I Pick At Everything and Everyone

Im exactly the same. I cant stand any bumps on my skin. iv just been on hols, got burnt and now im peeling, im spending hours peeling the skin off, but im doing it too much its forming scabs, which then i pick off. i did the same thing with my tattoo, picked it and it didnt heal properly, i tell people it was the tattoist fault! its such a relief to hear other stories like mine

A few years back I remember scratching, now I have resorted to pulling the hairs on my face. I feel like they are clogged and causing acne and I try to "unplug" them. I am aware that I am picking my skin, pulling my hair. I used to think it was my adderal. I NOW realize that it is just another lovely symptom of my ocd. I pick everything and pull hair everywhere. I find ingrown hairs fascinating apparently bc I look for them everywhere. Most of them are imagine I guess. Occasionally I find myself trying to pick my boyfriend. I have told my friends and bf and fam to tell me to stop when i am doing it. I wash my face, exfoliate, masks..everything.... so I guess I am supposed to start some type of behavioral therapy which is great but I know the cognitive wheel. I am on an ssri. I just want my beautiful skin back and to stop being so damn nuerotic. constantly feeling my arms, legs, face for hairs to pull. my only solution when i am doing this is video games, knitting, arts, anything to keep my hands busy.

Hi, yeah keeping busy is how i try to stop. doesnt always work tho, i get into a trance and suddenly i look down and my thumbs bleeding or i realise im in the process of ripping a cuiticle off. im trying the whole cutting down to one area, which is kind of working except my fingers are really getting a mess (as this is all i pick now) and iv started chewing the inside of my cheek more, which makes me look like im pulling silly faces all day. but at least the rest of me is pick free!

I am 55 years old and don't really get blemishes per se, however, I am constantly squeezing dark pores or pinching the clog out of them between the tips of pointed tweezers. I tweeze eyelash that don't grow in exactly the right direction (they kind of criss-cross sometimes, of if I find a white one, i pull that out even though mascara would cover that up. I pull at my eyelashes sometimes between my fingers when they feel irritated and end up pulling out a few leaving a huge bald gap!! now this is gross, but I'm by myself at the time and everybody has to clean their nose... but I can't stand anything in mine... and I even use tweezers to make sure. I know, totally yuk. I pick at the corner of my eyes. And of course I do all the usual stuff... scraping off those little bumps on the back of my arms. I squeeze the creases of my nose to get out any kind of clog in the pores.I feel like a total whacko!! And I wish I could say that all this picking stops there, but there's more... I get some kind of wierd satisfaction out of picking feathers out of anything stuffed with them... and not a few mind you. I feel across the surface over and over again for those stiff little quills and almost feel elated to find one and pull it out! it's hard to stop and it makes me feel really relaxed for some reason. Here's one a lot of people that I know do... popping bubble wrap, but when i was a kid, I would push my finger into the tight plastic wrapping on meat in the grocery store.... not piercing the wrap mind you, but just an indent. There are people like the character "Monk" for instance that have to straighten things into a perfect row or whatever... this seems to always be in straight lines or right angles. I have the opposite problem. I can't stand to see things all in a neat line. I see them in an angular patterns and feel the impulse to change the standard order... so far I am pretty self disciplined about moving other peoples' things around, thank goodness! There's much more, but in light of bipolar II and major depressive disorders, this stuff seems to take a back seat. I am very tired of being me!