Dear Derma: A Letter to My Foe

Dear Derma,

It’s been a while since I’ve written with you in mind.

I haven't fought with you nearly as much lately. I don't know if I've simply gotten used to my struggles with you, or if I've solved enough of them that I feel more at peace. It's been a year now since I discovered what plagued my hands and skin, and a year since I started blogging about it. It’s also been a year since I found a name for it: Dermatillomania. It's funny how putting a name to something and understanding the psychology of something can make it so much less threatening and so much more manageable.


You still bother me a lot sometimes. You make every glance in the mirror into a struggle. You make shower time a hassle. You make molehills look like mountains to my plagued eyes. You follow me into dressing rooms and make me feel ugly and dirty. But you don’t have the power to make me cry as much anymore, and I usually win our dressing room battles these days. I won small battles with you long enough to have a clear face for my friend’s wedding and long enough to have a smile on my face as I stood beside her as one of her bridesmaids.Then again, I've learned to smile with or without your tracks galloping across the snow of my skin.

 I’ve learned that trying to crush you in one powerful blow isn’t the way to win. I’ve learned to take things moment by moment and to stop giving you the power to steal my focus so much. I really can’t explain my victories. It seemed to get better when I learned to stop giving a shit and look the world in the face with my imperfect one and declare that I needed help. I’ve never hidden you with cosmetics, but I’ve covered for you with silly excuses. Mosquito bites, cat claws, a fall, a scrape, “accidentally” scratching myself. Denial was the best makeup of all.



I have learned that I will always battle with you. But I think that if I can win while my heart and mind and time are compromised with other troubles, as they have been in the past year, I can win many more times in the future when times aren’t so hard.


You will not get in my way. And I don’t mean that in an aggressive and confrontational way. It just means that when you come knocking at my door each day, I will answer it less and less frequently. You aren’t invited to my dressing rooms and glances in the mirror. You aren’t welcome, because I’m ready for you. My mental weapons are drawn and the real ones- the bobby pins, the safety pins, the finger nails, the thumb tacks, the tweezers- are put away.


Don’t be fooled, Derma. My skin may be clear, but I haven’t forgotten the way you give me temporary false confidence when things appear good on the outside. You are still in my blood. You’re still a part of my family. You seem to have a hold on many members of my family, though they will not listen when I try to tell them it could be more than a bad habit. To them, OCD seems to be more of an excuse to continue the bad habits that they could get rid of if they just trusted their god and prayed hard enough about it.


I have no god I can pray to or trust. Yet somehow I’m winning. I wonder sometimes if the face of my struggles with you is fading along with the face of the religious oppression from my childhood. And I am happy. I don’t need a god, and I don’t need you. The difference is that I have proof of your existence. And yet, there are so few believers when I explain why I have so many scars.
But like any person of faith would say, I don’t need others to believe what I know to be true.
You exist in the mind and control heinous deeds just like a cult god.
And just like I’ve walked away as far as I can from that god, I will walk away from you.
Both will still be a part of my history. Both may creep into my mind at night and try to sway me. But both will fail as the years fade them into dust.

The Face of My Progress

Wanna know something that's a big deal to me? It may not seem big if you don't understand the way Dermatillomania impacts those who have it, and if you don't understand Derma in that way, I highly suggest reading about it. My big deal today is that I have a giant zit on my forehead. It's been there for two days, and I haven't touched it. The same thing happened about two weeks ago with another large, sore breakout. Yes it bothers me. Yes it hurts. But I know it would hurt me more to try and "fix" a very natural process of my body. And somehow, I've been able to run with those positive thoughts. The lesson I am learning from this is that if you think something enough times, you can put it into practice. All of the time I've spent on this blog and all of the talk I've talked about letting mother nature do her thing and knowing I shouldn't bother my skin is paying off lately. If you understand Dermatillomania enough, you will also understand what kind of inner peace and progress my skin is reflecting in the picture below.






I may have mentioned this before, but something that really helped me get to where I am right now is a comment my ex made about my picking. Now, normally, nothing that anyone who isn't a sufferer has to say about my picking really helps. Usually, it just embarrasses me and makes me want to hide my skin from them. But what he had to say really did help. He basically introduced the unimaginable idea that picking wasn't healthy! But rather than saying "just quit it" or making some impossible demand, he explained that squeezing a blackhead or pimple was acceptable when said blemish was ready, but that if you did it too soon, it would just make it worse. For me, this internalized the concept that I didn't have to never ever ever touch my skin again...I just had to wait until it was ready to be touched and do it the right way. No tools. No aggression. No panic. Just a calm, peaceful squeeze when my skin showed me that it was ready for my help.

I hope that by sharing this little tidbit, others will come to experience the progress I have.
And I sincerely plan on keeping things headed in this positive direction.


