Dermatillomania and Dermatophagia

I have a history of minor skin picking and biting.

When I was a young boy, I would go to bed at night and then grind the knuckle of my left index finger into something hard, such as part of my lovey, the corner of the pillowcase, or a button, zipper or seam of my pajama. The knuckle quickly developed a blister, which I chewed off during the day. Then, when that formed a scab, I'd pick and bite the scab. I kept that up for years, and it got nasty-looking, so I was always embarrassed by it and tried to hide it.

I'm having a flare-up of this again. It's the same knuckle, the same urge. But now that I know that it's part of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), I'm no longer embarrassed by it. In fact, I'm almost proud of it. When my wife and daughter ask about it, I just say, "That's just noives (nerves)."

As I type this and then pause to collect my thoughts, my knuckle finds its way to the seam of my jeans, at the inside of the knee, to grind some more. I put an adhesive bandage on it this morning to prevent myself from picking at it and biting it. It's really tempting to do that now, because there's a nice thick scab there just waiting to be picked.

I thought I had outgrown this behavior after growing up. But three years ago, when my mother went into the hospital for the last time, I started it up again. After she died, I stopped bothering with it, and it quickly healed.

This current bout started at the end of August, when my father-in-law went into the hospital, also for the last time. He passed away a couple of weeks ago.

So is this behavior somehow related to death?

Do you have a similar compulsion? If so, what seems to trigger it for you?