Has anyone successfully stopped picking?

[fedup078]

For as long as I can remember I've picked at my face
I will pick anything . I can make the tiniest spot which is invisible to the eye into the biggest scab
I'm so sick of it
I just can not stop
Every time I think 'right my face is pretty clear now so leave it alone!'
I do it again
In 37 now and haven't found anyway of stopping
Even cutting my fingers nails right down didn't work
I did it last night and in the morning it's like when you've made a tit of yourself when drunk the night before and that feeling of 'oh god what have I done' washes over you

I read a study about nice being used as a test study and scientists altered a gene which turned "on" the want groom or something and the mice started ripping out their fur!
I want to have the gene switched off!

I do this and it got really bad over lockdown. I managed to stop it for a while by always keeping a chapstick in my pocket to put on if I felt the urge. Somehow touching my face with something was easier to do than just telling myself not to pick. If I’m out I can put it on my lips or if at home I’ll put the chapstick on my face or where I want to pick. I do have very dry skin though so maybe not a suitable tactic for all skin types!

I have ADHD and when I take concerta I have no urge to pick - I’m an ex smoker and current vaper and the urge is similar - am oddly soothing mix of self comfort & self harm. Think OCD treatment tactics like tapping would be the trick

Summerfun that's a good idea with the Chapstick, I'll try that.

I do displacement activity- I knit on long car journeys or somewhere I know I'm going to be bored out of my brain. I think I have ADD/ADHD, and I think this is part of not being able to sit still. If I itch my head etc, fingers go to cheek etc etc. So, having something productive to do helps the focus stay away.

I have dermatillomania

Getting acrylics helps. Its harder to pick with acrylics I found.

Chapstick is working! Actively not picking, helping the skin and not feeling awful about it. Baby steps eh

Found my people. I have hormonal acne and I’m sure at least 50% of it is because of picking. And the skin round my thumbs too.

@Howzaboutye good to hear, well done 😀

Well I seem to have actually found a solution but it's not a healthy one
I've noticed I'm spending a ridiculous amount of time doom scrolling lately so my fingers are on my phone rather than my face

@itsjustlowhangingfruit

I have dermatillomania

Getting acrylics helps. Its harder to pick with acrylics I found.

Agree. I'm a cuticle picker since I was four (fond childhood memories of my dad smacking my hands to stop me) and when I have dark red nails with acrylic I pick much less. Has to be really dark polish though. Pinks and nudes don't work.

Fedup- what about the other hand though? Not 'skin scanning' for any miniscule bump??

I am the same. My face is full of cars. I have done it for years and cannot stop. If I'm at home I sometimes put plasters over whatever I'm currently picking but I always end up peeling them off and starting again.

I pull ribbons of hard dead skin off my heels. They’re not a pretty sight, but it’s soooo satisfying. Every so often I dremel all the dead hard lumpy stuff off and have baby soft heels and swear I won’t do it again but gradually they harden up again and before I know it, riiiiiiip! I’m peeling it off again.

I suffered from this very badly when I was younger but yes, I stopped. It took a long time but I managed it. I found a very helpful website called StopPickingOnMe.com for sufferers of dermatillomania and there was a forum there and a programme (a bit like AA, I guess) where people who had been through it supported others to stop by taking it one day at a time. What worked for me was treating my acne as reducing the spots reduced the temptation to pick, and when the urge was really bad I would cover my mirrors or turn the lights off before going in the bathroom. I also set myself little
Challenges , like 1 day without picking, then 3 days and so on, with a reward each time .the techniques were all based upon CBT and habit reversal therapy.

It took a long time (several years) of trying but gradually the habit lessened it’s grip on me and finally it just wasn’t a problem any more. Now if I get a spot with a really good head on it I might give it a squeeze but it’s lost that obsessive quality and I would never spend hours squeezing every pore in my face and leaving it red and inflamed looking like I used to.

I’m not sure if that website is still going but I know there are other good ones.. there are also self help books out there based on cbt for repetitive body focused difficulties - Professor David Veale wrote a good one.

Oh wow thanks so much for posting. It really does feel like an addiction that I want to break away from but I just didn't know how to.
I will look up all those resources thanks. And if there's more that helped you please do post them.

I don't know why I stopped but I did. Literally overnight. I didn't make any effort, the urge just suddenly vanished. I have had totally clear skin and no picking for nearly 2 years - and I was really compulsive.

I have no answers or explanation for you.

I have done something similar since I was a child. I was told off for doing it by my parents, and shamed by classmates as a teen. I would manage to stop for a while but then start again when life got tough.

In my 30s I learned it was a form of self-harm and a way of coping with stress. Since learning this I have managed to stop, mainly by asking myself, "what's going on? What are you distracting yourself from?" and addressing the cause.

I'm the same. I obsessively comb my fingertips over my skin looking for anything that stands proud, and then scrape away at it. I'm particularly fond of examining my scalp, because whatever you do under there is invisible.

I also obsessively hack away at my cuticles and pare down the sides of my fingernails. Now I make sure I always have nail clippers for removing any rough bumps of skin around my nails, but if pressed I'll use scissors. When I was at school I used to unscrew the blade from my metal pencil sharpener and use that to pare strips from the sides of my fingernails.
I was always clumsy as a child and fell over a lot, and no scab was safe if I could get a fingernail under it, however much it hurt.

I can remember doing this for my entire life. Its an obsessive activity that I find calming, but I also read something once (can't remember where), that described it as a type of self-harm.

I posted on here in desperation literally about ten years ago — not a single poster understood what I meant when I explained I compulsively picked my face. I had picked my whole life since early puberty, but it got worse as I got older. Anyway — I’m now 42 and rarely do any more!

Things that have changed:

• I left an abusive marriage (even though I would pick when bored or ‘wired’ too—not just unhappy)
• I started double cleansing - every single night
• I started using retinol / niacinamide regularly
• I stopped eating sugar and went low carb (lost over two stones and kept it off for 3 years now — not sure if it is a factor but seems likely)
• I learned about sebaceous filaments - realised a lot of the things I was picking and squeezing into bloody messes hadn’t actually been ‘impurities’ in the first place

Just to say — as a lifelong face skin picker (and to a lesser degree, eyebrow puller) there is hope; it used to be a horrible part of my life but these days I rarely think about it let alone pick

@YawningAngel you described my process to a T. Particularly the calming aspect which is counterintuitive to something which ultimately amounts to self-harm

Omg my skin has been brilliant for weeks . Like unusually clear , it's was great. Then a few days ago I get a few small spots which our now weeping open sores because I picked and picked and picked 😭😭😭

@ArnottsUnderpass

Yep. Me too. I have no idea why I do it either.

dermatillomania, it falls under a section of OCD / BFRB. It can go hand in hand with trichotillimania which is hair pulling

This is me.
I'm being referred for ADHD in my mid 40s

I can't stop myself picking. I've moved from face to cuticles now to my feet

It's a total compulsion and I think it got much much worse when I stopped smoking, although I do still vape

@thatfuckingtent

This is me. I'm being referred for ADHD in my mid 40s

I can't stop myself picking. I've moved from face to cuticles now to my feet

It's a total compulsion and I think it got much much worse when I stopped smoking, although I do still vape

I feel you. I've done fingers for years, face not so much but since around the start of lockdown, my focus has been the sole of one foot.

There was a thread about BFRB, let me see if I can find it

@thatfuckingtent

This is me. I'm being referred for ADHD in my mid 40s

I can't stop myself picking. I've moved from face to cuticles now to my feet

It's a total compulsion and I think it got much much worse when I stopped smoking, although I do still vape

I've tagged you