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OCD and skin picking-- HELP


Guest LovetheLife

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Guest LovetheLife

Hi guys,

I've been doing a lot better lately. I've been able to recognize my obsessions and stop from engaging in compulsions, so that's amazing. My themes are completely separate from my skin, and I feel completely powerless to stop it.

Whenever I get a pimple, even if its relatively small, I zero in on it and fixate. I obsess, have to run to the mirror every few minutes and the worst- compulsively pick and and pop, until I have giant scabs and infections deep on my face. My pimples go from being relatively minor, to being large swollen abscesses that last for weeks.

in the past, when I haven't picked at them, they'll last for over a month (giant pimples) and won't go away. But this time around, I have multiple infections from trying to pop. I get the: what if it never goes away... obsession, and worrying I'm gross and unattractive if I go out in public during a break out.

I'm just wondering if anyone else suffers from acne on here and goes through similar experiences? Can someone tell me how they cope with this? Acne makes me feel disgusting and disfigured, and picking and popping only makes it worse for me.

Please help!!!

Edited by LovetheLife
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Hello, I don't suffer from acne, but I do get small spots often on my face. I also have psoriasis on my legs and arms. Compulsive skin picking has a long name (dermatillomania). I have it as part of my Tourette Syndrome. I too spend far too much time looking in the mirror and picking off the imperfections! I have scars on my face where I have started with a tiny spot, no bigger than a pin head, then ended up digging it out so far it couldn't heal for ages. I often don't notice when my hands have drifted upwards to my face/neck/arms and are picking until someone points it out! My most recent pick was an ingrown hair which I have really caused some damage to the skin. The trouble is I couldn't stop until I got that hair out, which meant I have done some serious harm and I keep picking at it even though it is healing over.

So yes, I do understand what you are going through (minus the acne). It is very frustrating.

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  • 1 month later...

I searched for skin picking as I recently read about it in relation to anxiety and ocd.

I've never seen it as a compulsion. Just a bad habit like biting your nails.

But people keep mentioning it recently. My boyfriend has noticed I skin pick more often. In fact I've noticed I can't stop doing it recently.

I remember when I was about 14 I got into a really bad habit of picking the dryer skin on my arms and it left scars for a while. I didn't know it was to do with anxiety or anything. Does anyone know any more about this? Or do it themselves?

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