Dermatillomania

Wow! I went Googling for a while to see if there was some obscure acne picking support group and lo and behold I've got a disorder : Dermatillomania. Sounds kind of like a sort of armadillo or cockatil. It's the official term for the disorder. And here I thought everyone did it and just hid it, like farting and nose picking (the latter of which is a related disorder).

There are all sorts of causes it seems, but it tends to revolve around the same causes for anxiety disorders and OCD. Perfectionism, the cause that is likely causing my own behaviour, is a pretty common anticedent. The thought process that tends to occur is 'Oh look, there's an imperfection on my face. I MUST erradicate it!' and then surprise surprise, it makes it worse. It's kind of beyond logic really.

Believe it or not, there's even a 12 step program similar to Alcoholics Anonymous! Now, I don't think I'll follow that route myself, but it may come to that eventually since most of the alternate methods are things I already do like good food and excercise.

Granted, this may just be one of those over-diagnosis type situations where there's no real need to label it a 'disorder' because those types of labels are often used as an excuse not to get better, but either way...I think I'll pursue this further and see where it leads. OCD runs strongly in my family and I do tend to be a perfectionist. Plus...if 'treatment' can deliver me good skin, why knock it?