I have just found this subreddit after watching a character on “the boys” and I am so relieved there’s other people like me.
However just a warning, there will be discussion of shame/regret, brief mention of self-harm (historic and non descriptive) and very graphic descriptions about the lengths I have gone to, in order to fulfil my desire (for lack of a better word) - compulsion maybe, and addictive behaviours.
I pull from every area of my body except my scalp and armpits. I am deeply ashamed about this behaviour and I have tried just about everything, Vaseline, gloves, plasters, keeping myself occupied, sewing, pulling things out or other things etc. fidget toys, watching those videos - they only seem to make me more frustrated. I can’t shave because feeling the hairs grow back and get itchy make it so I go into my skin, I then pick my skin. Moving tweezers doesn’t help because I use my fingers. The only thing I can think of is wearing clothes to cover everything up all the time - ski mask included with the three holes.
Nothing soothes me unless I actually physically pull my hair out and analyse it, rolling it inbetween my fingers, observing for bulbs, thickness and texture. Before that I can spend a long time just running my hands all over my body finding every bump and imperfection and taking note, looking for ingrowns, thick, wiry, different texture and those ones with multiple out of the same pore. This can be done while I am zoned out, but for the actual pulling itself I must be devoted to the action, alone, lit up, scouring, craned over, I contort into unimaginable positions just to get that hair, just for that brief moment of pleasure/relief. I give myself headaches, body aches and sprains. I have also given myself scars, I even at times, have dug into scars and scabs because there was a hair in it, this usually happens along my eyebrow and my snailtrail/landing strip/happy trail. But at times it has happened in my groin and legs. Recently, I haven’t been able to stop even if I am bleeding and it is causing me pain.
It started off with my eyebrows after a particularly stressful and depressive period in my life. I had also self harmed during this period and sought out alternatives. It worked, kind of, I stopped self harming and just started pulling my eyebrows out, along with other addictive substances, nothing illegal, just alcohol and nicotine. I balanced it between those three vices, I got a handle on the alcohol and nicotine. This happened around lockdown era, so I had no one telling me how weird or rough I looked.
Then came the dreaded lockdown lift. All of a sudden I was filled with fear and regret, one that was akin to the fear of people finding out I had self-harmed. People close and dear to me looked at me like I was a freak, would just snap at me to stop it and when I told them or tried to explain it, how it felt and why I couldn’t, I was just stared at as if I was a creature beyond their understanding. I then moved to more “secret areas” the groin, happy trail, legs. My eyebrows grew back and everyone seems to think I’ve kicked it.
When in reality it all has gone unchecked, leaving me with even deeper shame, that has only worsened since scarring began to happen, just close to two years ago. It has affected my relationships, because I do not want them to see me like this, doing this so I shut myself away to get my fix, I refuse intimacy when it gets too close out of fear of them seeing my body. I have also started to go back to my eyebrows because my legs aren’t “good enough” and my pubic area is bald and my snail trail is all scarred. Right from the waistline to just inbetween my chest. I fear that I am starting to move onto picking my skin, the scabs, the scars, spots or perceived imperfections.
I am at my rock bottom. I am deeply ashamed yet it is all I can think about, it is beginning to consume me, I am constantly scouring, constantly thinking about it. I am literally unable to sit still without the electric feeling running through me, in all my spots and fingers. I do it without thinking and I don’t like it when I do that, because I have to be aware of it to fully enjoy it. I am frustrated and ashamed all the time, I need relief, tapping isn’t working I genuinely am so desperate. Am I going to have to go to the doctor and get put onto something? I am worried that the extent I go to may push the doctor to do some more extreme measures like a mental asylum of some sort.
This is also on a throwaway account. But advice is needed. Long read, but thank you for reading.
