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sevenups7 , 27 Sep 2013

Who here has debilitating anxiety?

I suffer from excessive skin picking, and I cannot help but think it is directly a result of my debilitating anxiety. Years ago, I was put on 25 mg of adderall. At the time, Adderall had just come out, and it was a craze.. doctors were prescribing it to EVERYONE. Prior to taking adderall, I was suffering from anxiety and it just made it 100% worse. The adderall had been prescribed for depression. The aftermath: I suffered extreme withdrawal, and started getting excessive heart pounding, sweating, phobias, fears, and skin picking. Fast forward, years later here I am, age 25 soon to be 26 consumed by skin picking and anxiety. Anytime I am triggered, by and sort of anxiety provoking situation I pick my face. It's depressing because I do it in public, its unconscious and I cannot control it. My family yells at me when I do it, because quite honestly at this point I don't even know I am doing it anymore. One time after a severe panic attack I went to the bathroom and picked off my whole nose with a eyebrow plucker. For months I walked around with my whole nose scabbing, bleeding, and refusing to heal. It was disgusting, embarrassing, and humiliating. So my question is who here is triggered by anxiety? Is your skin picking unconscious? Do you sometimes do it without realizing? How do we stop an unconscious behavior? It's obviously some sort of repressed trauma, and I just don't know how to cope with this anymore.
2 Answers
J0Frisky
September 27, 2013
I have anxiety, but read my post to get the full story, k.
rubberducke
September 28, 2013
I do my fingers unconsciously when I'm stressed or even just bored. They're all deformed now, but I keep doing it.

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