Sore Picker

You are not alone. This has been my behavior for years. My journey to begin to battle my habit of 15 years has been began 2 months ago and has gone like this: individual therapy at a low cost/sliding scale fee clinic, group therapy on cognitive behavioral therapy (relapse prevention focus) at same low cost clinic, at least one 12 step meeting a day (replacing the addiction they talk about with "compulsive skin picking"), journaling about my picking before during or after it happens, as soon as I can, and picking up the phone before picking. The latter is always the hardest one to do. I'm on day 16 of "abstinence" which to me means actively working to change this habit. I picked today, about a half hour ago. The difference is that today I pick for 0 to 20 minutes a day, not for hours like I used to. Another difference is I have gone 7 or 8 days with no picking at all, something I had considered impossible before. Another area of progress is my feelings about the compulsion: today I know I don't have to do this perfectly right away, or ever. My skin picking is rooted in perfectionism so I now see that expecting or demanding perfection of my abstinence from picking would defeat the purpose of trying to become more gentle with myself and less judgmental about my behaviors. I highly recommend this illuminating interview: http://www.skinpick.com/node/3259 Best of luck and keep us posted on your progress. You are definitely not alone! Rosa