Possible cause for picking my skin?

what is it that you want? do you want to live a fullfilling life? do you want to have a life partner? I think the answer is "yes". you have to stop "enjoying" your situation in order to continue with your life. You have to take a decision, Noone is going to do it for you. Bear it in your mind. Always. Don't take cover in your situation, rather strive to break free. This is the only way, I think.

Hey there, You are beautiful even if you don't think you are. Your maker, the Lord, thinks you are. Talk to Him about it. I am a skin picker and nail picker. I have battled it my whole life. My husband loves me anyway and has come to understand it and accept it completely. Many people never completely get over these tendencies, but we could be drinking!! Picking is a whole lot healthier than that., isn't it? Of course, there may be other issues that need to be dealt with. We don't want to stuff our problems away, but then again...maybe you just pick! I believe there isn't always a deep underlying cause to every habit. Hang in there my young, fellow picker.

try your best to get the picking under control now while you are so young. i can first remember picking in beginning of high school. it only increased through college and now i'm 35, and it seems i'm having my worst episode yet. life is alot more stressful now with responsibilties at a job, at home as a wife and mother. i was painfully shy all through school as well as college. i wanted to talk to people more, wanted a boyfriend, but just could never seem to talk to others confidently. i barely talked and can't tell you how many times i heard 'cat got your tongue' or 'shut up, you're talking too much hahaha'.....when all i really wanted to do was talk without feeling i'm going to say something stupid and be embarrassed. i now realize i was suffering from social anxiety along with depression even back then. i believe the skin picking is part of my ocd tendencies and the inability to deal with 'imperfections'. i look like i've got some kind of freaky skin disorder after all the picking......you'd think if i was worried about imperfections of the skin i wouldn't sit around and pick, scratch and dig until i bleed and scar myself.?? when life gets overwhelming & stressful, my anxiety level goes up, i just can't seem to control the urge. it's my outlet for now, but i too should do something more to deal with it. finding this site tonight has at least giving me some peace of mind knowing skin picking is really a disorder and many others suffer with it too....i'm not just some lonely weirdo with a really nasty habit. so anyway, do what you can to get it under control now, it is so hard once you let it go on and on for years.

i didn't know anyone shared this until now. i am 31 and it's only getting worse. it started when i was your age. do whatever you can to stop it now.

i found this on another site - i think it describes the condition you have. maybe you don't come here anymore, this post is old, but others here might see themselves in this information and may be able to seek help specific to the diagnosed problem and it might help just to read the analysis ------->> Body Dysmorphic Disorder - And Finally… Acne Excoriee… Face Picking Nervous, obsessive, compulsive, and habitual picking is not just the result of responding to an unbalanced physical situation, but a response to a deeper unbalance of the spirit. It is a dis-ease with the self that compels us to ‘do something’ to ourselves to fix it. The medical term for picking at one’s face is "Acne Excoriee" literally meaning picked pimples which comes from "Acne Excoriee des Jeunes Filles" literally translating from the French to mean “acne created by young girls.” It was titled so because of the abundance of young girls who ‘fiddle’ with or aggravate their skin to the point where they cause major problems where there were only minor problems or even no problems at all. The result is scabs and various ulcerations usually on the front of the face. And interestingly enough, the habit of skin picking is far more prevalent among women then men. When this habit of picking is taken to the extreme on other parts of the body it is termed Neurotic Excoriations or “Picker's Nodules”. The name explains it what it is, but fails to express how painful and debilitating this disease can be. Self inflicted or self aggravated open sores and scabs appearing all over the body are not uncommon. Neurotic Excoriations usually begin with a chronic fungal skin infection or Lichen Simplex Cronicus. When the scabs fail to heal in a timely manner , the patient feels a irrepresible need to pick off the scabs feeling it is better to live with the open sores than the scabs. Sometimes it is felt that the wounds will heal better if the scabs are picked off. This is not an uncommon feeling in the case of Acne Excoriee des Jeunes Filles as well. Acne Excoriee is recognizable because the lesions left behind from picking have a pronounced look to them. The upper and lower epidermis are usually scraped off leaving raw looking scrapes and flat lesions of hyperpigmentation.