Picking My Lips

I have been picking my lips since I can't remember when. I do remember in 2nd grade students would comment on my lips bleeding, so maybe that's when it started. I'm 30. I thought I'd grow out of it as an adult but I haven't. Two reasons I think I started. I had a friend who had dry, chapped lips one time, where the lips are dented looking. For some reason I wanted my lips to look like that so I messed with them. Also, my cousin's tubercle of the upper lips is more prominent. I was afraid that I would get that, too, so I started picking at that spot to get rid of it. Now, I know I was not born with the genetics so I had nothing to worry about, but I was a kid then. I didn't know. Back then I thought "I picked it away, I'm good."-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Chapstick and other lip balms don't work as they dry out the lips and make it easier to pick. Sometimes I put on lipstick just so I won't pick my lips, but once the lipstick wears off my lips are dry and I am at a want to pick.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I do suffer from OCPD and social anxiety so perhaps this is an anxiety thing. I was a big pacifier user as a baby as well. I didn't get off the pacifier until I was three. I believe that I have a fixation with my mouth and picking lips is part of that. I find my hands always around my mouth, not always picking, sometimes just playing with my lips.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I'll go days without picking and then all of a sudden find myself in a big picking spree. I do it subconsciously without thinking about it. There's just something satisfying about picking off a huge layer of skin.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I also pick at zits. I know it's not true, but it's like I think the more I pick the sooner it'll go away. I don't have many zits and none have scarred my face, thankfully.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------On a related note, I have another cousin who likes to pick things. She doesn't pick her lips, but she picks other things. She'll put glue on her hands, let it dry, and then peel it. An old house she lived in had a bathroom window in the bathtub! The bottom part of the window was painted over, but her habit caused her to pick it all off. In that, maybe this could be genetic? She and her mother are both practically in love with popping pimples (this includes other people's pimples which I will not touch with a ten foot pole). I was around my cousin once when I had an awful sunburn. You can just imagine what she wanted to do. No one else in my family picks their lips.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A big problem is that I love to read. While reading I have one hand free. Where does it go? My lips. Before I know it they're all picked at, red, raw, and sometimes bleeding)-I have never met anyone else who picked their lips (maybe they did and were good at hiding it so I didn't know). It's a nasty habit but it's nice to see I'm not alone.-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------(I came across this site because I randomly googled "I pick my lips.") (I added the dashes to separate the paragraphs to make it easier to read)