Not Sure

I'm not really sure what I'm doing with this blog.

I know that when I keep a private, handwritten journal all that comes out is anger and self-hate. It seems to help when I write for an "audience." If I keep a journal in an online support group format I feel free enough to be blatantly honest and open and over-share details, details, details and all of my angst. Even when the audience for that share the same self-mutilating habit inevitably all of that openness usually backfires. So with this blog I sort of thought I'd be "authentic" and "honest" and reveal this secret to the world and maybe bring some light to compulsive skin picking in general as I continue to try and overcome this destructive habit. However, that hasn't really worked out because I feel burdened now by the responsibility of educating people about this particular compulsion. Who am I to do that? I have enough to deal with in my life without taking on this task.

Meanwhile I still struggle with this every. single. day. I fight this and suffer from this every hour of every day.

If I just kept this as sort of a daily journal of my progress all it would say day after day is the statements above in italics. Eventually, people will just wonder, think and ultimately say to me "Why don't you just stop?" because they will see how miserable I am if I choose to share any of the feelings that go along with a basic "I picked today" or "I didn't pick today."

I am in the process of trying to find a therapist to hopefully engage me in cognitive behavioral therapy. Trying to find a therapist who offers this therapy and takes my insurance (now that I finally have some) has proved more challenging than I hoped it would be.

I have been taking care of my skin differently over the last several weeks. Put away all of my hygiene snake oil- all of the products commercials and magazines tell me I should be using. And I've been using just oil. Sounds insane for someone with acne (exacerbated by picking or not) but for me it's been the right move. I actually have very dry skin and for all of these years I've been treating my skin as if have oily/acne prone skin. All of the harsh, drying products has contributed to my skin over-reacting and being oily when really it's not. It's crazy, but when I just put jojoba oil on my skin and go to bed, I wake up with normal to dry skin- not slick with oil skin, which is what I get when I just use a moisturizer- even one that says it's for dry skin. So anyway, what I've been doing is using a warm/hot wash cloth, lying it on my face for a few minutes or just going over my face with it- then I rub oil into it (prefer jojoba over coconut but coconut is all I have right now because I used up the jojoba) then I wipe that oil off and go back with much less oil to leave on my face. I can't tell you how soft that makes my skin. No tightness. Still some dryness but I feel like I'm giving my skin a chance to balance itself. If I have a really bad spot (from picking) I dab some neosporin on it because it is akin to a wound that needs healing. Anyway, my partner described it perfectly when he said it's akin to candle wax melting. By using oil on my skin it has a softening effect- like melting wax- and allows what needs to come out to come out and lets nature take it's course.

I'm sorry if that whole skin care description has a lot of holes- it feels too hard to try and fill those holes- right now anyway. Feel free to ask for clarification though.

In case you're wondering- while the whole skin picking thing comes from a place of needing to control something in my life because from the time I was young a lot of dysfunctional stuff happened that I had no control over- it's a response to stress, anxiety, anger, nervousness- but also boredom, happiness, indifference, excitement- to just plain rote habit. It seems understandable that I pick when I'm really anxious or depressed, but insane that I pick when I'm really happy and feeling like everything is right in the world. I've come to decipher that picking is a way to keep me from feeling anything- even though guilt, shame and regret always follow any and every picking episode.

Irrationally I get upset when my partner tells me to stop or come away from the mirror, though originally that helped me back away and stop.

I don't know if writing about this is going to help. I'm going to stop here for now. Not sure when I'll post next. For now I'm shooting for at least once a month until I can figure out what I'm doing here.

Chance Confessions

The day of my 30th birthday I found myself alone at home picking my skin.

I've struggled with compulsive skin picking since I was in the 4th grade (so about 10 years old). Needless to say I have done quite a lot of damage to my skin.

For years (decades really) this was my biggest darkest most shameful secret. I had a best friend in middle school/ high school that knew about it. My parents and sibling knew about (I mean come on- I spent HOURS in the bathroom picking at my skin) but it wasn't really talked about. Around 22 or 23 I remember confessing for the first time to my aunt about how helpless I felt to control it or stop it. I remember feeling even more lost and alone when she didn't really seem to "get" how serious what I was telling her was. I was sobbing and so distraught and she just sort of seemed to think I was upset because I had acne- or something.

Around age 24 I read an article in cosmo about dermatillmania which gave me the courage to seek out a therapist because now I had a name for what I was doing to myself. I cut out the article and took it with me to a psycologist and confessed to him my shameful secret and showed him the article so he'd believe me that it was a condition. He was not disbelieving as I had feared. I started receiving therapy and was put on anti depresseants and anti anxiety medication. I did the therapy for about a year, but it came to an impasse when during flooding therapy I was ultimately supposed to NOT pick when I felt the urges- but HELLO- if I could just stop picking I wouldn't have a problem! I tried wearing bandaids or gloves on my hands/fingers when I was alone but I would at some point just take them off and continue searching my skin- trying to pick the ugly out.

I've continued to struggle with this problem. I've since "confessed" to several more close friends about my CSP and of course my life partner (though it was at the beginning of our relationship at the time and I was sure it would disgust him). The thinking behind my confessions was that if I told enough people they'd know what I was up to- so when I showed up looking like a lawnmower ran over my face they'd know what was really up and I couldn't just say "oh I broke out" and it would somehow shame me into not picking. Well that didn't work. In fact it almost had the opposite effect- made me feel freer to pick and not hide because these people understood. No one reacted with horror. I almost wonder if they did, if it would have helped me.

There is a LOT being left out of this story because really this is not a place to go into all of the details (and there are a lot of details when we're talking about a 20 year span) but I am finally to a point where I feel like speaking more plainly about my self-mutilating habit as I continue and renew my attempts to overcome it and heal from it. It is a huge part of my life and something I deal with every minute of every hour of every day.

So anyway, on the day of my 30th bday, when I found myself alone and picking my skin on this auspicious mile stone in my life, I decided I wanted to be open about my struggle and hopefully my path to healing. I didn't want to start sharing publically though until I got the okay from my beloved. He has been my #1 supporter since the day I confessed to him. Every time I hurt my skin I hurt him. It breaks his heart to see me hurt myself and he wants nothing more than to see me overcome this self-destructive habit. The day I asked him if he would mind if I shared my story publically he said he'd prefer that I didn't. This. Shocked. And. Stunned. Me. and made me oh so very sad. Because it was at that moment that I realized that this shameful secret of mine is now his shameful secret. He is a much more private person than I am and despite his unwavering support and unconditional love for me- the thought of me writing publically about my CSP makes him uncomfortable. I can't blame him. I understand where he's coming from.

I keep going back and forth about it actually. One minute I want to write about it and share and the next I don't want to do any such thing. In preparing for this blog I found an online journal I used to write when I was 27 at an online support group. Reading through the entries was terribly depressing and sad. I have no desire to repost those here nor do I want to make depressing sad entries on this blog. When I feel the desire to write here the aim will be to share what I am doing to help heal myself. The aim will not be to wallow in self-pity, guilt and shame.

So far I've only refered to my CSP in my other blog as a vague self-destructive, self-mutilating, bad habit. I think speaking more plainly about it will help ease the shame around the issue which can only help me in the healing process. And who knows- maybe it'll help someone else find the courage to seek out help if they are suffering from the same thing but never knew that they weren't the only one (that's what I thought for 14 years).

However, to compromise with my conflicted feelings about writing publicly about this subject I have decided to keep my identity completely anonymous. This will be a public blog, comments can be made and I can be contacted via email but my real name will not be shared. I won't even be sharing with my family and friends about this blog (except for a very select few).

Speaking plainly anonymously- baby steps.