Impatience

This whole not working and not studying thing is really making me impatient. I need a job soon so I can at least afford some better hobbies than internet surfing and daydreaming.

I started looking through the forum on acne.org to see if there were any convincing before and after pictures of people who had tried laser treatments. Wait, no, first I was looking for extreme makeover-type shows, but none exist anymore. Anyways, I ended up looking through before and after pictures for people who had used "The Regimen", and yes, everyone capitalized it as if it were a God. It started seeming cult-like and con-y, and yet I had gone on this regimen myself, though I had altered it a bit to suit my needs. It essentially did work. But I stopped using benzoyl peroxide, got stressed and switched medications. My acne came back with a vengeance, and the stress mixed with my inability to cope led to the old habit discussed earlier in this blog. My acne got worse and now, even though my skin is better than it was in my teens, I still feel like I'm right back at square one.

Here's where the impatience comes in. I could just wait a few weeks to let the switch in meds work its magic and try really hard not to touch my skin in the meantime. Logic would dictate this is the best course of action that would truly get down to the root of the cause...by only changing one thing at a time. However....as previously established, I've become impatient and want immediate results from something that takes lots of time. I'm going to venture out to Shoppers Drug Mart and pick me up some benzoyl peroxide.

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?

Happy New Year!

As arbitrary as New Years seems to be, and as ridiculous as the customs are, Happy New Year! Despite more or less general consensus that the year should start January 1st, my 5 minutes of Wiki/Googling could not explain why. It seems the date of the new year changes from country to country and from time period to time period. March 25th seemed to be a common one. Personally, I like the idea of March 25th being the New Year because not only is that the spring equinox (minus a couple days) but also spring typically signifies the beginning of life which is much more 'new yearsy' than the beginning of winter.

As for the customs, I have no official resolutions and I don't believe I have had any for quite a few years. I don't smoke, I only drink once in a blue moon, I don't bite my nails or chew on my hair and I'm exactly the weight I should be for my height. I'm not perfect mind you, but the typical resolutions don't apply to me, so I can't just pick one of the most popular ones and go to town. I would like one though. I like having goals to work toward.

I am, however, 22 years old and still battling acne. I've more or less been winning that battle for a few years now, but I'd been losing for so long that it'll take a while to recover. I have bad genes when it comes to skin. All but one member of my family had severe, severe acne leaving us all scarred and underconfident about our looks. Despite having a predisposition to acne, there ARE things that I can do, or rather refrain from doing, that would help considerably. So...I'm going to come to grips with reality and put it out there for the whole world to see (even though this side of acne is almost never talked about. In fact, I find that over the past few years acne has been painted with a victim's brush which only stagnates progress because it eliminates the personal responsibility aspect to recovery.)

I pick at my skin. There, I said it. I do it. I know I shouldn't, I know it'll make things worse, but it's basically become second nature. It takes me a while to even realise I'm doing it. So, I think that my new years resolution is to break the habit of picking at my skin. I'm not sure if there are any support groups or tips and tricks to it, but I think that if I can break that habit, my skin will thank me for it.

So this is where I leave you. Feel free to comment on your own acne battle, what you resolve to do or not do this year and when you think the new year should begin.