Two-headed CSP Colouring Chart

[moratorium]

Hi Dreamer, shihui and Pamela,

I'm thrilled to hear you have found some inspiration from my self-help initiatives. It can sometimes feel like such an uphill struggle but I'm extremely heartened to think there are others in the same boat, willing to give my crackpot ideas a go! There are many therapies for us to take advantage of like those drprincess is working with as well as cognitive behavioural therapy, hypnotherapy or even Spring Angel's OSPA - hopefully the chart can simply provide a visual audit so you can see your picking episodes from a more prescient vantage point. Working towards an end goal despite slip ups.

Dreamer, I'm sorry to hear you've found yourself in a rut after a particularly destructive act of self-denigration. To cause such physical and mental demoralisation through these needless acts is really reflective of the deep pain and lack of self-worth we carry. Deep emotional neglect, I believe, lies at the heart of why we feel so insecure and discordant with ourselves and the flaws we perceive - a fragility so pervasive that a couple of clogged pores can bring about a psychotic schism. I was assailed by my own picking demons and was where you are now only four days ago. I have been pick-free since then, I feel so much more in control now I've undertaken the task to monitor myself. The wounds will take a while to heal but at least I'm giving them the opportunity.

Please do join us, I'm rooting for you all. I'd love for you to report back and reveal your results. Positive or negative, the fact that you're prepared to acknowledge you wish to make a change in your life is the most important thing.

drprincess, well done on two pick-free days! That is fantastic. I'm so pleased to have you here encouraging everyone. You're such an inspirational, kindred spirit. I agree with you about the difficulties of relearning and accepting a 'new life' without the excoriee comfort blanket. I know myself, I am very attached to the buzz and trance-like stasis. It is such a hard habit to break. It will be near-impossible to find any viable substitute for that esoteric feeling of safety.

Pamela, what an incredibly veracious and touching post. I find it never less than awe-inspiring when people on here display such honesty and self-awareness. For the most part, I hide behind all of my elaborate web graphics and lingual embellishments. I really feel for you pamela, I can't imagine what it must be like having to hold fort as the nerve centre of a family whilst going through such internal conflict. I'm sure you have so much love to offer your children, but maybe need to redirect a little your own way for true equipoise.

Seeing as you are inhibited from printing the chart out, imagine I'd gone to the pixelated trouble of adding a 'night wine' at the mouths of one of the two-headed hydras... Goodness, you're giving me ideas for all sorts of unnecessary felicities for my next chart.

Oh, and yes I'm pleased to report I managed a complete 21 day hiatus in picking with my previous attempt! I hope it augers well for this one.

How my chart is looking now.

[Supervixen]

Hiyaaaaah!
I havent picked now for 2 1/2 days (since tues morn)
This is the longest I've managed for ages, in fact I cant remember the last time I've gone this long!
The urges to do it are still there but I try to find something constructive to do asap and this seems to help. I think previously when I tried to give it up I didnt really believe I could do it, so as soon as I felt the need to pick, I'd give in straight away.
Also knowing that other people are struggling in the same way really really helps because I dont feel like a freeak.
Aah bless you all
I know its early days but I feel quite positive now which is unusual for me!!
Well done everyone for your successes ;D
xxx
ps Pam, if you go to 'profile' you can put in your own avatar. Mine was *borrowed* off kittyradio, its a clip from the new Garbage video of 'Why do you love me'

[pamela]

;DHello fellas !!!!!!!
Well, well well...I've totally ruined my enthusiastic beginning of the 21 days picking and drinking quitting project,I feel so stupid because the truth is that when I try at the most leaving this horrible habit is when it gets WORSE.However,they say that the most important thing is the will to leave our addictions in my particular case compulsions and also drinking ,I feel like a freak!!!! What should I do now? should I go on with the 21 days try?
Moratorium: Thank you so mucho for your kind words. Made me laugh about the wine chart? could you really design something like that ? And at the end of the month instead of a face maybe you could a picture of me totally knocked out in the morning,picked face and my someday to be long hair!!!!!!LOL that would be the most bizarre chart!!!!!!
I admire you guys for not picking,well I guess this would be my second ruined up day but still on the road,My kids now are in school so I have some time for myself. Sometimes I feel so whirled up in this,I had my eldest dauughter when I was only 18 and his father died when I was pregnant.Then I got the other two from different fathers whith their respectives tragical-comical histories,I mean when I got pregnant from my youngest from one day to another he disappeared and flew to germany for four years? How cartoonish is that?
No wonder I pick!
Anyway I still have the strenght to laugh at myself even with my terrible torn up face, I hope to get through this day and congratulations to you ,Tallulah,what have you done not to pick these two days?
Moratorium: What happened last time when you managed to pick? how did you start doing it again?What triggered it? Well in my case the most stressfull times are my kids fights,me being alone for such a long time,the degree I'm studyin long distance,I really don't know how to say it in English,well I send all my exams and everythin per post,(more chances of staying in the house...WASTING MY TIME PICKING!!!

