Nelly's picking chronicle

[hoppe]

Nelly - I am sorry, I entered the chat room to see if shihui was there and then forgot to log out. Maybe we can talk after you had lunch. Been a while since we have talked.

hoppe

[Nelly]

Thank you for your post, amylou.

Hoppe, I'm not sure if you're still logged on. You don't seem to be in the chat room. That's ok, we can talk some other time.

Well, I went to Montreal with my mom during the weekend to visit my cousin who is in foster care. Montreal is where I lived when I first started picking obsessively, so it was kind of weird to be back. At the same time, I felt so refreshed and confident, because my skin is looking so good nowadays.

I took a ride on the subway and got all these flashbacks of seeing the reflection of my mangled face on the subway train door.. but now when I looked at that same door I saw a nearly perfect complexion. I think that was very therapeutic. I visited places where I had spent years being embarrassed and trying to hide my face, except now I could hold my head high and feel good about the present condition of my skin. I looked people in the eye without wondering if they think that I look like a freak...

Anyway, while I was there I had a couple of minor 10-minute picking sessions which left me feeling refreshed and cleansed, not to mention that there was pretty much no visible damage left on my face a couple of hours later. Overall, the trip was very relaxing and it was nice to get away from the monotony of life for once.

So, the upshot is that I'm still doing pretty well. I think I might even be able to go out biking without make-up on next weekend, which would be very cool.

Nelly

[stilltrying]

Nelly that's great news! I can see how it would be great to return somewhere with clear skin. I would go over those memories a lot to keep them solid in your mind.

Here's to your biking without makeup!

stilltrying

[Nelly]

Stilltrying, thank you for the support! I'm sorry about your white bumps. I hope they'll go away soon. Do you think it might be something in your diet that's triggering their occurence? Way to go on being able to resist picking! Keep it up.

I haven't felt like picking at all over the past couple of days (since I came back from Montreal). I think I'm still feeling encouraged and relaxed from the trip. It's a wonderful feeling.

I hope everyone else is doing well,

Nelly

[hoppe]

Nelly - It is nice to hear you are doing so well.



hoppe

[hoppe]

Nelly - do you have time to chat?

hoppe

[Nelly]

OK, but not for long. My boss is here today.

[amylou]

hi nelly! glad to hear that you are doing so well! keep up the good work! I am very proud of you!

[Nelly]

Thanks, amylou.

I'm still doing exceptionally well. Last night I noticed that I had a somewhat painful skin-colored bumpy zit on my left cheek. So I instinctively squeezed it out (even though it probably wasn't quite ready), some nasty puss came out, I got the usual feeling of satisfaction and relief and then I put some benzoyl peroxide (PanOxyl) on it. When I got up this morning, the zit was pretty much gone and there's almost no visible damage left (just a slightly pink spot). I'm loving my skin for recovering so fast.

Other than that, I haven't really touched my face in a destructive manner for probably a week now. I'm not counting ZT days, so I'm losing track of the exact number of days. I'm just trying not to think about picking and the resulting healthy skin on my face is the best reward and motivation I could ask for.

Hope things are looking up for everyone else.

Nelly

[amylou]

WOW~!!!! THat is wonderful! Great job nelly! Continue the good work hope things continue to go well for you!

[Nelly]

Thank you, amylou.

Well, this weekend went quite well. I spent it with my boyfriend at my place. We went for a walk. I went biking (even though I wasn't completely makeup-free, I was only wearing a minimal amount of concealer on two spots). The sun was shining, it was 17 ^oC, but felt like 25.. it felt wonderful. Then last night we went swimming in a pool, prior to which I washed all my makeup off.

