Picking At My Skin Until It Bleeds
I've been dealing with a combination of obsessive-compulsive disorder and dermatillomania since I was an itty bitty bean. For those of you unfamiliar, dermatillomania is an obsessive-compulsive urge to pick at your own skin. The obsessive picking can often result in self-harm, such as open wounds.
I can still hear my mom's insistent plea: "Stop picking yourself!"
I also deal with seborrheic dermatitis (face dandruff), pretty much a nightmare pairing with dermatillomania, providing me with an unfortunately excessive amount of skin to pick.
My picking territory of choice has always been my head region, particularly my ears, but I'm often poking away at my face and scalp too. Most of my picking in the past decade or so has been behind my ears, which are scarred and reddened from years of abuse. The scar tissue has systemically transformed the skin behind my ears into a topological map.
I've become a true pro. My fingers are expertly honed to feel out any areas that have healed enough to be picked off again. It's truly a hidden talent.
So, why do I pick at myself? All I can say is that it provides a certain level of control and release. It's something I find myself doing when I'm bored, anxious, laying in bed trying to fall asleep, really any idle moment. There's something about the physical act of peeling that triggers what I imagine other people describe as ASMR.
I've never made a true effort to stop, even though doing so still leaves me with visible wounds that I'm too embarrassed to answer for. The relief it causes has always overshadowed any urge to treat the source. Other than some minor scarring in hidden places, the picking has never caused any major issues, other than maybe people staring at me a little funny or friends and family asking what the hell I'm doing.
I know it's a problem that should have been attacked decades ago. Maybe I should actually start taking it seriously instead of writing it off as part of my personality.