Who here believes we should understand WHY we pick,...

Wow, okay. You made a good point. I never even considered csp as an addiction, even though all the words I use and others use, clearly point to that. I don't know why I never really saw it that way before, but yes, you're right, now I get it. Like right now,...I have been "pick free" for about a week. I still seem to have impulse control problems in that I still feel the need to get right up to that mirror and inspect my skin. I've developed so many blackheads all over and around my nose and along my chin, and I have two "active" whiteheads that just look like they're begging to be pierced and released, if not squeezed out. But I've been looking at them daily (several times each day), and just trying to maintain washing, and using Bio Oil and Nupercainal cream, alternating. This is really difficult for me, to watch and do nothing. Actually, I'm not "doing nothing," because what I AM doing is "restraining my behavior" so I don't hurt my skin. So it's sort of a passive aggressive thing maybe. Meanwhile I've got wounds all over my breasts, chest and torso, some of which are bandaged, and they're itchy as all get out as well as being so thick and angry. I'm not touching them either they don't seem to be healing. Like I picked them so much that their "normal state" has become the wound.

Minxy, I simply HAD to reply to your post because it's so familiar and similar,-- a few differences, but not many. I think back to who I was dating when I was around 26 give or take, and that's when things were gentle and mutual as I was introduced, as it were, to the practise of lying out in the sun together, and as the heat would relax our skin and open our pores, we would pick out each others blackheads. I had never "done it" with or to another person before. It was always private, and always under control. My skin had no scars or marks. Well, at that time, "we" would both exclusively focus on blackhead extractions, and never, ever even touched or went near a whitehead or other type of active blemish. I remember that even then (before I manifested csp/ocd) that I had this amazing sense of cleanliness, and a sort of catharsis would take place both when I was "doing the extraction," as well as when "it was being done to me." It was very mutual. But again, quite controlled. We never even so much as put a mark on one another. Gosh, looking back, it was just like going to one of those spa places for a facial where they "pick your acne" for you and you pay an outrageous sum of money for this "pampering" experience (which to me, when I DID try getting "professional facials" -- later, after we had broken up, and I seemed unable to get the same results on my own, -- were extremely painful to endure, I'd frequently wince and tear up, and would always have the next 3 days show that I got a facial,...it took about 3 days for the redness that was created to dissipate)..............................................................................................................(adding that line in to try and compensate for how this site won't let us make paragraphs and turns everything we write into one long unbroken block of words like a run-away sentence! Drives me nuts, makes it MUCH harder to read posts. Wish they would "fix this problem")................................................................................................Okay, and moving on. The next guy I dated,....it took me a few years, but I eventually got him to give in to my increasing requests/demands to pick/extract the blackheads from his face. What made this beginning into the adventure of csp seem acceptable was that after I would "work on him," he would get all sorts of compliments from his family, especially his mom, and his friends, who would tell him they "couldn't tell what it was, but he looked different, he looked great!" It was his mom who told him that his face "looked cleaner." So that was my first foray into the justification for picking,....confirmation from outsiders that doing so was equated with looking better, looking cleaner, looking healthier. At this point, I had not begun the self mutilation carousel yet, but I sure was standing in line waiting to jump on...........................................................................................which brings me to, my dad. He was never around much when I was growing up. When I got too big for him to rock in his rocking chair or tossing me up in the air and catching me,....he lost interest in me, his daughter. My folks divorced when I was 16 (but they had not been "together" for years by this point). My dad was a serial cheater, always having affairs. My memories of him, --- all I can seem to remember are the negatives. He'd make fun of both my mom and me, laughing big while telling us we were fat, that we had what he called "piano legs" because our thighs and butts were big. It's sad but I can only remember ONE compliment he ever gave me. Ever! And it was when I suffered from anorexia and my weight dropped to 96 pounds and he said to me that I was looking good, to keep it up. Way to boost a teenager's self-esteem dad, thanks. When he died, I found out afterwards too because he had remarried by that point, and had not spoken in years. And while we (obviously) weren't close, that event seems to coincide with several other heart-breaking events, all occuring in the year my dad died. So close or not, something inside me sort of snapped a bit when he died and I felt a part of myself die too, and that's when I started unhealthy behaviors (besides the anorexia crap, or the getting fat crap, or the self-abusive self-talk running in my head 24/7). Mom didn't help "the situation" because she was forever bringing me into department stores as a young teenager to get makeup (and make overs), encouraging me to wear makeup "to look pretty" at a young age. And if my clothes were casual or loose, she felt it an obligation to point out how what I'm wearing, the way my hair was, the way I was or wasn't wearing makeup,....did nothing for me. She criticized my appearance on a regular basis, and to this day, she still does. The only compliment she's ever given me is that I'm smart, that I have a good brain,....I was attending college classes in the evening "for fun" at the age of 12. I guess mom figured if I can enroll in university at 16, I should be able to,....dot/dot/dot, fill in the blanks with her list of what SHE wanted me to take. Okay so we have the mom and dad thing