February yaaay!

It is now February which means we're almost past the worst of winter. Almost. Which is VERY exciting to me.

Dermatillomania update: apparently it's hard to quit doing things that have become habitual. I am in fact wearing gloves as I type this so as to prevent myself from picking at my skin. Without the gloves, I just do it without thinking, so this way I at least can't do any harm. And really, now that I think of it, it's best that I'm doing this during the winter when it's not THAT weird to wear gloves and mittens all the time.

I'll update again about this later to let anyone out there who may be suffering from the same thing know about the progresses I've made and what has and hasn't worked. Keeping your hands busy so far is the best advice I can give. And wearing mittens. And try not to obsess in the mirror. I have to learn to just let go and allow my skin to get gross in order for it to get better.

Day 1

So, it turns out this is pretty tricky. Trickier than I thought at least. I suppose it's the perfectionist in me that figures I can quit cold turkey. I did well for most of the day, but man, my skin starts feeling itchy and then as soon as I touch my face and feel any slight bump, the nails come out.

However, even though I've got quite a bit more whiteheads than usual (I usually don't tolerate them for any length of time), overall I think my skin is happier-looking. Less redness, much smoother. And because I'm not picking and causing my skin to ooze, I'm not covering my face as much with sweaters, hands or scarves. So in conclusion, despite the odd relapse, the overall lessening of skin picking is radically improving its condition.

So for all of you out there also suffering from dermatillomania: resist! It IS worth it!

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?