help

My dad thinks the same. I was going crazy inside a week ago--I was fed up - completely fed up that I keeeep marking my skin. They are starting to fade- I use dilluted lavender oil in a basin and dab round my face. egg white/honey face mask. Cucumber juice on face. Mashed banana on face. Tomato juice on face. I use 2 of these methods twice a week. And the lavender thing everyotherday. These really work if you can leave the face for 1-2 weeks. Bit of garlic rubbed on affected areas of skin 2/3 times a day works great. I know I cant keep going round in this cycle becasue theres always going to be little imperfections there. I've spent months, damaging my skin- I know that if i stop thinking about it etc. I meen how many times do we need to use our fingers on our skin to make it flawless--its just not going to happen becasue we think everytimes the last time. It never will be. And ive accepted that- I just no i f i obsess over something small-or look close to mirror it will always esculate into a wound etc. We cant afford to do this because we have this problem. If i do notice a few bumps from far away from mirror i'll just get out the garlic or whatever-rub it on a little everyday- then it' l go/look much better. At least we can put trust in something natural instead of using our fingers. Then we wont cause scars etc. Its tough at first but you can do it. x x

Wow, I've never heard of the apple cider vinegar thing. You can bet I'll be looking into that. That's really sad that your dad doesn't believe it's a real disorder. It definitely is. It is a form of self-mutilliation. A lot of people, including physicians, don't understand what it is or how to treat it. Very sad. You don't need to buy a book about it. There are many free resources that will help you to understand what it is. Check out this online book: http://books.google.com/books?id=dCwpAiGycekC&lpg=PA124&dq=compulsive%20skin%20picking&pg=PA124#v=onepage&q=compulsive%20skin%20picking&f=false As far as treatment goes, the best solution would be to talk with a psychologist who is familiar with PSP so that they can tell you if medicine would help curb urges. Plus, emotional concerns often (especially in my case) encourage PSP. If you have a lot of emotional crap suppressed from years and years of awful experiences, you really need to work through them in order to be healed. There's no quick fix. But you are not beyond repair. Take it from me. If you have any questions or just want someone to talk with, please let me know. Cheers, BlueSky

what do you do with the vinegar? can i shower/bathe in it? lol. anyways, i just bought these two books last night on amazon: FOREVER MARKED: A Dermatillomania Diary by Angela Hartlin and Pearls: Meditations on recovery from hair pulling and skin picking by Christina Sophia Pearson. i'm pretty sure when you buy from amazon, the credit card bill only says "amazon.com" so you could probably even tell your dad it's something for school. i get the books in a few days and hopefully they're good!

i am with you. It is so disempowering, but for me i felt so disgusted and knew it was going to ruin my life that i turned the pleasure of picking into a deep pain through surrender. I have not had the urge to harm myself for four days and i was picking at my skun for over 5-6 hours a day for 11 years. Also try tp ask yourself, how do you see yourself in ten years time? this one also helped me. If you only had a week to live, would you waste your laast minutes by skin picking or self harm? That was a massive realisation for me. Good luck