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.

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?