Skin Picking before important events
I came back to work from my 2-week vacation this week. I knew that I would have to prepare for a big presentation for this coming Tuesday.
It’s a big presentation for me since I’m only a term employee at my job and this presentation will showcase my work to people from other organizations. It’s a good opportunity for networking.
Overall, I did pretty well at not picking my skin over my vacation other than on a couple of days.
This week, I relapsed in a bad way. My face hasn’t been a focus of my picking in such a long time. Instead, it’s been in really weird but non-visible areas to others, like tweezing my armpit hair, nipple hair, etc. But Thursday night, I picked at my face severely. I was in the washroom, standing hunched over and picking at really non-noticeable pimples and tiny clogged pores for 3 hours. I now have open scabs all over my face and I have one right below my lip that is so sore.
I now have the added stress of:
- not picking further
- hoping things heal enough by Tuesday morning to have my makeup cover it, and
- knowing that I’ll be self-conscious watching if people’s eyes glance at my scabs.
Anyways, all this to say I feel like this is a pattern I have when important life events, especially those that include socializing with others, lead me to have these severe picking episodes, more often than not on my face.
I don’t know if it’s self-sabotage or if it’s the intense pressure I put on myself to make sure I look/conduct myself as perfect as possible for these events that makes my brain do the same exact opposite.
It’s so so frustrating and exhausting.
Does anyone else experience the same thing?