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My Personal Confession
I have a serious problem with picking at my skin... It looks absolutely horrid. It started about a year ago when I was 14, summer of freshman year. Though what I do now is somewhat different, it all started when I began to squeeze the acne on my shoulders. I was intrigued that virtually no matter small the blemish was, when I pinched it with my fingernails, something came out. Explaining it, even for me, sounds rather disgusting. Yet for some reason, when I am in the act of doing it, it doesn't seem to phase me whatsoever. When I first started picking, I would convince myself subconsciously that once the marks caused by the pinching were healed, my arms would look better than before, free of acne. But of course, this was not the case. It would only cause even more acne to appear due to the infection that the nails digging into the skin brought on. It did not help that whenever this would happen, I would only continue squeezing the acne that was brought on by my previous squeezing. Slowly, my arms began to from into essentially one giant scab from all of the pinch marks. This is the condition that they remain in now... nevertheless, I continue to pick. In the condition that both of my arms are in, the skin is too destroyed for actually acne to form, but within the carnage of my self-mutilated skin, I find slight depressions in the skin that when I squeeze, stuff still comes out as if it were normal acne. Most of the time it is a clear liquid, while less commonly it is the same white puss that comes out of acne.
Every strand of my conscious willpower wants to stop doing it. I know that if anyone were to see the effected area, they would most likely cringe at the very sight and immediately assume that I am lacking in any sort of sanity. But despite this, I still cannot stop because it almost seems as if something stronger that my willpower is driving me to do this. When I pick, I am completely aware that I am doing it, and I try to fight to fight it, but I always end up loosing the battle. Giving in to relieve the stress that comes with fighting my urge to do it.
But the fight must go on. I will try to stop no matter what it takes. In order to help me with my struggle, I have began to keep a log of days where I “failed” and “succeeded” in my attempt not to pick. I have also been trying to keep my hands busy doing other things whenever I feel the urge swell up inside of me. Lastly, I have wrote this to help me become more self aware of what I am doing, and get this so closely guarded secret off of my chest... I hope with all my might that this endeavor will eventually pay off.
In reply to Hi Mathias, I'm new to this by Rachel-Annemarie