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17 yearold new member story
well I'm a 17 year old female and think all of this kinda started slowly right when I was real little and would bite my nails...years later I quit for a while..and somehow there was once a scab on my scalp and with my lovely existant nails I picked it...and I loved it..and i was able to quit picking my scalp for a while..probably cuz i began biting my nails again...but then I quit...and then started picking my scalp again...and I love picking at my scalp the most...probably cuz I can't see the damage I'm doing or the scabs and none of that..i love picking the scab off and looking at how big it is or thick and just feeling it and maybe playing with it for a while.I also do a great share of face picking, picking at chest acne...until I'm infested with red dots everywhere.I hate it I will spend just like 15 minutes constantly picking at my chest or face..I've noticed that I can't see my face very well in detail upclose without the normal bathroom light on but just the heat lamp on so I'm going to try to just result to that sort of light.I also pluck hairs out of my legs...I love the thicker ones I also pluck pubic hairs. I pick at ingrown hairs..that I find anywhere. pick at my pores before a hair has even began to grow and squeeze and that stuff.I hate it though.I've told my mom and a lot of my closest family members and have said i want to stop..i've even told my therapist that I spend a lot of time doing it rather than what I should be like homework...and they just don't comment about it..and it really bothers me cuz they just put it to the side cuz I guess they don't know what to tell me.I'm confident that I can hopefully stop I just have to get my skin to clear up, stand clear of a tweezers...and keep my fingernails short...without biting them.I'm very glad to have found this forum and all of this support and that we can relate to eachother , I've finally found something that I've been looking for on this topic.
April 22, 2009
Dear spring_water15,
I have been picking since I was about 7 years old, I'm 44 now and I literaly hate myself because i still pick. People who are close to me don't want to know about my problem. They ignore it or deny it, which that does not make this issue any easier. It would be great for you to stop now before it gets out of control more than it is now. As far as therepy is concerned, I made copies of the info from the OCD center web site and took it to my counselor and said this is what I want help with the most. Yes, it was very hard because she is my new counselor and it was only the second time I had met with her.
But it was easier to talk to her as a stranger than it is to talk to my own family about picking.
It's like they just don't understand and don't want to. They just wish I didn't do it.
But it's especialy hard to explain to strangers and new people and new doctors why I have all these scars.
Making up stories as to why I have them or how i got them to begin with is just another excuse to avoid the real issue or reasons why we do what we do.
I told my counselor I know why I started, It was childhood abuse from my step-father and my brother. But that's in the past (post traumatic stress disorder) I want to just stop picking I don't care what caused it, I just want to stop. My counselor was very open to researching more about my disorder and to help me find ways to cope with my stress and anxiety.
I hope you can learn to control this before you get to be my age. Good Luck. I wish the best for you.