Skin Picking Is...

Skin Picking is getting your first pimple at age 12, and your mother tells you that you must pop it and shows you how to use her concealer.

Skin picking takes that one instruction and twists it into an obsessive, controlling, destructive habit.

Skin picking is popping every pimple since that first one. Every single one.

Skin picking is dreading a middle school sleepover, because you have to wash your face at the end of the night. You stay up later than everyone else to wash your face, then wake up early to apply concealer before they wake up.

Skin picking is using 7 different creams and washes every night, and your best friend with perfect skin doesn’t even wash her face at all. She tells you maybe you should try that.

Skin picking is not wearing sleeveless shirts throughout middle school and high school.

Skin picking is planning weeks or months in advance for occasions that your shoulders or back will show – swimming parties, beach vacations, prom, your wedding. It’s working hard for weeks to get your skin clear, only to relapse as soon as the event is over.

Skin picking is not swimming AT ALL for three summers in a row in high school.

Skin picking is intentionally getting a bad sunburn the first day of every beach vacation, so that the pimples will blend in.

Skin picking is spending 30 min to an hour every night squeezing every pore on your face, shoulders, back and chest until you are a red puffy mess.

Skin picking is obsessing over a tiny white spot that you think is in there that must come out. You use every means possible to remove it – squeeze, pop, scratch, poke, tweeze.

Skin picking is your mother taking you to dermatologists and aestheticians; paying for treatments, pills, and creams, all the while you know it won’t work as long as you’re still picking, and feeling horribly guilty.

Skin picking is going to summer camp and having your skin clear up in one week’s time because the bathrooms are communal and there is no opportunity to pick. Your father marvels at your skin and decides it must be the clear spring water at the camp. He purchases and installs a purifying water faucet on your shower head. More guilt.

Skin picking is staring at your reflection and telling yourself that you are disgusting and hideous.

Skin picking is telling yourself that you will never be able to quit.

Skin picking is thinking of ways to quit picking, while picking.

Skin picking is saying, “Just this one,” and not stopping for an hour or longer.

Skin picking is Googling “excessive skin-picking” your sophomore year of college and realizing for the first time that you’re not alone and that this is a real thing.

Skin picking is going to your college Psych professor and sharing that you may have a mental illness.

Skin picking is going to your college counselor for the first time and finding out more about yourself than you could ever imagine. She guides you through many struggles and helps come up with several ideas to help you quick picking. They work for a while.

Skin picking is covering every mirror in your college dorm room with paper, towels, anything to prevent you from staring endlessly at your skin.

Skin picking is wearing makeup every day from the age of 15. You become a professional at covering up. You spend a fortune on makeup and feel like you single-handedly keep the makeup industry afloat.

Skin picking is not going anywhere without makeup. Not to check the mail. Not the park. Not the gym. Not WalMart. Nowhere.

Skin picking is not feeling human without makeup. You tell yourself you look like a crack head without it.

Skin picking is promising yourself that you will never become a wife, and still be picking.

Skin picking is picking the day you get back from your honeymoon.

Skin picking is sneaking to bed from the bathroom late at night, so your husband won’t see your red puffy face you’ve just destroyed.

Skin picking is only wanting to be intimate in the dark because of the shame of your skin.

Skin picking is promising yourself that you will never become a mother, and still be picking.

Skin picking is picking in the hospital bathroom after giving birth.

Skin picking is picking in the bathroom mirror while your baby is in the bathtub watching you. You reason with yourself that he doesn’t understand yet. You’ll quit before he’s big enough to realize.

Skin picking is picking when he’s bigger. While he’s watching.

Skin picking is watching your toddler get a bug bite on his face and habitually scratch at it for a year, and feeling horrifying guilt that you have destroyed him.

Skin picking is constantly scanning with your fingers at the back of your neck, on your shoulders, to see if there’s anything that should be scratched, removed, or popped.

Skin picking is saying enough is enough and going to a therapist and psychiatrist.

Skin picking is determining that this is not the end.

Skin picking is a part of my story, but it is not who I am.

My name is Tarah.

Artist.

Teacher.

Home chef.

Gardener.

Stylist.

Missionary.

Traveler.

Daughter.

Sister.

Mother.

Wife.

Child of God.

Me.