stop picking my skin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JWXFzDHaAU

You all should watch this video. I saw way too much of myself in this. :/

If you’re looking for a website to easily track what days and how often you pick, www.joesgoals.com is working well for me. It’s just a good website in general that works well with this one, but it’s really good for tracking my picking habits.

I think I’m doing okay, picking-wise. I’m picking less and less often than I used to, but I still wish that I was picking less than I am now. I really think my decline in picking has to do with decreased stress and anxiety. Not that all of you aren’t trying to reduce anxiety anyway, I know most of you are, but I’d definitely recommend really focusing on that if you think that your picking is anxiety related. It really helps.

I actually don’t think that I’m less anxious because of less things to worry about. I have the same amount of stuff to worry about, so I can’t believe that it’s that. I think it’s an attitude change that helped me out the most.

Sorry if this entry is a little disjointed and hard to read, but I’m really tired. :)

Hello, darlings. It’s your team leader speaking as a team leader for once. A lot of people have messaged me recently asking if I can invite other people to the team, and sometimes they’re even apologetic, like this is some select group of people or a clique or something.

It’s not like that at all! I don’t know if you guys can invite other people to the team or not. If you can, go for it! Invite as many people as you want to! If you can’t, just ask me and I’ll gladly invite whoever you want. This team is open to anyone who wants to join, whether it’s a request from someone who’s already a member of the team or not – just ask me and I’ll invite whoever you want me to invite. More people is a good thing.

So if you know of someone who wants to join our little team of people, or you do yourself, just leave a comment on this entry and I’ll invite you. :)

On a non team leader front, my own picking problem is getting a lot better. It was calming down a little bit before, but recently I did something quite lifechanging. It calmed a lot of my anxieties and stresses and now I’m doing MUCH better.

For anyone who wants to, I invite you to answer this question – what is one of the biggest stresses in your life right now? I really feel like the main reason that I pick is stress, and maybe if we can eliminate the stresses themselves, eliminating the picking will be much easier. So if you feel like it, please reply to this entry with the answer to that question, and try to think of a way that you can get rid of that stressor.

Be well, everyone.
♥,
V

I’ve been a lot more aware of my picking recently, and I’ve been doing it a lot less. I’ve still had the occasional pick-fest (there’s been two in very recent history that I’m still trying to recover from), but I’m not going to beat myself up over them. The point is that overall, I’m making progress, and that’s what matters. I just hope that I can continue to make progress, since in the last couple days I’ve been falling back into old habits.

One thing I’ve noticed is that if I do all of my before bed bathroom stuff (washing my face, brushing my teeth) before it gets to be really late, more around 11 or so, then I pick less. But if I wait to brush my teeth and everything until about midnight, I pick like crazy. I think the more tired I get, the more likely I get to pick. I’ll try and brush my teeth earlier (or at least be more conscious of my picking) from now on and see if it works.

Good luck to all of you!

Oh, P.S. – I told one of my friends about my picking recently. I was worried that she’d think I was crazy, but she didn’t at all: it turns out that she picks at her fingers when she gets nervous! I was so happy that I had finally told someone and that she didn’t think I was crazy. :)

Well, yesterday when I said that I wouldn’t pick at all, I picked at one pimple. However, that’s a MASSIVE improvement over today. About ten minutes ago, I basically destroyed my entire face.

Then I remembered something that someone had said about looking up skin picking online, and I did. I googled it, and a lot of the links were really helpful. This one in particular made me feel much better – http://skinpicking.proboards77.com/index.cgi

It also provided a very good tip that I can’t believe I didn’t think of. If you pick at your skin using your fingernails, cut your fingernails so that they’re very, very short and very, very round. I’m going to go do that right now.

I’m really sick of letting this get me so upset, and I absolutely refuse to let this control me anymore.

Okay. I haven’t been making too much progress with this (My face right now? Ugh.), and I think it’s quite potentially because I need clearly defined goals. So I’ll give myself one.

I will not pick my face today. Just a small goal, but a goal nonetheless.

Who’s with me? :)

This has been going fairly well. I’m still picking at my skin, but quite a bit less…there aren’t any more 20 minute sessions in front of the mirror positively attacking my face. The most time I’ve spent in one picking attack since the last entry has probably been 5 minutes. It’s not perfect, but it’s improvement. I’ve just got to keep trying harder.

I must confess that I did pick at a zit today, but it hurt and it was the type of thing that anyone would pick at. Other than trying to peel off some skin that was flaking off due to lack of exfoliation, I’ve been a good girl today. I’ve started picking at my face a couple of times, but I’ve resisted the urge. Tonight getting ready for bed will be the true test, though.

I really need to stop this. I’m just like a lot of the other people on here…I see one tiny little blemish on my face, so I pick at it in hopes of making my skin look perfect, then another, then another, then another, and before you know it I’m all red. :/ It’s generally caused by stress or boredom, which I hadn’t noticed before looking at what everyone else had written.

Anyone want to be on a team for this? I think it would be a little easier to stop if you knew that you had people supporting you (and watching you to see if you messed up).

I will not pick at my face today. I’ve already made enough of a mess of myself by picking at my face, and I will not do it anymore today.