I do this thing. I’ve done it since I was young, like really young. It’s probably one of the most consistent behaviors over the span of my entire life which is how I finally came to understood that it branches off of my personality, literally who I am as a person.
That was kind of a blow because this is by no means a good habit.
Be cool, it’s kinda gross but not a cry for help (anymore).
I pick at the skin on my lip.
This habit is one of the reasons I’ve been addicted to chapstick since I was in high school and have to have 18 of them at every potential access point. God forbid my lips dry out. I can feel the textural differences just sitting there, mouth closed, and I’ll start gnawing or my hand will drift up and skim my lips until I feel the ~iRreGuLAriTy~.
I’ve learned over time I do it unconsciously when I’m pensive, overanalyzing, anxious which means just about all day, every day.
I’ll pick in my sleep.
I’ll pick until it bleeds.
I’ve gotten localized infections which, given my germaphobia, cause me so much silent contemplative horror.
I learned in therapy that lots of people have tendencies like this. Y’all remember in the Black Swan, how she pulls the hang nail off and we all winced because we knew she was gonna yank that thing and were silently screaming, “Don’t!!!! DO!!! ITTTTT!!!!!”
Subconsciously, it’s a response to a loss of control. Whatever the situation, your deep inside being is frustrated of being stripped of its power and in an effort to get it back somehow, it will move you to do something which has a predictable outcome, even if it is painful or damaging.
For some people, it’s pulling out hair aka trichotillomania. For others, it’s picking at skin aka dermatillomania. I actually recall as a very young child that I would pull strands of my hair out at night in bed. I would wind a few strands of hair around and around my finger and then tug. I genuinely wonder if it led to my life long alopecia or that was just a coincidence of other juvenile medical crises and the anxiety has just always been there but changed gears on how it manifested when all my hair suddenly fell out. Can’t pull out what you don’t have! Ho ho!
The flip side is this: now that I’ve healed some, really gotten to know myself, processed, and shored up my emotional well-being, I pick less. Do I still catch myself on occasion? The absent-minded brush of a knuckle across my lip, seeking that edge of a dry piece of skin. Yes. Do I wake up at times with a telltale hole in my lip? Indeed. But does it happen with less severity and increasingly less frequency?
A proud and ecstatic HECK YEA.