Online Test
Find out the severity of your symptoms with this free online test
Making an attempt.
This is incredibly hard for me, but I'm sitting down right here until I do it.
I've been picking for almost 11 years now, and it seems kind of crazy to me that I've managed to keep such a destructive behavior going so long without someone out there locking me up for it. When I was about 9 I went through some pretty bad stuff. One day I noticed a little raised bump on the side of my arm and squeezed it with my nails. 11 years later and I have hundreds of scars, ranging from tiny nail indents to dime sized thick scars. At one point when I was homeless (around 11 years of age), I picked at everything, my legs, arms, face, chest, back. I got a lot of concern about the wounds on my legs, so I stopped picking there and instead focused on my arms and face. Currently I pick predominantly at my left arm and shoulder area, and my face, an occasionally on my right upper arm, and when I'm in bed trying to sleep, my scalp as well.
I've been reading the posts on this forum, and I'm amazed at how not only are there so many other people with this problem, but how incredibly specific some of their situations are to mine.
I've had crater like wounds that I have to keep tearing the scabs off of so I can pull out the little white nubs that are there. When I pick I'm almost always popping something out of my skin, even though it's not pimples most of the time on my arms. I -think- what I'm doing is popping hair follicles, but I'm not sure.
I'm not disgusted personally by the things I do, they seem relatively normal to me, but I do hide them to an extent from others. Wearing sweaters in the desert in the middle of summer has gotten me more than one strange look.
My mother also has this problem, I know that for sure. She once had a wound on the side of her face that she picked at and kept open for nearly four years. But I don't feel like I can really talk to her about this. She's seen the scarring on my arms and face, but it seems to just make her sad rather than concerned. I once talked to my sister about it, and she admitted that she had done it a few times, but had gotten herself to stop. So I think that in a way, it has to run in my family, but I also think life events and stress has a lot to do with why my mother and I continued while my sister stopped.
I'm sorry if this doesn't read very well, it's just a bit hard for me to write it down, and the crazy thing is I keep looking over at my arm wanting to pick because it's stressful writing about picking! I don't know what kind of help I can get by admitting this, but I have to do something. I can't wear tanktops or cute shirts, I can't leave the house without spending nearly an hour carefully applying makeup to cover the damage I've done, and keep doing daily. I have to fight myself to leave the house, even when I need something like food, because I don't want to face the world. I feel like people will know somehow?
The only thing that's ever helped me slow down or sometimes stop for a while is getting piercings and tattoos. I think it's the pain and the rush of it, and having something new and pretty on my skin makes me respect it.. but after it's healed, I just go back to what I used to do.
I'm driving myself crazy with this behavior. I don't know what to do.
In reply to Hello, I have been a by amyj