Mountains Out Of Molehills

My mom once restricted me from washing my face.  At that time, I was a high school sophomore in Anchorage, Alaska.  Separation from my beloved washcloth evoked within me an anguish which existed at an unadulterated level that only a teenager could feel and sustain over such an event.  Anguish, I tell ya!  But I must confess that this unusual disciplinary action had it's roots in pretty solid habitual soil.  You see, I was, and still am though to a far lesser degree, a compulsive picker of often miniscule skin eruptions which felt to my highly sensitive fingertips like enormous growths.  In my mind, I imagined a subcutaneous pool of peurile content in need of eviction from my face or arm or leg.  This vision plagued me, wrecked my concentration for anything else, as the thought of these untapped reservoirs of infection residing just below the surface filled me with the burning need to release them!  And I applied myself to this managerial task with a ferocious concentration bordering on obsessive.

 This particular instance involved that small rectangular region located just below the bottom lip and above the chin where the pores appear larger when the tongue is pressed behind the area, thus stretching out the skin.  For breakout-prone individuals, this can be a breeding ground for problematic blackheads.  For me, it existed merely -- or not so merely -- as an opportunity for hallucinating, for creating sustainable mirages of exaggerated size, for faultily visualizing acne in need of a firm lather, rinse, and scrub-the-heck-outta-it session.  Now, if you take a gander at your own little rectangle of skin in the aforementioned area, you'll quickly note that the difference between the pores there and in the surrounding skin does not immediately connote an outbreak of pimples but simply a genetic assigment of cells.  It won't wash away.  And no amount of circular scrubbing will bring about a sudden continuity of pore structure.  Now, what nonstop washing WILL do is cause irritation and redness, followed by bleeding and an unsightly scab much worse than what one OCD teen girl thought she initially saw.

Hence, a parentally ordered "break" from facial cleansing.  Definitely a stellar moment in my childhood.  Ranks right up there with the full-on chin-hickey-from-a-cup incident back in the 4th grade during my time in Salem, Oregon.  But that's another story.

I still become fixated on random tiny bumps here and there on my face and body of a certain age.  (42 in November.)  It is not a prerequisite that they be visible to the naked eye.  Remember, I have my fingertips to probe and worry over a spot.  Along my hairline.  Anywhere on my face.  The neck.  The backs of my thighs (not a favorite area anyway).  And the undersides of my arm.  Though I'm often conscious of my picking and actuually plan some sessions, complete with cotton balls and rubbing alcohol and safety pins, many of my nail-scraping and finger-pinching episodes escape my consciousness right up until a family member intervenes.  Usually my husband or my eldest daughter.  Often, by the time an intervention occurs, the practically invisible offender has been worked into an actual visible offense to everyone's eyes.  I'll admit to a soothing ritual of face and neck examination just before bedtime which illicits queries from the bedroom as to what I'm doing, "Quit picking your face and come to bed!"  to which I halfheartedly grumble some sort of affirmative response before returning to my up-close peering and inspection.  That this practice is both unhealthy for the skin and scarring has not escaped me.  I'm a gal with some smarts.  But also a gal with a few compulsions.  Just like the rest of you, I'll bet.  Or I would if I was the betting kind.

Hello, my name is Gloria.  And I'm a compulsive picker.  Not a picker and a grinner, mind you.  Just a picker.  If you witness me with bent arm and crooked fingers, an intent mask of focus on my face, and a puddle of blood and skin somewhere in the mix, stop me.  Break out the duct tape and those baby mittens that we mommies used to keep our infants from scratching themselves with their finely sharp baby nails.  Apply pressure to the wound.  Notify my husband.  And distract me with food.  That usually works.

Don't ask me how this strange and mundane topic emerged victor as tonight's subject for the blog. 

Because I don't know.  It might be the angry welt just to the left and back of my angled bob which can't possibly heal when a certain individual keeps peeling the newly formed crust from its surface.  Grrrr!