Healing

A few weeks ago I met someone who later told me that I look sad. He said I should just forget everything, have fun, and enjoy life. I think he's right. I just got back from my two-week winter vacation. It was a great experience. I picked at my skin once. In general I would say that these days I pick much less. I know how destructive it is; I know that afterwards I will regret it. After I pick I have no choice but to cover my skin for a few days. I don't want to have to hide anymore. I want to be free. When I do start picking, I just try to stop, deal with the consequences, and not obsess about it too much. I understand that every time I pick I will have red marks and scabs for about a week. I have scabs right now, on my forearms. It is annoying. But there is nothing I can do about it other than wait. I am healthier than I have been in awhile. I have had trouble sleeping and getting through days without naps for months but that phase seems to have passed. My biggest challenge right now is to stay on top of everything - to get all my work done and to stay focused. I want to feel more in control of my life. I think I can do it.

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.