I am healing.

Accept YOU for YOU

I am proud.
I'm in a difficult spot, yet my skin doesn't reflect the inner turmoil for a change.
I'm emotionally frustrated. I'm hopeful. I'm angry. I'm determined. And sometimes I'm drained.
I have that compulsive urge to "fix", but it's not directed at my skin; it's directed at my situation.
I'm pushing and fighting for what I need and what I deserve.
Respect me.
I don't care how old I am or what my skin looks like. I don't care if you're sexually frustrated and think I'm the cure for your dry spell. I don't care if you think your faith gives you all the answers and my lack thereof makes me clueless. Talk to me with respect. Make the effort to be good to me, or stop wasting my time. It's really not hard.
There's a lesson here. Stop pushing what you want on other people and accept them for what they are. That includes yourself. Stop hiding behind expectations and social norms. Talk about your squishy, emotional, sappy feelings as a man without shame. Having a penis doesn't make you innately stoic; that's society's doing. Don't let them control you. As a woman, be proud of a healthy body, no matter what number size it may come in or how much shame a magazine tells you ought to go with it. As a picker, flaunt the scars of the past with pride, knowing you may have lost battles, but you're still fighting the war and winning so long as you don't give up.
Accept YOU for who YOU are. And make others do the same if they're going to be in your life.
Of course, how can anyone accept you if you don't let them know who you really are?

Stop Picking on Us.

If you don't love me for who I am, you are a waste of time.
 Don't pick me apart for not meeting your selfish standards.
If I don't meet them, walk away.
It's one thing to point out legitimate flaws- to tell me that I need to love myself more or that I need to think more positively.
But to tell me I'm too thin, too pale, that my skin isn't good enough, that I'm not exactly what you want...there's no good reason.
You are looking for a perfection that will never exist and pressuring me to fit a visual mold my body is simply not meant to fit.
That's precisely one reason why some of us pick; we are constantly told we are not good enough.
It causes an inner anxiety, mostly when those who say such things are people we love and trust.
Stop picking on us.
We do it enough ourselves.
We don't need your bullshit.
We don't need to look in the mirror and have your words echoing in our already conflicted minds:
"Too thin. Too pale. I want a girl with beautiful skin. I bet there are prettier girls out there than nag less than you do. Your skin is a turn-off."
How about this:
How about you look at the heart of the person you're dealing with.
Because when it comes to that, I guarantee you that I'm a vision of perfection.
I believe that on average, pickers love so selflessly that we forget to love ourselves sometimes.
And when you rain on our parades with your bullshit and negativity and pick us apart, you only help to squash any of the self-love we have developed.
Don't treat us like shit and act like an asshole and then wonder why it triggers our OCD response.
Don't mistake my attention to my skin for self-harm.
For some, it may be that way, but for others, we look at your skin and have just as much of an urge to "fix" yours as we do ours.
Make the effort to understand.
And if you're not willing to make that effort, stop fucking whining about picking.
Educate yourself.
But overall, treat us with the softness that we sometimes fail to treat ourselves with.

Anger

Tonight I struggle with anger. The anger of working hard for the things I want…yet having them still just out of my reach.  My good grades aren’t even satisfying. I would rather have all Cs and have the things that truly mattered to my heart. A grade is just a silly letter anyhow. I’m tired. Tired of missing people and wondering if they care enough about me to ease that pain with their presence. I’m tired of the struggles inside. Of looking at my skin and knowing I’m doing better, but still feeling like it’s not good enough because I still have to think about not touching it. I want it to be automatic. I want everything to flow naturally. I’m tired of working for insufficient pay; of trying hard and holding on to the good while letting go of the bad, and still finding no relief. Tonight I will go to bed early and dream of things I will wake up only to miss again. 

Influences

Sometimes we need to stop and take a look at the people in our lives. We need to think about what kind of behaviors they influence us to take part in, and what feelings they influence us to feel. Sometimes we need to reevaluate- to get rid of those who are bad influences and make us feel negative things, and make those who are good influences and make us feel good things a bigger part of our lives.

Think of a person in your life.
Do they make you smile, or do they make you feel bad about yourself for nothing?
Do they check to make sure you're okay, or is it all about them?
Do they blow up at you often, or do they only raise their voice every so often and offer apologies afterward?
Do they treat you well, or do they only pay attention to you when they need something?
Do they try to help you make the right decisions, or the decisions that are only in their best interest?
Do they love you, or are they only using you?

Think about it.
Act on it.

Late Night Thoughts

Take me back to a loft in Brooklyn.

The last time I felt loved and secure about who I loved.

Has it really come to this?
Is it too much to ask to have the person I care about?

To have my skin accepted as I heal?

For promises to be kept?

For respect and love to prevail?

Why is life making this so difficult?

Has it really come to this?