Skin picking induced by my job?

Hi all,

To start off, eye have to write “eye” because the new iPhone glitch won’t allow me to type the singular letter. So sorry if this looks dumb, but eye have to write it now because it’s on my mind.

Over the last year, my skin picking has become... uncontrollable. To be honest, eye don’t remember picking this intensely or it consuming my life this much until this year. Progressively, it has started to impact my everyday life. Eye pick at my desk when no one is around, ashamed and disgusted at the scratching sound reverberating in the quiet office, praying no one can see me commit such a ... gross task. I’m ashamed when eye do it at work. It gives me anxiety for the rest of the day. Eye mostly do it when I’m bored. If I’m busy, eye don’t even think to do it or eye MIGHT do it without thinking. Most of the time eye won’t do it if I’m busy though.

Additionally, eye feel like my new job out of college has caused this. I’m so blessed to be paid so much in entry level, but it’s not a lot to survive where eye live and I’m getting a masters degree. I’m hoping going back to school will help me stop my picking because I’ll be busy and happy (eye love academia more than anything.) my current job honestly sucks and is boring, and eye feel like it has caused me a lot of stress and fear for the future. Whenever eye think about money or staying in a job like this for the rest of my life, where my passions and talents go unappreciated, it feels like my whole world is caving in and eye pick. But during the pick, once eye break a scab or open a new wound, eye want to cry and scream and bash my head into a wall because eye have no control and everything feels so out of my hands, so out of balance from the life eye dreamed eye would have.

Eye don’t know how to break this feeling. Eye can’t quit my job, but my picking is so bad that eye sometimes have an anxiety attack after eye have an intense pick and am bleeding all over. Eye am gonna start going to therapy, but eye feel like this job has caused me to be more intense about it.

Have any of you experienced this with a job or fear? Fear makes me want to pick, but than eye cause myself even more fear and panic after I’ve picked. Eye only can calm down after an intense pick when I’ve put neosporin on, when the burning has disappeared along with my temporary shame.