First part here: https://nopickingblog.wordpress.com/2017/11/07/why-and-when/

Here’s some of the worst memories.

I was about 14. No area in my body was safe from skin picking. I even scanned the skin underneath my pubes for blackheads or anything. So one day, right at the start of my pubic hairline, my skin was irritated. I attacked it in the bathroom but I had to go to school. And I remember thinking very clearly, that after attacking the skin till it was raw with my bare hands, putting on tight underwear and pants, that it’d be a big, nasty infect area the next day. That’s what I wanted.

So I did and it turned in a big swollen yellow puss mass under my skin. I squeezed at it, hoping to have a big pop that would fill me with relief. But instead the thin layer of skin holding it just ripped evenly and it felt more like wiping some dirt off. I was disappointed.

I often think back on that. I knew I had a skin picking problem. It was disgusting. That moment was disgusting. But yet, the excitement for creating a big infection and the disappointment when it didn’t “pop” was real. It was a deep, honest emotion. I did not want to feel these emotions. I did not want to skin pick and be aware of how I was mistreating my body.

But I did not have a choice. It was like when you eat candy, you can’t help but tasting the sweetness. I still believed that I could choose not to eat the candy, so I was constantly beating myself up for not stopping.

Why didn’t I just stop doing this?

The truth is that skin picking does not stand alone. I was abused at home. It started when I was a little kid. By the time I was in high school, the abuse had gotten pretty severe. Skin picking was a symptom of it. It started off by running my hands over my skin and checking the mirror to find pimples before my mom could, but it evolved into a coping mechanism that could give me relief for the horrible stress I went through. When something popped, I had a short burst, less than a second, of feeling good. And because I felt so horrible, that was addictive.

There were more symptoms of my abuse. I thought I had schizophrenia because I had hallucinations, but they stopped when I moved out of my parents’ at age 17. It were stress-induced hallucinations.

I had horrible insomnia, that wasn’t resolved until years later with heavy medication. I slept in 20-minute bursts, getting woken up by the slightest indication my parents were in the house, like the sound of a light switch getting turned two floors down.

I miss one thing: when I woke up back then, I was wide awake immediately and literally jumped out of bed. Nowadays I’m one of those people who snoozes the alarm 6 times. It was pretty handy to have stress ravaging your body so badly that you were instantly cured of any sleepiness upon opening your eyes.

I had an eating disorder. I went through the whole spectrum of bulimia to anorexia when my mom bullied me about my being fat (even despite being underweight). When the family went on holiday, my eating disorder strategy fell through. I binged in public and “ate separately” all other times, which was only a dozen times a year (birthdays and Christmas). By eating separately, I mean taking the food and dumping it in my room’s trash can. But on holiday every meal was eaten in public and I could not vomit it up afterwards, so my underweight stick and bones figure suddenly gained over 30 pounds in 3 weeks. My mom suddenly stopped bullying me for being fat and unfit, glad that she was finally skinnier and fitter than me (jealousy had fueled her behavior). Finally finding the solution to not being bullied anymore, I now suffered from binge eating for the next 8 years.

My poor grades were a symptom too, but my mom had convinced the school that I was a rebellious teenager, so I didn’t find any help, only more pressure that I “should do better”.

Even my first boyfriend, at age 17, was a symptom. I didn’t like him too much, but my self esteem was so low that I thought: “This person has a crush on me. I can make him happy by being with him. I can be worth something.”

Yeah, that’s how I decided to become his girlfriend. I was definitely happier than before.

Oh, there were many more warning signs. Asking adults for help. Yes, suicidal behaviour too. Poor self-care. So much more.

Skin picking was there to stay. This is the context on why skin picking latched on so deeply to me.

If you want to reach out, here’s my email: carladhblog@gmail.com

Resources:

Have questions or want to share a story? Try this skin picking self-help forum on Reddit.

For online therapy, check out Betterhelp.

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