My story. + Starting my progress.

Hello. This is my first real post and PERMANENT start twords healing and ending my scabs and scars. Thank you for listening. I believe the start of my compulsion was in 5th grade. (As a child I always picked at little scratches but this is when it became an issue.) I had gotten a mosquito-bite on the top of my head and naturally it itched. Also my mom had told me to scrub it good to get all the dirt off it. To me this ment "scrub the life out of it with your shampoo". So I got a scab. I contined to pick. It stayed for months and months until my mom took a picture of it and gave it to me. A sticky red mess with flakes of scalp and an extream lack of hair had formed at the pick zone. I knew it had to stop. So in 6th grade I occupied myself with something new. My hangnails. I'd pick and gnaw until they were seaping with blood. Even my teacher expressed her concern to my mother. I pick at my fingers much much less now, especially in the summer when judgmental classmates and tough assignments aren't making me nervous. But going into freshman year is when my current problem started. At cheer camp we had no air conditioning so I was sweating 24/7. Ii got home from camp and noticed a bump on the back of my thigh. It looked like a pimple so I tryed to pop it. It seemed to work so I searched for more. I popped any bump I saw and picked out any ingrown hair that crossed my path. Then it was only a few but then I'd find more bumps along with the old scabs and then scabs turned in to scars and it was a vicious cycle. It got better for a while but as of the last few months it's gotten bad! It will start to get better but then I'll rip them up again! It's humiliating and painful and it has to end! I'm tracking my progress here every day and if I do pick I'll add a short explanation / observation as to what drove to to do it, so hopefully I can nip the underlying cause in the butt! I'm a pretty 16 year old girl who can't take it any more and is committing to ending this damaging habit. And advice to get rid of scabs/scars, stop temptation or just to stay strong and proud would be greatly appreciated. :)