#and of course sometimes kea's distress can be traced back to sensory issues

[icannotgetoverbirds]

couple of things:

okay so first of all i may take a break from tumblr soon because the Bad News is a bit too much for me to handle while literally homeless. however, i'll still be checking my inbox and notifs pretty regularly, so i won't be totally offline. feel free to send in / tag me in as many birds/bird posts as u like!

secondly, for those that struggle with bfrbs (under the cut, cw for dermatillomania and trich mentions):

okay so. if you don't know about plurality - and maybe even if you do - i might sound crazy here for a moment. stay with me because this is the only thing that has worked for me in all my years of having excoriation disorder (dermatillomania) and i want that for y'all. you might wanna go check out pluralpedia to familiarize urself with some of the terminology im about to be using.

anyways. i got multiple entities living in my head 24/7 (headmates). for a little while now, we thought that the front space (where whoever is in charge resides while controlling the body) was empty whenever the body was picking. it was like we had no control over the body. took some time to come to terms with the fact that we really didn't have control while we were picking.

then something made a noise. and wouldn'tcha know it there is someone in the front when we're picking. let's call him Kea, after my writer friend and one of my favorite kinds of birds. Kea doesn't really have any words of his own. sometimes he can borrow words or i can speak for him, but he mostly just makes noises.

more importantly, though, is that Kea is scared whenever we're picking. he doesn't want to be picking any more than we do.

and then it clicked. this whole time, i've been yelling at myself and everyone in the system has been panicking whenever an episode starts. and that's why the frustration/fear/punitive solutions only make it worse. because it's anxiety. of course it's anxiety. it's a compulsive behavior.

Kea is (like) a scared, wounded animal. of course getting angry and yelling would only make it worse. Caretaker was the main person who was awake and conscious when this was all happening, and the moment he realized what was actually going on and reacted accordingly - by soothing and handling the situation gently - the episode ended within seconds.

and sure, because he'd just been picking, he did start up again soon after and did so a couple more times, but it just took another few seconds of soothing each time to stop it. before any serious damage could be done. and after a few times, he was calm enough to go for longer without picking. it even worked with my trichotillomania - he only pulled one hair and didn't go looking for more.

so, idk, maybe if y'all can remember when you're picking to be extra gentle with yourself - as difficult as that is - you might actually find yourself picking less.

and if you're plural, like me, there might be a headmate hiding in there that's afraid of what will happen if you discover them. but if you're gentle and soft with yourself when you pick, they may just start cooperating with you.

#the flock talks #byrd's business #byrd is plural #byrd chirps #tw skin picking #tw hair pulling #tw dermatillomania #tw trichotillomania #bfrb #bfrb culture #bfrb awareness #tw bfrb #dermatillomania #excoriation #excoriation disorder #trichotillomania #skin picking #and of course sometimes kea's distress can be traced back to sensory issues #like the itching that always triggers scalp picking #and the soothing works even better there because it only takes a little bit of scratching before the itch is gone #but the stress is still there afterwards and so he would keep scratching #instead we just soothe him. just kinda shush him gently. tell him it's gonna be okay. #tell him it's okay you can scratch the itch but after that you gotta leave it alone okay? #and he does! #anyways shoutout to caretaker for handling that situation like a champ