A Month of Transformation and Accepting a Hard Truth

I've moved again, to a completely new environment, and I've been through another extremely painful experience. So much upheaval. The good news is that I haven't been taking out my frustration on my skin. I still have the once-a-week struggle not to pick, and sometimes I don't succeed. But I'm staying positive. I know that my skin doesn't define me. I know that I'm doing the best that I can. And I believe that I'm getting better, slowly but surely. My body is strong; I am in fairly good health. My mind hasn't been in the best place, but I seem to be realizing some important things that I think will be helpful.

Today I'd say it's probably been a little over a week since my last picking session. I have scabs and scars. Tomorrow's the new moon and I'd like to try something new - rather than concentrating on not picking, I'd like to do a whole life transformation. I want to get enough sleep, on a schedule, every night. I want to exercise every day. I want to eat moderately, and well. I want to devote time to my friends, as well as to the other things I enjoy - reading, writing, and being in the great outdoors. I want to improve my mental focus and concentration, and make progress in my studies and career plans.

When I was feeling so awful that I couldn't take it anymore, I got outside myself and asked - how do I see this person and what do I want for her? I'm still figuring it out. For a long time, I have been changing in response to everything and everyone around me, adapting to my environment and my friends' needs and expectations. I have to stop this - I need to figure out who I am and what I want, independent of anyone else. I have to stop worrying about how others see me. It is absolutely impossible for me to please everyone, and right now I have to stop trying to please even the people I care about the most.

I also have to accept a hard truth - I have a very obsessive personality. Skin-picking is just one symptom or result of this. What I'm far more concerned about, because the results have been even more destructive, is the way in which I've become obsessed with people I've liked over the years, particularly when their feelings for me have been ambiguous. I've built these people up in my mind, exaggerating their positive qualities and overlooking their faults, until they can do no wrong. I've agonized about how they feel about me, and poured all my time and energy into trying to understand them and trying to be exactly the kind of person I think they want me to be. This always ends badly, both for me and the person involved. Because, of course, it is stifling for them, as well as confusing when, ultimately, I become fed up with the ambiguity and with trying to be someone I'm not. My insecurity and self-doubt take over, and I become more and more demanding (and, in their minds, irrational) until in most cases I push the person away permanently. I've just been through another one of these experiences. I finally see this for what it is - a terrible pattern that I've repeated at least eight times since I was a teenager. This latest time, I destroyed my relationship with someone I called my best friend. The craziest thing is that I don't even know if this person merited being called my best friend or if my mind had turned him into someone more significant to me than he ought to have been based on who he is, really.

Here is the lesson: never obsess about a person! People aren't appropriate targets for obsession (ok, unless you're writing a biography). I read somewhere that you have to be a little obsessed with the person you love, but I think that's dangerous. Someone like me needs to be very careful. I can't lose myself in the process of caring about someone. I can't let thinking about someone else dominate my day. I can't sit around waiting to hear from them. I can't adapt all my plans and my goals to them. I can't let myself even approach invading their privacy - no prying, no tracking, no spying (Facebook is my enemy). If I'm not sure if someone I like really cares about me, or if I can trust them, well, then, they probably don't and I probably shouldn't. Some situations require patience, and that's something I need to work on, but after a sufficient amount of time has passed what may really be needed is to move on. I can't let either my hopes and expectations, or my doubt and insecurity, distort what logic and reason tell me is true.

Obsessive people may need something to obsess about, and like I wrote a post on before, obsession doesn't have to be negative. People who obsess are able to concentrate on one thing for a long period of time. That's a good thing! The trick is avoiding unproductive obsessions (for me: my skin and people) and instead choosing to obsess about something worthwhile. I'm still searching for my productive obsession. Maybe during this month of transformation I'll finally be able to choose one and to start implementing it.

Sleep & the Company We Keep

I was doing so well and feeling so positive, but just fell off the wagon. Only slept 3 hours last night and today a friend of mine visited me for a long time and kind of stressed me out. She's an extremely kind person but thinks very differently from me. Whereas I do best when I go with the flow and rely on my intuition, she likes to have everything organized and to logically analyze most of her experiences. She asks me a lot of questions I've never thought about the answers to. I'm really worn out and should've just gone to sleep after she went home. Instead as I was sitting on my bed about to put on my pajamas I started picking, and got to my arms, legs, and chest. I'm disappointed with myself, and frustrated I'll have to go through another long healing process, but what's done is done, and tomorrow is another day.

The First 28 Days

I completed my 28-day-vow not to pick at my skin. Though I wasn't able to keep the vow perfectly, and stop picking entirely, I'm grateful I managed to get through the month without any very damaging picking sessions. Actually, I only picked a few times.

My skin looks pretty good. I can wear short-sleeves and shorts without shame now. I wish I didn't have the scars I have, or the bumps I have, but I can live with them.