Well friends see you all,I didn't print the chart our but made a circle in the calendar around the non picked day.
I love you all
Pam

[Supervixen]

Aaaaaargh!
I picked this morning
So I managed 72 hours.
BUT it wasnt a very long pick and I didnt do too much damage, I forced myself to stop after a few minutes.
Im still annoyed at myself though because my skin was just starting to heal and look clearer and now I'm back to beginning. Maybe I was getting ahead of myself with my oh-so-positive last post!!
WHY WHY WHY do I do this to myself??
But I'm not giving up hope - this time I'm aiming for 4+ days pick-free. Im not gonna let myself even go near a mirror unless its to put makeup on, and Im gonna get my partner to hide the cotton buds (my face-picking weapons of choice!!). And if I feel like Im gonna pick, I will go do something with my hands like cleaning or drawing or playing with my son. Or posting here ;D
I refuse to waste anymore of my life sat in front of my mirror destroying my face. Raah.
Good luck to everyone
Loadsa love xxx

[pamela]

:-[tallulah let's just begin today,it's the same with me,big hug

[moratorium]

Hi pamela and Tallulah,

I'm sorry to hear about your respective picking capitualations. Tallulah, well done on triumphing for 2 and a half days though. There is no shame to be had in slipping up, despite how self-defeated you may feel, this is a gradual process and it's great to hear your renewed determination to target 4 pick-free days. It can not be underestimated that this compulsion has been with us for a long time, often from childhood and we derive affirmation from it, a familiarity, a symbiosis. It is, for all intents and purposes, our innate predisposition to gratify these voracious impulses. Our neural paths are of such delineation that we perpetually return to the same destructive actions for our fix. Looking at it like that, all pick-free days achieved are victories in this neurotic battle.

Just think of all the potential humiliating damage you prevented with just those few pick-free days, it's also a tremendous mark of self-discipline that you managed to minimise the damage done when you slipped up. I'm sure we all know how these things can escalate into epicurean, hours-long sessions if left unmonitored. I bear the needless scars from times like that. So every day we don't pick, at least our skin has been free from harassment for that period of our skin's regenerative history. Hence why the chart can help you to tally your victories against your losses and see things from a more farsighted perspective.

pamela, I really urge you not to give up. You really should include the days you've picked in this 21 day audit, they are part of who you are and how you cope with your tragi-comedic life events. It gives you something to build on, even if you picked every day for the 21 day trial, that is your foundation, something to improve on with the next 21 days. The important thing is to not allow this pestilent cognitive anomaly to subject you to anymore feelings of shame and reproach, it is contingent on lowering your sense of self-worth through complicity. If you show it your poker face by just accepting it as a mere blip along a much longer path, you immediately renege the pessimism it so relies on to degrade you.

I was so charmed to read your amusing portrayal of such an eventful love-life. The hellenic analogy is very apt as you are a veritable Aphrodite seemingly bestowed with such fertility and a Dionysian appreciation of good wine! I'm very sorry to hear of your ill-fated dalliances with male demigods.

I'm pleased to report I've now completed 5 days of no picking and am onto my 6th!

Pamela, in answer your to question: it was complacency that slowly crept up on me. The thing is, there is no miracle cure for this imponderably complex disorder, and oftentimes quitting does not lead to a miraculous newfound bonhommie. Sometimes the CSP can mask a greater underlying misery which cannot be so easily abated. All we can do is try to practice self-restraint to help put ourselves in a better position to fully contend with life head on.

[drprincess]

Hey guys,

I haven't posted in a while, I felt guilty for picking on friday, I picked my back while i was in the shower, and then that one zit on my chin, I only picked a tiny bit on my chin(thank god).


Talluah, hang in there, this truely is a journey, not a destination, but i know it is hard to see it that way.

pamala, don't give up, you are worth it, each time you try and pick your self back up is a victory in itself.

