I need help! New to site

Posted May 30th, 2011 by Tweezert
I am a 28 year old female and my life is revolves around my picking. I'm married with one son and have a very good family. As I'm writing this I can't stop crying because I know I have a problem but don't know what to do. I pluck my eyebrows but I don't pluck them all off. Under my eyebrows where the hairs are trying grow back I will push (like trying to pop a zit) or dig to get the hairs out. Most haven't even broke through the skin yet but I can see them. I will spend hours digging and pushing until I get the hair. If it starts bleeding I will wipe it off and keep going. I have scars and sores that are horrible. I try using concelear to cover it up but most times it doesn't help. I have spent all of the beautiful memorial day weekend hid in my house because my eyes are swollen with huge painful sores and yet I just spent 3 hours picking the scabs and picking at new hairs I see. My husband doesn't understand it and I don't either my family looks at me like I'm a freak and I feel that way to. I have never sought help for this but really need to talk to someone who understands. With all this being said the thought of giving up my tweezers makes me sick to my stomach! Why do I keep doing this to myself! HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
‹ I am thankful for this web site. Help me!! ›
On September 25th, 2012 helpme098 said:
I need help...I'm 16 and its destroying my social life and being generally happy.. I have no idea what being happy is anymore. It all started in year 8/9 i don't even remember how? when the hairs didn't come through I started to dig and dig in my skin to get this hair out. When the hair came out it felt like a relief or like like i've done myself proud. I feel self conscious almost all the time. please reply
On September 25th, 2012 Tweezert said:
Helpme098, I want to let u know your not alone! I do the same thing when I finally dig the bloody hair out I'm so relieved! For me it a vicious cycle. I am proud of my self because right now I don't have any bad sores. Just curious where do u pick most often?
On September 26th, 2012 helpme098 said:
Thank you, do you have a email i'd love to email you about this...and Ive got very bad atm...I just want to sleep until my wounds have healed. I dig in the middle off my eyebrows. Started when I was 12/13 and I dont know why. I've been doctors about it today and they said I should go counselling.. :\ I just isolate myself when i'm like this. Congrats on the stop picking! Glad you got through this. Where do you pick?
On September 26th, 2012 Tweezert said:
Yes I have an email tlee0816@gmailNo Spam.com (just remove no spam) I still pick and I have terrible scars. I know what the wanting to sleep till u heal feels like.
On September 28th, 2012 helpme098 said:
I emailed you !!
On June 12th, 2011 Danielle527 said:
Seriously this is what I do too I currently have three to four red bloody scabs under my right eyebrow and two under my left. I gave up my tweezers last night when I realized this that it was a serious problem I not only do this to my eye brows but do it to my whole body and recently picked off two moled from my skin I dont think its okay for me to do that. I also pick ingrown hairs off my boyfriends skin and face...and he works with wood all the time so he constantly gets splinters and like the thrill I get from getting the splinters out is unreal. Like its kind of a high feeling. And it just feels so relieving to pick at something so long than finally get it. I need help too :( just readibg ur guys posts makes me want to pick up my tweezers which my boyfriend has finally confesgated and tweeze or pick something. -danielle :(
On June 14th, 2011 Tweezert said:
Danielle I understand ur pain! My husband is a machinist so he is get pieces of metal in his hands all the time and I love to get them out for him!!! I know this sounds crazy to but my dog is a little shih tzu and I check him for fleas everyday and when he has some it actually makes me happy because I can pick them off of him! If you can handle giving up ur tweezers I wouldn't pick them back up, but I gave mine to my husband a few times and it didn't work me. The anxiety was to bad and I got really upset. I hate to say this but I don't think it is that easy, the issues seem to be deeper than that : ( I wish it was that easy!! I would save alot of $$ on concelear. If u ever need to talk let me know. It has really helped me to know that I'm not alone even if I still keep picking.