The local public transit system was supposed to go on strike today, so on Sunday my boyfriend and I went out to check out the location of the nearest train station while exploring alternate means of transportation to work for him. There was some news reporter with a camera and a microphone hanging around the station, which was otherwise pretty much deserted. So as soon as he saw us, he asked if he could interview us for the evening news. My boyfriend didn't like the idea, so we refused. But for once I didn't think about how my face looked when I was faced with this type of exposure. A couple of months ago I would have been petrified to show my ugly face on my balcony, let alone on television. But this time I didn't even think about my face when I was considering being on camera. I thought that was very cool. As it turned out, there was no strike, so that reporter probably scrapped his footage and I wouldn't have been on tv anyway.

But as we all know, all things come to an end eventually, whether they are good or bad, so this morning I ended my feel-good streak of almost-no-picking. I gave myself a wonderful birthday present by squeezing my pores for over an hour, ending up looking like a blotchy-faced freak (even with makeup on), being super-late for work and feeling like a complete loser. I don't know why I did it. My skin didn't even feel that dirty or anything.

My boyfriend is supposed to take me out for my birthday tonight. Hopefully that will take my mind off of my picking failure. He's been so nice and supportive to me.. I owe a lot of my picking restraint to him.

Nelly

[hoppe]

Hi Nelly

I am really sorry about your relapse. And even more that it happened on your birthday .... .

But despite of this, I want to wish a happy birthday and all the best for the next year to come. You are a very kind, insightful, and sweet person. I am sorry that this (damned) disorder still has some power over you. But you have made wonderful progress. I hope things will only get better from here.

Hope you will have a nice evening with your boyfriend!

hoppe

[Nelly]

Thank you very much, hoppe. Your words mean a lot to me.

I did have a nice evening last night. But then this morning I ended up picking for an hour again.. Arrrghhh.. The thing that makes it really annoying is that when I first looked in the mirror this morning, I noticed that my face was almost completely healed and looked pretty decent after yesterday's mangling session. And then I decided to "check things out" again... and found a few clogged pores.. and then a few more.. and before I knew it I was a red bloody mess again. Well, there was no actual bleeding per se, but I still looked like a burn victim or something. So back to plastering on the makeup and looking like an over-morticianed corpse. Man, I feel like I'm getting sucked into this downward spiral again. I hope I can keep my hands off of my face for at least a couple of days, so that I can start looking semi-normal again and not feel like a monster.

By the way, a couple of days ago I found a blackhead on my cat's mouth and ended up squeezing it out. How sick is that? I can't believe I'm so messed up..

Nelly

[Nelly]

Well, the day of my last post (April 12) I picked again just before going to bed. My boyfriend had to do some studying, so I stayed home that night. I started feeling dead tired at around 11 pm, so after procrastinating for about an hour, I finally resolved to go to bed at midnight. And then as soon as I finished brushing my teeth I got sucked into it again. I couldn't believe it, especially since I was under the impression that there was nothing left to squeeze out. So I picked at my face for another hour when I should have been sleeping. The following morning I was very tired and had to spend extra long covering up the damage... I was starting to feel quite hopeless again, especially since I'm going away on vacation in a couple of weeks and I was hoping to have a somewhat decent-looking complexion by then..

The good news is that I haven't really picked since that day. I mean, I squeezed a couple of tiny pores this morning, but that's within the realm of normalcy for me. I believe my face is starting to look ok again. Perhaps I have a chance of looking acceptable on my vacation after all.

By the way, I finally got a chance to check out the digital pictures I took during my visit to Montreal last week and I was really pleasantly surprised to see that my face looked impeccable in those pictures. I mean, I was wearing a bit of concealer, but still.. there were no caked dried up wounds visible or anything. I hope that will motivate me to refrain from picking destructively over the next couple of weeks.

That being said, my boyfriend's got some colleagues of his going over to his place to play poker tonight, so I'll be staying home again. I so hope I will have the strength to resist picking my face to shreds...

Nelly

[hoppe]

Nelly

Hope you will have a nice evening!

I also hope that your upcoming vacation will be good. I can imagine that it might make you anxious. But that might just be me that would feel that way.

hoppe