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Maybe we don't want to get better...
I've been picking for as long as I can remember. I have no clue of the origin, all I know is one day I found myself picking and tried to stop and couldn't. I didn't have the best childhood and definitely had to live in constant fear and anxiety at the hands of my father, but I cannot discern why I chose picking as a coping mechanism. I acknowledge my broken past, but I do not understand how picking my skin became the result of that. I am honestly controlled by this ordeal now. It interfere with my everyday life and I sought out help for it. However when I try to invision wherein I am free of it I get terrified. Do I not want to get better? I know all the steps to take to aid in my recovery but I'm scared that life will demand more of me than I have to offer. I have a great amount of social anxiety but love people. I often find myself lonely and craving human interaction which saddens me. I keep thinking that some way somehow someone will come my way and convince me I am with it, but would I even believe them if they did? Do I now seek ways to continue this behavior? Am I terrified of getting better? There's something so calming about knowing I have a vice, but it has become so destructive. I want to stop but I'm scared to...can anyone else relate?
What do you pick at on your scalp?
Any flakes or dry skin I find...its miserable. After going 4 days without picking I caved today :(
I'm gonna copy/paste this great post I've found on the /r/skinpicking subreddit, because I really think it will help:
Why do you skin pick? Skin picking actually releases dopamine. Yup, just like joy or drugs. So no matter how awful you feel afterwards, in the moment itself, your brain is excited. "Yay, we're skinpicking! Dopamine!"
You will skin pick more when you're stressed, tired, bored or depressed for two reasons: first of all, your brain is looking for relief. Secondly, in those situations your willpower levels are low, so it's difficult to stop yourself.
Willpower is finite. You replenish it by eating slowly digesting foods, by sleeping etc. You deplete it by making decisions. This means that if you get triggered multiple times a day, every time you're losing willpower and you're more likely to fail the next time. (source: research by Baumeister, Kelly McGonical)
That's why it's good to put towels over your mirrors or put hydrocolloids over sore spots - you want to avoid the temptation.
Now your brain has been executing skinpicking.exe for years. The program has some well-defined steps: craving/trigger, finding a mirror, picking at one spot, ... whatever it is for you.
Your nerves and brain are insulated by fat, called a myelin sheath. The thicker the myelin, the faster the impulse travels through the nerves. When you open a door, do you have to figure out first how far to reach with your hand, how to grab the knob, ...? No, most likely you don't think about it. You did it so many times that the pathway is set in your brain and the whole program runs on its own.
Same goes for skinpicking. Once started, it flows exactly has it has been flowing forever.
This is why it's so difficult to quit just by willpower - skinpicking is a physical pathway in your brain. You will have to rewire it, for example by using some scented hand lotion everytime you get the urge. This way you make a new pathway: restless feeling -> hand cream instead of restless feeling -> skinpick.
In the beginning will take lots of time and it could take months before the redirection is stronger than the original skinpicking-pathway. You'll have to figure out where in the pathway you can interrupt (before it starts? between two phases?) and what other pathway gives your brain the same feeling of relief (dopamine).
Do you have to know how your brain works to get rid of skinpicking? You could do without... but it can remind you that this is not easy. When you slip, you can just remember that the pathway in your brain has been strengthened over many years. Just be patient and keep trying, until someday that old skinpicking pathway disappears. Relapses happen, go back to training the alternatives. You are still making progress!
Thank you for the reddit post. I've been so down and anxious lately and it's so overwhelming, so I've been picking nonstop. I will definitely try to rewire that pathway in my brain, I hope it works. Also, I hope you are well too, if you suffer from picking or anything else.