going. ...............................................................................................On a final note, when you commented about how when you go deep enough you see these little white things within the wound you created and using tweezers you'd pull them out, with great satisfaction. ME TOO!! I wasn't sure if anyone else "saw those white things" inside. I'd use a needle to pry those white spots loose and dig 'em out, and tweezers to pull them out. They sort of reminded me of pulling out tiny white worms. I justified by digging deeper and further by figuring out whatever those white things were, (and I really DON'T know what they are!),...and there'd be several "white dots" within a single wound, so digging them all out meant creating a bigger wound, but I felt cleaner and felt like I took something out of my body that was causing it to form these zits. I've been at this for years, and you'd think I'd learn but nope, I get that same rush when I can extract those white thingies all the way and they don't "break up" as I pull them out. I've even tried to squeeze them out (big stupid mistake) but they would never, ever come out that way, and I'd squeeze very hard in my attempts to just get rid of what I knew shouldn't be in my body, and forever thinking "THIS TIME I've really gotten them all out so THIS TIME I'll fix the problem and won't develop a zit or pustule or wound. Yeah, right. Just like you, when I get those white things out (which only become visible/present AFTER creating a nasty enough wound, they're deep inside), I felt like I just removed something from my skin that wasn't shouldn't be there. I really did think each time that "THAT" would be my final need for attacking that particular spot because I "fixed" the problem. One heartbreaking moment occured when me, my face dug up covered in holes and scars and scabs, and I wanted to have sex with my boyfriend and he didn't. He couldn't. He said "sorry, but I just can't get over what your face looks like,...I can't work around it." It grossed him out and disgusted him, and what exacerbated it was that he ran one of his businesses from our home, so we always had a "waiting room" (usually it was "my personal space" in the house, but not when it was business time),....so lots of people, lots of repeat clients,....and THEY would ask him what was wrong with me, and what was I doing to my face,...it put him on the spot, and I'm sure influenced his existing ability to not want to, or have the ability to, explain away my behavior when he (along with his clients) would comment about my face. ..................................................................................................... I am now married (different man), and as any of you know who's read my posts already know how he's clearly expressed to me how disgusted he is, how gross I look, and he asked me if I was stupid or something that I would keep doing this to myself. Yes, my husband, my life partner, was telling me to my face how gross it looked,...how I leave blood spots all over the pillows and sheets, and for a few years now has begun to "clock me" or "time me" on how long I'm in the bathroom (long visits = picking session) and verbally embarassed me, loudly, often, and always with that pinched-faced look that accompanies being grossed out......................................................................................... Also like you, I've always found ways to "self soothe" (I am an only child and was a latch-key kid growing up, beginning in first grade!!)....my methods involving ways to "hurt myself," even though while I'm doing it, I either don't feel pain, or the pleasure I get from extracting overrides the pain because with the intensity of the anticipation I'd feel, started the cycle and got my hormones started, and the actual happiness I'd get from "successful" mining with the accomplishment, evident by what I dug out, was (sometimes still does) simply override pain, override common sense, and throws out the window any potential of understanding AT THE TIME I'M DOING IT, of how much I am hurting myself,...physically, emotionally, psychologically,....and socially. I could easily clear my mind of any duties or tasks that needed to be done for my family and replace them with the planning and anticipation and preparation of getting ready to sit up on the counter in the bathroom and begin what is hours of digging. One of my last sessions was 8 hours straight. That makes no sense and is downright stupid, but it's what I do. It's nothing for me to spend 4 hours locked in the bathroom (pretending to do other stuff,....yeah, right), hiding my behavior from my husband,...only to walk out of the bathroom with face that looks like, as my husband recently told me, like I started to go through a wood chipper, face first, and got stuck, but I was slashed up and cut up enough, he could make that comparison while wrinkling his nose at me in disgust and further withdrawing from our relationship.............................................................................................. This is truly one demon of a disorder, and it sure doesn't look like there's any "cure" coming out, not so long, (and especially so if we are female!) as they've got anti-depressants (the doctor's first line of defense,....let's not investigate, let's just work on what is "obviously depression.") For as many of us as they are, it's not enough for "them," -- for science, -- to invest much in the way of research. Not enough people suffer from it to warrant further research in treatment (beyond loading us up with various anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pills and telling us to either (a) take these drugs and quite simply, just stop doing this to myself, since it's a behavioral CHOICE,...not like I have diabetes and REQUIRE specific medications, for life,....or (b) send us to a shrink where once again, we're to be forking over massive amounts of cash paying someone to sit across from us and primarily asking us "how do you feel about that?" I feel it's like paying someone $175 an hour to "pretend to be your friend" and listen to you yet again go through the same ole line of questions. I was turned away from therapy one time because, she told me, I had "too many problems." Well shucks,.....duh, YEAH,....that's sort of why I'm here trying to hook up with a therapist. I know we're all different and respond differently to situations,.....my personal experience/perception of therapy is that confiding in a best friend you trust would amount to the same thing, but without the price tag.