so i'm the new 'guy' and...

i just posted this in the 30day challenge but realized it was like a page long post. so if you're interested in reading....would love suggestions.... this is my first post. i am incredibly amazed at how i came across this site. it's actually serendipitous. oddly, enough i was looking to find out if i needed to go to the doctor for a possible sinus and was googling the weird things coming out of my nose. the first site that was returned was a forum on this site about someone eating their boogers. although, that didn't resonate with me, i noted the URL' skin pick' and figured i'd take a gander. welp, i was surprised to find that i wasn't the only that was dealing with chronic picking and that maybe i've been in denial about what i do to myself. i've always, since a young age (as young as i can remember,) 'enjoyed' picking scabs. i remember my mom giving me a hard time about it as a child because i would always pick at my bug bites. i didn't realize that maybe it went deeper than that until finding this website. my compulsive picking began in middle school after i'd moved to a school where i was incessantly tormented, beyond the normal scope of being teased, for normal adolescent acne and being too skinny (which has payed off in my adult years.) picking my face has just been a cyclic problem since then. picking almost non-existent pimples and turning them into massive lesions. knowing that what i'm doing is only going to make it worse but not being able to stop myself. someone mentioned in some other forum post, feeling a bump or imperfection and it being this thing that needed to be expunged. i cant stand ANY skin imperfection. which, with my genetics and complexion, is unrealistic and unreasonable. yet, i still am tormented by any bump. my sister has suffered from bad acne at time, but it has never been debilitating for her the way it has for me. which has always left me feeling less about myself...am i THAT shallow? i also pick at my scalp. which, until my mom called me on it one day, didn't realize that that was a problem as well. it was completely unconscious. especially, since there were no visible repercussions like there were with my face. i had no idea my mom picked until she made me aware of what i was doing. then, it came out that her mother did it as well. so the whole hereditary thing is mind blowing. i've had a stressful few years, medical problems with almost every member of my family (although, they are hands down the healthiest people you could ever meet and relationship issues) since then, i have had a scab smack dab in the center of my hair line that i have been unable to stop picking at. to the point where i have a small bald spot. it's unsightly and embarrassing, yet i cant stop. i've had a victorious week or two where i've been able to not fuck with it but i always end up going back to it. it's horrible. i haven't been able to let this spot heal since i first picked it in 2008. prior, to that my scalp picking wasn't nearly as compulsive or destructive as it's become. at one point, it was literally a pea sized hole. it's improved a lot since then, but it's still a 'forever' scab that i can't leave alone......and yes, as much as i am embarrassed to admit it, i eat those scabs. that is literally, the first time i have EVER admitted that. yeah, my pimples too. the waxier the better. how crazy does that sound? WHY THE HELL DO I DO THAT?!?!?!?! i have no idea what even possessed me to TRY it that first time. it's just something that i've always done i guess. in the more recent years, with shaving and waxing my bikini area, i've taken to picking at ingrown hairs. i've always rationalized this with, "hey, i can't just leave it alone to fester under the skin!!" BUT i see now that it's an extension of the already present dermatillomania that i haven't consciously been aware of. i have turned my bikini area into a freakin' war zone many times. again, it's the uneasy feeling of some imperfection under or on the skin that i just have to get rid of. i would love to take this 30 day challenge but i find that i get started completely unconsciously. and like pringles, once you pop. you can't stop. anyway, i'm 31, gong on 32. i'm finding that my skin isn't as resilient as it used to be. where i used to be able to pick and i'd heal and scar and then go away....well now apparently my skin is more delicate and i'm creating these pox marks. so yeah, sorry /novel. this is just my first time vocalizing ANY of this. glad to have found this site.