My story:

I encourage anyone on this path to healing to look back and find the starting point of your skin picking and identify what was going on in your life at the time you first noticed you were picking. It helps to find the root cause of where you were and therefore to move forward with that information.

In my case, my picking started 4 years ago. Looking back I can see how vulnerable I was and how little it took to set me on my path.

I had been, up to that point, a very happy, well rounded, energetic young woman with a bright outlook on life. I was just coming out of a relationship with an older man and though my rational mind was aware that the ending of the relationship was inevitable and healthy, a deeper emotional mind thought that I had done something to cause the end. A therapist would quickly point out that the rejection of this older man was very similar to the rejection I felt when I was 12 and my father walked out on my mother and me. Duh! :) I see now that I was very angry with my ex boyfriend and I had nowhere to vent that anger.... I couldn't give it to him as he wouldn't even return my phone calls when I was trying to end the relationship. And I didn't want to vent it to the people who loved me and wanted the best for me in my life. So the only person left to vent it at was myself.

Also at this critical time, an old female friend reemerged in my life. We had gone our separate ways in college and now found ourselves back in the same town and on a similar career path. We reconnected and began spending a lot of time together. I did not know it at the time, but I was opening the door wide open for a sociopath to walk into my life. This "friend" is how the seed of skin picking got planted. I was the fertile soil and water that helped it to grow.

Growing up I had always been an outgoing kid who loved to talk and express myself openly. I went through my ugly duckling phase and pre-braces developed the nickname "Bucky" for my protruding overbite. And the feeling that I was going to just have to be happy with being ugly for the rest of my life set in. I moved forward and developed a lot of other aspects of myself to make up for the lack of beauty I possessed. I was a straight A student, president of the speech and debate club, a foreign exchange student who learned to speak fluent French and a star of the high school stage. I not only just got through high school, but I managed to find joy and happiness in who I was.

Then in college something changed. I don't know what it was, but suddenly the opposite sex found me incredibly attractive. I was getting asked out left and right, had guys honking at me on my walks, had the male staff at the restaurant I worked at howling at me, "Mamasita, you make me CRAZY!!!!" and had landed smack dab in the middle of a relationship with a gorgeous hunk of a man 13 years my senior. For a girl who had decided to just be happy in my unattractiveness, this was shocking to say the least. And the truth is, it brought about a lot of internal uncertainty. I had found a way to negotiate the world as ugly, but this new development was something I had not expected and quite frankly was not prepared to deal with. I felt both thrilled at the attention and terrified of it. Deep down, I just didn't believe I deserved it and I was afraid that the world would catch on... that the void left in me when all of these oglers vanished would be too great for a little girl like me to bear. A part of me was already scrambling for a way out of this dreadful life of attractiveness.

So cut to the end of said relationship and the entering of my sociopathic "friend".

My "friend" and I are in a competitive career field where physical aesthetics are very highly rated. Okay, I'll just say it. We're actresses. In a field of this high level of competition, I did what I've always done... I've minimized my physical attributes where I couldn't possibly compete and focused instead on all the other aspects I could develop. I trained at a well respected school, I got myself in a very respected theatre company, I played unattractive characters with heart and soul and I learned to use text to my benefit. In other areas of my life I learned to cook, to knit, I practice yoga, I learned to nurture and care for others in 4 years of dog sitting, house sitting, and babysitting, etc. I was strong and happy and content. And in a competitive relationship/friendship, I was dangerous. I was a threat that must be neutralized. So very casually at first, and then not so casually in the end, this "friend" started dropping hints that there was something wrong with me... primarily with my skin.

Now I had had skin issues all my life, or at least perceived skin issues. My brother had had full blown acne when he was younger and our family had a history of skin problems. I can remember a moment when I was a tween and my mom discovered a few blackheads on my nose and flipped out. I think her worst fear was that I would go through what my brother had gone through and so she overreacted. She started pushing and prying and nail digging my nose and thus, the introduction to skin picking was accomplished. Then I battled the occasional breakout and tried pretty much every remedy known to man, short of harmful toxic products like acutane. In college I got myself on the pill and discovered Proactive and pretty much got it under control. (Looking back now, it was only a matter of time until it would have cleared up on it's own. And I don't recommend Proactive as I think it causes an enlarging of the pores that damages the naturally healthy skin. People told me after I went off of it that my skin was starting to look really grainy and that now that I had stopped my pores were shrinking)

But now here we are again and this friend is reintroducing a seed of a fear I already had. "You know, Butterfly, I hear you won't get cast if you have even the slightest breakout. You should really do something about that. Take accutane. It'll clear it right up." And then a subtle daily comment about my skin and then an hourly comment about my skin and then a minute by minute comment until suddenly, my skin was the only thing she could talk about.

Naturally my hand crept up to my face and out came the magnifying mirror and suddenly I was spending hours a day staring at the pores on my face and picking. It began as conscious activity and it quickly moved into my unconscious habit driven mind. All hours of the day, no matter what I was doing, watching TV, stuck in traffic, sitting my babies, laying down to sleep... there was not a moment where my silent unconscious hand was not creeping like some eerie detached spider up and down the sides of my cheek, my neck, my forehead, my chin, my chest, etc. My fingernails would pinch furiously at my skin and where there was no bump, they would pick and scratch until a bump formed. I would pick until I bled, really, really bled and until my face burned and my skin was bruised. And then I would go in and see what I had done and panic!!!!!!!!!!!! But the insane thing is that I had convinced myself that what I was seeing was what my friend was talking about. "I have the worst acne! I have the worst skin! I will never have the career of my dreams! Look at my horrible skin!" And then I'd frantically try to wash away the evidence and apply the anti-acne creams and lotions and go to bed and cry.

Over time, my self confidence and happiness and contentedness vanished. I found it incredibly difficult to go out in public. People who had known me before this started reacted very strongly. They loved me, of course, and they wanted the best for me. And unfortunately they didn't know what was really going on, so they started offering me money to see dermatologists and some senior actor friends who knew what I was capable of as an actress started saying things like "Butterfly, it's time for you to get your skin under control. You are too good of an actress and this is holding you back." I can see now that this was like throwing fuel on a raging fire. It just convinced me further that my skin was the problem. It made me feel more hopeless and isolated and it proved what I'd always feared would happen... the people who loved me only loved me when I was pretty and now that I was ugly again, they were going to leave me. That was it. The stage was set and I was ready to play my part.

And so began a 4 year dark period of my life. A 4 year period that I believe has caused a death of something very precious in my soul. A 4 year period that will have a lasting effect on my life. But a 4 year period that is now over. I have been walking down a very dark tunnel and I am now beginning to see the glimpse of light from the other end. I'm moving slowly and steadily towards it and with each step I am getting closer to wholeness and happiness and healing.