think picking pieces of your skin off would be painful, and it's not really. In fact, I didn't know that skin picking was actually an official disorder until I Googled trichotillomania and saw that skin picking (formally called excoriation disorder (scary)) was on the same website (which was a .org so it's reliable). In terms of severity, my "excoriation disorder" is very very very mild (it's more of a habit than a disorder) but I can't deny that I pick my skin, as gross as that sounds. From the website, I learned that: 

"Skin Picking Disorder (also known as Excoriation Disorder or SPD) is a serious and poorly understood problem. People who suffer from SPD repetitively touch, rub, scratch, pick at, or dig into their skin, often in an attempt to remove small irregularities or perceived imperfections. SPD is thought of as one of many Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors (BFRBs) in which a person can cause harm or damage to themselves or their appearance. Other BFRBs include hair pulling disorder (trichotillomania), biting the insides of the cheeks, and severe nail biting. Skin picking or other BFRBs can occur when a person experiences feelings such as anxiety, fear, excitement or boredom. Some people report that the act of repetitively picking at their skin is pleasurable."

     So yup. Moral of the story: You think you're special, but you're not. Seven billion people are alive now and billions have gone before you and there is a person out there, at some place and time, who has experienced the exact same thing as you. 

Day 525 Song Recommendation: "Your Hand in Mine" by Explosions in the Sky. This is one of the few instrumental songs I like.
-SE Wagner