8 replies to this topic

[ambchick]

So I just got down on myself mainly because I am a long term skin picker, and I peeled off a bit of skin from something that was healing and it oozed. I am so mad about it that I just had a very long crying spell. Pathetic I know. I hate being a perfectionst. I am so jealous of all the people out there with great skin. Just for once I would love to not worry about how my face looks. I am going on Accutane in 15 days, and it's the longest wait I have ever gone through. I need to stop worrying, and picking, but how??

[whatthekell]

i used to spend hours in the bathroom picking at EVERYTHING. i have a sticky note on the mirror that says "no obsessing, no digging!" my boyfriend put it there in august and it's been there ever since. it's a constant reminder not to do it. i do pick sometimes but way less than before. and then throughout the day when i have to use the bathroom i keep the light off so i'm not tempted. i still think about my skin every second of the day, but hopefully when things are completely cleared up, it'll leave my mind. just remember it'll clear faster if you don't pick it. good luck!

Edited by whatthekell, 01 November 2011 - 05:06 PM.

[luckycat]

My mother (my partner in skincare and anti-aging) is a "picker." I never understood how she could do it! Until my skin took a turn for the worst. I never believed I would find myself standing around in the mirror, pressing and pulling my pores until my face was raw and splotchy. It made me feel so...self-sabotaging. One thing I noticed was that lighting makes a big difference in whether or not I am compelled to pick. The brighter and more fluorescent the lighting is, the more contrast I saw between the red spots and the healthy skin. Warm, incandescent lighting seems to make my complexion look more acceptable. Less harsh. Maybe you could try changing your bathroom lighting for the next couple of weeks. Or even the next month, until it feels like less of a habit.

Edited by luckycat, 01 November 2011 - 05:17 PM.

[whatthekell]

that's a good idea. i should do that. i hate the lighting in my bathroom!

[ambchick]

Thank you both so much for your support. I am trying so hard to work on it, and I always thought I was alone with this problem. Knowing there are other people that are going through it and / or have gotten through it makes me feel so much better, God bless you both!! I will try the lighting tip

[myhorriblehabit]

you are definitely not alone! im going through the same exact thing! im a compulsive face picker and i HATE obsessing over my face. i like the lighting idea! i should try that! also, somebody left a good tip on one of my posts that said to take tape and make a line on the ground in front of your sink/mirror that your toes cannot cross. Fortunately, my bathroom floor is tile so i have an "invisible line" that i made for myself and thats helped somewhat. the hard part for me is when im finished washing my face in the morning and evening i am bent over infront of my sink with the mirror RIGHT there in my face. so i start searching for imperfections. This morning i also picked at my face and like you am left with an open wound. ugghh i hate myself for this! im here if you need or want to talk!

[PaulH85]

The "30 day no picking challenge" topic just caught my attention. I remember posting in there earlier this year, think I made it to about two weeks without picking and that was the clearest my skin had been in a very long time. In all honest, I was aided massively by the fact that my skin just so happened to have calmed down a little.

Since then, it's safe to say that I've picked at my face and/or popped pimples pretty much every single day. Stress is a big factor for me and I do find that the act of popping pimples - in that moment - gives me some kind of strange buzz. But then the resulting damage and appearance of my skin becomes a huge source of stress so it's just a stupid vicious cycle. I feel like a lot of it is about control, or at least a false sense of it; I can't control whether my skin looks good or not, but I can kind of dictate how the pimples and things look. Just a pity that my handy work never actually improves things and it's rare that my actions actually have a positive outcome.

I worked it out a while ago when someone here asked me how often I looked in the mirror and how much time each day was spent looking at my skin. I did some rough calculations based on 5 years of employment before I lost my job a few months ago. I would spend a few minutes when I got up in a morning and then maybe five minutes in the bathroom. I'd focus on it when getting ready for work and before leaving the house. I'd also end up in front of the mirror for at least a few minutes once I got to the office before actually starting work. Same on my morning break, before lunch, after lunch, on my afternoon break and as I was leaving work. Then I'd look when I got home, and again after I'd eaten dinner. Those instances would probably total about 35 minutes a day. A lot of this time would be spent staring at my skin, hating it, feeling anxious about people seeing it, trying to create a mental picture of what I believed people would see. It would be a safe bet that at some point during all that, I would have picked at my skin or popped something, in which case, maybe 10 or 15 minutes would be spent in the evening treating that damage and starting to repair it. Then during the course of my night time regimen and before going to bed, I'd probably end up spending another 15 minutes in front of the mirror before applying a topical or whatever to various self-inflicted war zones. At best, this would all total 1 hour each day. So, if we call it 365 hours per year, that's roughly 15 days of the year. More than 2 weeks each year spent in front of the mirror, abusing my skin, causing untold amounts of physical and emotional pain, distress and self-loathing.

I don't think I'll ever quite manage to get over the picking/popping specifically because I feel I need to pop pimples. In that respect, it then has to be about damage limitation: knowing where to draw the line, not getting carried away and stepping away from the mirror. I've found that stepping back from the mirror by maybe a foot helps. I feel that perhaps gives a better idea of what people see when they look at us. They certainly don't look at us from less than an inch away, which is often what I've found myself doing when I've had my face pretty much pressed against the mirror, making even the tiniest pimple look like a face-eating monster.

Still, battling on, one day at a time. This is a fight we can all win. We will get there, one day!

[ambchick]

I picked today, and had a huge meltdown :*( UGH WhY DO WE DO THIS?! It's crazy, I was off to a good start too

[PaulH85]

If at first you don't succeed... tie your hands behind your back?

Don't put yourself under pressure to reach big targets or stop cold turkey, so to speak. Just take baby steps and start to learn not to pick. Learn to pick less, learn to spot the signs of when you're likely to do it and then go and do something else instead to take your attention away from your skin. Don't beat yourself up about it, stay strong and start over.

You can do it!

Edited by PaulH85, 06 November 2011 - 05:45 PM.