On May 30th, 2011 Yuuki said:
Welcome Tweezert! I feel for you so much. Reading your post was like a punch in the stomach, I felt as if I wrote it myself cause I've had the EXACT same problem for 15 years and thought I was the only one. I'm 31 years old and my picking began with plucking out my eyebrows, literally digging them out, then it escalated to the rest of the face and body. So I'm pretty confident that what triggers me are mainly ingrown hairs (always had a bunch of them). I've stopped picking at my body about 3 years ago and healed. Now I'm trying not to pick at my blemishes on my face even if it's hard, cause I tend to get whiteheads and cysts deep within the skin and suffer from PCOs, so before my period my skin gets so much worse. In the last months I've been pretty succesful though, but I still didn't manage to find a way to STOP digging out my eyebrows! I never magaged, even when I was on the pill and my skin was pristine I was always picking at my eyebrows. It's horrible: I can literally see them even if they are only a teeny tiny point under the skin, and dig them out with my tweezers creating bloody sores and terrible scabs and then scars. And it's a shame because I have very big beautiful eyes which are my best features. :( My parents verbally abused me and treated me like a freak for years, while my husband is much more supportive and loves me anyway, but can't really understand why I do it (heck, neither do I! All I know is I can't "just stop"!!!). I feel very lonely because this kind of picking is pretty rare even on the dermatillomania sufferer: many just pick at their pimples but don't touch their eyebrows. The thing is I get super deep ingrown hairs all the time and I know it's MY fault: of course the hair can't get out from the thick scar tissue I've created!! It's a vicious cycle: ingrown hair --> digging the hair --> wound --> scab --> scar tissue --> ingrown hair I hate this... I'd like to be able to figure it out and simply STOP caring about these freaking hairs!! I've plucked my eyebrows so much during the years that I have lost my natural arches and now they won't grow back, they look horrible if I don't draw them everyday. I'm always caking on makeup to hide the sores and scabs but it looks horrible. I'm trying to stop picking and I can manage to leave the deep whiteheads alone, but not the hairs. I'll never stop trying, but it's been so long I can't even remember my life BEFORE picking at my eyebrows. I'm feeling hopeless. -_-
On May 31st, 2011 Tweezert said:
I'm shaking reading your post! You sound exactly like me! The teeny tiny hairs I see that I can't leave alone and the ingrown hairs, because of the scar tissue. Right now my left eye is swollen because I had an ingrown hair that became infected and of course I picked it which left a huge painful sore! I use to pick my body to my stomach mostly I have scars there to now. I really don't have that much acne but if I do I will pick those to but mainly my eyebrows and like u I have no natural arch anymore. I have read alot about picking but never like ours I wonder why that is? (I feel like I'm rambling but I'm excited to know I'm not alone!) My family doesn't really say anything to me about it other than why dont u stop or why do u do it. I tried to get my husband to take my tweezers once but I feaked out the next day and he loves me and can't stand to see me upset so he gave them back. I know this is a funny ? to ask you but where do pick at? I have a magnified mirror on my in table and at night while I watch TV I pick fir hours. Sometimes putting my self in positions that hurt just get that damn hair!! I use peroxide afterwards and neosporin I guess it makes me feel better. In the past 5 years I can't think of a time when I didn't have sores. I could ramble on forever but would LOVE to continue to talk to because like I said before I have known some people who picked but not like me! Today was the first day I have really looked into getting help. Thank you for replying to my post I think I will go cry now!!!!
On May 31st, 2011 Yuuki said:
OMG... Tweezert, I'd like to hug you tight! You really sound like me. I know what you're going through, it's so painful. :( I too asked my husband to hide my tweezers in the past but it didn't work for me, I was always asking him the tweezers back. And he really can't understand just how SEVERE this problem is for me. I mean, of course he sees the sores and knows I make them myself cause I told him. But he can't imagine just how much I struggle with picking! My mind's always wondering and thinking about the ingrown hairs and whiteheads. When I was a teenager I used a magnifying mirror in my room, now I usually pick at the bathroom's mirror or using a pocket mirror. But I can pick almost EVERYWHERE: right now I'm at my parents in law's home and I pick even in front of their bathroom mirror. I could spend hours and hours ripping my flesh to dig out a single ingrown hair, I can't stop even when the wound I create starts to hurt and bleeds heavily. Sometimes the holes I dig are so deep I think they'll never heal and I worry I could die for an infection. Luckily I'm very careful to sanitize my tweezers, hands and clean everything, and when I'm over pickinI always use a Clyndamicin antibiotic gel on the wounds. In the last years I've been picking at the part of skin between my eyebrows above my nose, which never heals completely so I look like shit all the time, even when I don't have pimples. But this terrible habit is killing me inside and it's also visibly aging me outside. A part from the ugly scars I'm always pulling and stretching the skin so I'm getting a lot of forehead and undereyes wrinkles. :'(( I feel so ugly and disgusting and don't know what to do anymore! I'm crying too right now. I don't know what this kind of picking could be, I've always heard of people picking at pimples (dermatillomania) OR pulling out hairs (trichotillomania). Seems we have like both of them in a weird mix?? (---> Even if I never pulled my hair out of my head or picked at my scalp). I really have no idea. But we're not completely alone, I know of another girl that has our same problem, Angela of "Forever Marked": http://www.skinpick.com/node/1427 In her fb and documentary you can see she has our exact wounds all around her brows! I really hope we could heal one day. Please stay strong, and take care! Hugs.
On May 31st, 2011 Tweezert said:
Thank u so much for your kind words and honesty. I feel like ur reading my mind! It really feels good to talk to someone who knows what this feels like. I would love to keep in contact with you. Maybe we can help each other, I can't afford professional help so maybe having some support could help! I would like to give u my contact info do u know how to do that privatley? Thanks again for talking with me!
On May 31st, 2011 Yuuki said:
You can contact me here: yuukichan80@NOSPAMgmail.com (just remove the NOSPAM thing) If you want we could also chat via msn messenger or skype. It would be nice cause we're almost the same age and share the very same problem! I feel for you, I too can't afford professional help. :( Doctors are pretty expensive for me and I don't have many savings right now, plus here in Japan it's pretty difficult to find a decent english speaking therapist (let alone one that speaks my mother tongue). We could try to support each other and share advices / tricks.
For information on the skin picking disorder (Dermatillomania), symptoms, causes and treatment methods, get the Complete Guide to Skin Picking Disorders.