And moratorium, thanks for your words of encouragement, you are truely mature and much more wise beyond your age. It is truely a gift from god.

So i will try again, this time for the 4th day of not picking.


loves to all
drprincess

[moratorium]

Hi drprincess,

It's so great to hear from you! Thanks so much for your kind sentiments. I'm sorry to hear you were ambushed by the picking demon in the shower. You don't have to feel guilty for succumbing, the fact we feel the importune impulse to pick is very much a given. This journey is about learning to embrace our imperfections rather than admonish ourselves for them, that includes our unscrupulous, behavioural bad habits. To demote our picking episodes to a mere statistical acumen.

We should reserve all judgment of ourselves until day 21 when we can start again in the upkeep of our temple (body !

I'm really overjoyed to report I've completed a whole week without picking and the deep infections I caused last week seem to be drying up! Also most of my scabrous crusts have come off and I feel so much more in control of my destiny. I really feel I have the fighting spirit, as hard as it may be, to go the whole 21 days.

I want to thank everyone for their support and participation in this thread. Without this communal sense of self-determination I don't think I would have got this far.

[pamela]

::)Helllllllllo dear friends,like moratorium advice I marked the days I've picked in the calendar, and surprisingly I've managed the two last days with no picking.
The drinking didn't go that well and I thought I was going to throw up...I'm getting to a point where I have to drink more and more in order to get relaxed...
Well I don't wanna be talking about me all the time and I couldn't really read the whole thread,I just want to tell everybody.
I'll write tomorrow.didn't pick today

[lauryn]

nevermind

[Supervixen]

Hi everyone!
O my god everyone's doing really well!! ;D
I've been really bad over the weekend and my face is just a big mess now, I feel like hiding til its all cleared up! I even managed to find time for a wee pick this morning before I took my son to nursery! What a committed picker.
Anyhow...I'm gonna start with a new chart today.
And if I manage to not pick for a whole week, I'm gonna treat myself to something nice.
Cant think what yet.
Maybe a new top.
Keep up your good work (hehe i sound like a teacher!)
Loadsa love

[Supervixen]

Ooo and moratorium, I went on your website - its so cool! I love Scarlett, she rocks.

[moratorium]

Hi pamela and Tallulah and welcome lauryn,

Tallulah, sorry to read of your recent picking capers. Your defiant spirit is amazing! The fact that you're prepared to start afresh in this discipline of iron will really is a sign that you won't surrender so readily to the picking demon within. It's so great that you have set yourself a positive goal rather than let this self-injurious concomitant reign victorious.

I can't believe I've gone just over a week pick-free thanks to the good shake-up I gave myself. I'm too stingy to buy myself a reward, I wouldn't want to completely renounce my self-denigrating lifestyle. Tallulah, you have my utmost support in the 'one week' targert, just imagine how much less self-conscious you'll feel without the pick wounds.

Oh and thanks for your kind comments about my website. I created it on a previous post-pick occasion as a way of giving myself a good talking to!

Pamela, congratulations on your two pick-free days! What a turn-around! I'm so glad you decided to incorporate the days you'd picked rather than repudiate them and start again from scratch. I think a key component to conquering this addiction is to not let ourselves become despondent when we do slip up. To take away the stigma of the incumbent shame and guilt it leads to.

I'm sorry to hear things on the drinking front haven't been going so well. I confess to knowing very little about alcoholism. Is there anyone who you can turn to for support? Loved ones/friends/therapist? Is there a direct correlation between the severity of the drinking and your CSP? If I drink alcohol it seems to break my skin out, so I try to avoid it.

Pamela, I really do hope you find a way to manage your reliance on this potent relaxant. Is there no displacement activity you could find to help you relieve the anxiety and tension?

Send you all my best,

Mora.

[Supervixen]

Havent touched my face since 8.30am this morn! And its 10.30 pm now.
Small victory for me ;D
xxx

[pamela]

Hey girls,hope everyone is doing ok, I'm getting better overall,didn't drink that much except for one glass of beer and my face is looking so much better.My kids started school and that's very helpful because I have lots of time in the morning to be alone and not hearing all those fights and whining. ;D
I really couldn't read the whole thread just wanted to say hi .
Dear moratorium, I think I'm getting the idea of this 21 days thing,and I think it could help! even if we pick a little in between, or a lot, it's just a matter of repeating this over and over...
love you all!!!!!!!!!!