I won't take another vow unless I find it's necessary. I hope I can keep in my current frame of mind - I feel more positive than I have in a long time and am not suffering from as much doubt or anxiety about my future.

I think some of the reasons I've been able to make progress in stopping picking are: 1. I wasn't happy with where my life was and knew I needed to make some changes, 2. I'm on vacation, so I'm not as stressed as usual, 3. With regards to my relationships, I've been trying to focus on what I have and am grateful for rather than on what I'm missing, and 4. I've been exercising more, which has improved the way I feel about my body.

Timing was definitely important. I've been wanting to stop picking for a long time, and I've known that it's bad for me, but somehow the many factors that could make stopping possible just hadn't come together for me. Today I will try to enjoy a small feeling of accomplishment and allow myself to hope that my picking will continue to diminish over time.

Halfway Through

I'm halfway through the 28 days and am feeling pretty good. I've been wearing short sleeves or sleeveless shirts and shorts almost every day. I feel much lighter and more at ease in my body. I'm still scared I'll fall back into old habits, but I'm almost starting to believe I could have a picking-free life from now on. I haven't been absolutely perfect. There was one day when I got at a few bumps on my arms and my legs, but I didn't let this get me down. I've also squeezed or scratched at a few bumps on my scalp, and scraped at some dry skin around my fingernails, but this has been in a more absent-minded way than in an obsessive way. I want to keep going with this and to keep improving. I feel like if I can overcome picking maybe other parts of my life will get better too. I hope this is my time, and that I can really do it. I know it's going to take a lot of hard work to get through the second half of the vow, but I will give it my best shot. My closest friends keep telling me that I'm I strong person - I would like to believe this about myself and to prove them right, to myself.

Why I Will Not Pick for 28 Days

I have just taken a vow not to pick at my skin for 28 days from now. I prefer not to take vows unless I am certain I can keep them because I believe the consequences of breaking them are serious. The reason I have taken this vow is because I believe I can and need to stop picking and because I know that if I can do it it might help someone else believe they can do it too. The weather is getting hot again and for my own health and peace of mind I can't afford to worry about having to cover my skin all the time. So I will have to let my skin heal. I've replaced the Daily Count box on the right with the day in the 28 days I'm at and a line about how I'm feeling. I'll update it as I'm able to or when there's a change.

Starting Over

What a year it's been. I moved to a new country and went back to school last September. Little did I know how much my life would change! After more than half a year of living on different continents and barely talking to each other, my husband and I decided to separate. It now looks like we're headed for divorce. He was such an important part of my life, really my other half, so it's been a difficult adjustment. Thankfully the separation has been fairly amicable and I have new friends who take good care of me and whom I love. I'm sorry to say though, that with so much more time alone, and so many new challenges to tackle, I've fallen back into picking. Despite this my mind frame is relatively positive (hence the slight changes to the page design), and with a long holiday coming up soon, I feel it's time to make another concentrated effort to kick this picking habit once and for all. I'm reinstating the Daily Count. I'm also going to think long and hard about who I am and who I want to be, now that I'm on my own again and don't really have anyone else's expectations to live up to. It's not often that we have the space and time to find ourselves, so I'm looking at it as a blessing. Over the next few months, my missions are healing, strength (physical and mental), and spiritual growth. Tomorrow, of course, is a new moon, the perfect day to begin.

Under Control

My life has been so chaotic over the past few months, and my daily schedule and state of mind has reflected that. Now I'm trying to get myself under control, hoping that if I can be more stable internally, my external environment will stablize a bit as well. Rather than focusing on how my skin looks, I'm trying to focus on how I feel, trying to remain positive and focused. I'm sure if I can remain in a good frame of mind my skin will improve as well.

One Day at a Time

I haven't been in the best place due to unexpected changes happening in my life. I've been doing better over the last few days, though. I'm just trying to take things a day at a time and to take care of myself. Eat well, get enough sleep, and keep my mind in a good space. Spend time alone or with people I really love and respect. I have lots to figure out and I'm hoping if I just try to stay mindful, moment by moment, things will slowly become clear. I don't want to pick at my skin because it doesn't help me at all. I've really been trying to avoid it. My skin's always in the process of healing from the last bad day, but I want to break this cycle.

My Body and My Self

Last week something in my relationship with my body changed. On Monday I had a very difficult emotional experience and ended up picking at my skin very badly - my arms, my legs, my face, everywhere. It was sad and painful. After it was over, though, I really had to wonder if I could or even should have avoided it. The thing is, the time had come for me to face some hard truths about changes that have happened to me. Though picking was physically destructive, it enabled me to concentrate to the extent that I could finally come to some conclusions about important matters. Surely there are better ways to force yourself to concentrate than to pick at your skin, but this is what I did, and when I was done, though exhausted and regretful of the damage I had done to my skin, I was also relieved that I had accepted what I needed to accept. I hope days like last Monday are few and far between from now on. Of course, you never know what life will throw your way.

