Home Alone

Just found this site and it is a start for me. I am "60" years old and I think started the actual compulsion about 25 years ago. Little by little it has gotten so much worse. As an adolescent I had the typical acne which I did pick, but, don't feel it was in a compulsive way. I didn't spend long periods in the bathroom picking, just here and there poking at my skin. My mother took me to a dermatologist who gave me some treatments with sun lamps and a medication called "rezamid lotion" That combined kept it somewhat under control. My father had acne as a teenager, but, my mother seemed to have beautiful skin. What's so ironic is that my mother would spend long periods of time in the bathroom and my father would always be yelling at her to get out of there and make fun at the long periods of time she spent there. Honestly, I don't remember seeing scarring or red blotches on her skin like I have. My childhood was I feel traumatic in many ways. My mother DID have OCD where she would go by the refrigerator at night and check and recheck the door handle to make sure it was closed (father made fun of her), checked and rechecked and stove to make sure the pilots were off, hand washing rituals over and over. I was an only child and my father was not very nice to me, ALWAYS criticizing me, could never do it well enough, good enough, friends were no good, grades were no good, etc., etc. I was almost raped one time by someone when I was 16 and was able to get away and took a cab home with no money, so when I got to my home my father greeted me at the door and I was crying and asking for money for the cab. I asked to see my mother and told her what had happened. My father overhearing said loudly "Oh don't give me that he was trying to take advantage of you, YOU probably led him on., etc., etc. Well, I just don't know how much this affected me as being 60 now it's like it was yesterday that I can feel and remember how horrified I was at his reaction to something that was out of my control. I started slowly with face picking at blackheads, whiteheads, but now spend an hour or hours doing what we all do. I too get some sort of satisfaction or shall I say "calmness" inside me after each episode. I am extremely depressed, but, at the same time relieved. It I think gives me my private time to rehash the events in my life that are going on or have gone on. I feel like I am escaping into my own little world from all the external problems that are in my life. I have many other issues that have overtaken me with health, psychological and relationships. No health problems are life threatening, just very problematic. I'd like to correspond with anyone that might have more insight into this issue. (hbornstein@earthlink.net)