Lack of support from spouse/family/friends?

I too revealed this terrible illness's to a family member (my mom) after struggling in the dark with it for nearly my whole life. Based on your description you actually received more support than me. I told my mom that the damage it was causing was getting to the point of me contemplating suicide and that I wanted to go see a professional about it and her response was "what are they going to do hold your hands for you?" It completely shattered me when she said that. I felt so betrayed. It also made me question if my problem was even valid since my own mother wouldn't acknowledge it. I was super depressed for the longest time and finally went out and sought therapy on my own. It was incredibly expensive since I don't have access to the medical insurance...my parents do. So I had to quit after a few sessions. I completely understand where you're coming from when you say that you get angry at your husband and feel like he should be doing more to help you. But at the end of the day we are the center of our own world. You're the center of yours and he's the center of his. It is a little too much to demand of him to cater to you in a way that interferes with his own daily routine. At the end of the day we have to help ourselves even if we don't have support.

I think you are expecting a lot from others. No one can get inside your head to heal you, and babysitting you all the time is unreasonable. You remind me of a user on here who began to blame me for supposedly triggering her into picking, when all I was trying to do is help. Blaming others for your own inability to contain the urges is not a smart move. Plus, it won't help your issue if you need others to constantly tell you to back off. Because if they are not available, you will simply resort to your old habits.

Let me try again, as it appears my comment wasn’t received as intended. There are certain external things that all of us with this disorder CAN do to increase the likelihood that we beat it or do better. The subject line for this post was about lack or support from people close to you. Maybe you can’t relate? I feel like having an accountability partner who is invested in your success can be extremely helpful. I already stated/acknowledged that the world doesn’t revolve around me and my illness, and also that I thought it was selfish to be upset with those close to me for not helping me more, but the extent to which this disorder is genuinely ruining my life is just too much to cope with alone. My husband sat with me for the first week and a half and I didn’t pick at all. As soon as the first day came where he fell asleep before I washed my face, I picked because I was in there alone and thought I had things under control. Previous consistent days showed that his presence for even a few minutes a day was immensely helpful. Am I blaming him for that specific day? No. It will always be my fault and I wouldn’t dare blame him BECAUSE it’s unreasonable. I am well aware of this, and wrote this post only to see if others could relate.

RoseGoldGal, thank you for sharing. I’m sorry your mother wasn’t able to give you any type of support. People can be so dismissive, and it’s devastating because of the hopelessness we feel when we’re suffering. My mom gave me a similar response when I BRIEFLY brought up that I was just struggling with a compulsive behavior. I hadn’t presented her with any literature about the disorder, but her reaction was hurtful and kept me from continuing to explain. It’s interesting because I would characterize her as a kind, loving, and generous person, but I think people (I’m sure I’ve been guilty of this as well at some point in my life) underestimate their impact on others, particularly those close to them, who might need a shoulder to lean on.

Ok, try keeping up this accountability partner dynamic and see how far it goes. If you husband messes up or doesn't add up to your expectations of an accountability partner, will you keep blaming him? Try having any accountability partner. I would hope that you can prove me wrong! Let's say that this is a challenge to see if this accountability tactic can work in the long run.

All I get from friends and family is outright disgust, shunning, they accuse me of being a drug addict. I remember my grandmother duct taping socks to my hand at 3-4 years old to get me to quit picking. Obviously not a drug issue. How do you get other people to just leave you alone about it? The only one I'm hurting is myself. What gives?

My husband accepts my facial picking as he thinks it more "normal", as in people have pimples and pick at pimples. But if I pick my chest or upper arms, he becomes disturbed, and if I ask how it looks... promptly answers that it looks like some type of skin disease. In his view body picking is abnormal and it makes him feel a bit uncomfortable. I don't blame him...I hate it myself. And I don't chastise him for disliking my bad habit. We can't blame others for not fully understanding.

Hi stayingstrong123,

First, I am sorry to hear about your skin picking problem. I am someone who also battles with excoriation, in fact, I am a 27-year-old male who has been struggling with skin picking for more than a decade. I have noticed a lot of people here offering their thoughts on your topic of a lack of external support, I will also do this, but I will attempt to add an additional layer and give you some tools that will hopefully help you to stop picking... You actually didn’t state that your problem is skin picking, I can only assume it is, as you refer to this as an "illness," and that maybe so, this level of vagueness doesn't help us specially know when, where, and how you pick your skin. Second, I think this reliance on external support is causing you stress. I think you know in your heart that only you can have the will to stop picking. For instance, what about that rare opportunity you or your husband are psychically not around each other, if you relapse, can you really blame him for not being there in his traditional babysitting role? I too have blamed people over my skin picking addiction. For instance, in my post picking state, I have blamed my parents for not noticing or taking additional measures to help me, and even my now ex-girlfriend who I was often surprised rarely if ever checked-in about the upkeep on my skin picking habit. The real answer to defeating this addiction takes practice and determination, these qualities alone can never be mastered with total reliance on others. What you absolutely, most positively need, is a better sense of consciousness, and this is something that you can better develop over time. When you are unconscious, and your addition is causing you to run on auto-pilot, you will always be startled when your husband turns off the bathroom lights and catching your off guard in your unconscious state of mind. If you pick your face in the bathroom with a mirror like I do, take down the mirror, take them all down. Try buying a book on skin picking, read from it every day to remind yourself and from forgetting/falling back into unconscious behavior. Lastly, I greatly encourage you to write on a piece of paper all the pros of picking, the cons of picking, the pros on not picking, and the cons of not picking you can think of. Professional exercises like these will help you become more conscious of your addiction and the triggers that are synonymous with it. Use another piece of paper and create a daily log of when, where, how long, thoughts, and intensity of urge you experienced. The physical action of you thinking and actually writing these thoughts will start to help you boost your consciousness over your addition. Keep fighting the good fight, stayingstrong123! Be well, Sam.