Anyway, the next day, I perceived my body in a different way. I saw my body as somehow separate from myself. I thought about how my skin protects me, my bones hold me up, and my muscles help me move. I thought about how I experience the world through my senses - my sight, taste, hearing, smell, touch, and thoughts. I thought about how I need my body, to get through this life, but how there is so much more to me than my body. I need to take care of my body and support its needs the way it supports mine. At the same time though, I need to remember that this body is impermanent and that it does not define me. I am in control. I do not exist to serve my body; my body exists to serve me.

After I started thinking about this in regards to my own body, I started seeing the people around me in a different way. I tried to really see them - to look past the outside and think about who they really were. I thought about how people's bodies - how they move, speak, and decorate themselves - can reflect something about their internal state, but can never tell the whole story. We're born with one body and can change it only slightly. Inside, though, we are so complex. We are capable of great changes, and, in my opinion, of having a far more expansive worldview than the limitations of our physical body would indicate.

This shift of perspective was very interesting for me and in some ways quite liberating. By affecting the way I saw myself and how I saw others, it made me think about my relationships. For instance, I started wondering about physical attraction and why it is that many times we seek to be physically close to someone when the mental and emotional aspects of a relationship can be so much richer. I am not sure whether this mental shift will be lasting or temporary, but I'd like to sustain it for a while and explore some of its implications.

Doing Fine

Just wanted to post a quick update to say that I am doing fine. I had one picking incident, a few days ago I think, but it was not bad compared to others in the past. Overall, I feel good and like I will be able to keep making progress. My current schedule is much more demanding than my schedule of the past several months was. I'm trying to clear my mind and strengthen my body so that I'll be better able to tackle the challenges ahead of me.

Confidence

Tonight is the full moon. I have my last exam tomorrow and am moving at the end of the week. It is a time for conclusions. My life has changed a lot over the past few months. It is always strange to feel like you aren't the same person you once were - these days I feel as though I am in a constant state of transformation, but maybe that is just the nature of life. Some things happen to you, and some things you make happen. As I accept that certain changes are inevitable, I feel more confident and also like it is time to move on from past patterns that have had a negative effect on me. Picking is something that has had a grip on me for years, despite knowing that it's bad for me and wanting to stop. I want to make one final push and give it up for good, and I believe that I can. I don't know what makes this time different compared to any other time, only that I feel more confident these days. Surely some of this has come about as a result of positive interactions I've had with new people. The way people have been responding to me has made me feel better about myself. Yes, I see, I'm capable of making other people laugh and smile. Yes, it is ok for me to expect more from the people I share my life with. If I can expect more from others, why not from myself? Why not invest my time and energy in something that is important to me? I want to be able to share myself more completely with the people I love; I want to be able to be more open. I can, I will, and I must move on from this.

Hectic Times

My exams are almost over, thank goodness, but the past few weeks have been extremely stressful. My main sources of stress have been the exams themselves, a close friend's problems, some relationship issues, and the fact that I'm moving at the end of the month. I have had one or two bad picking sessions, one time my face and one time my whole body, and have been scratching excessively at my scalp. My sleep schedule is all out of whack - for the past week I haven't been able to fall asleep until early in the morning for some reason. I'm sure all this craziness will calm down soon, and in the meantime I'll try to do as little damage as possible. Whew.

Calm under Pressure

I have exams coming up, which means that most of the people around me are under a lot of stress. I could easily get caught up in it and get very stressed out as well. Instead, I am making an extra effort to remain calm. I am spending time alone, meditating, and doing the grounding I have described previously. I am exercising, stretching, and eating relatively well too. Of course I am concerned about doing well on the exams, but I don't want to freak out because I don't think that will help me do better. Frankly, I think I'm more concerned about hurting myself. I can't afford to fall back into negative patterns - getting wrapped up in long picking sessions would be terrible at this point. I also want to remain strong so that my friends feel a little less stressed when they are around me. About the picking, well, I have had some problems since I started the 28-day challenge I described in my last post. I have picked at my arms, legs, and chest a few times and I've scratched at bumps on my scalp. Of course, it could be worse, and with time, not picking seems to be getting easier. I haven't had to skip any fitness classes because of being self-conscious about my skin, which is great. I hope that by the time the weather warms up again I'll have no problems wearing short sleeves. In the meantime, though, I'm taking it one day and actually, one moment at a time.

28 Days

I think most if not all skin pickers have heard that it takes 28 days for our bodies to replace old skin cells with new skin cells. 28 days is also the length of the lunar cycle. I've decided that I am going to try not to pick at my skin for the next 28 days. I'll check back in on February 14, which is coincidentally, Valentine's Day, if not sooner.