Destroy What Destroys You

Fighting dermatillomania, diabulima, binge eating disorder, type one diabetes, insomnia, chronic depression and anxiety. Trying to heal my self while my brain tries to destroy my self is a brutal war.

[dermrecovery-deactivated2017111]

Accepting

I think this is one of the hardest things for those of us with SPD. You have a streak of days without picking, your skin is healing, you’re feeling on top of the world, and then you have a picking session and everything feels like it’s falling apart. To someone without SPD this would sound dramatic, but we know this feeling all too well. 

Despite awareness of the problem and strategies to prevent picking, bad sessions are going to happen on your way to recovery. People who successfully give up smoking have many setbacks on their way. This is true of all addictions. 

So please don’t beat yourself up. Don’t feel ashamed. Don’t feel overwhelmed. Let the powerful negative emotions wash right over you and then fall away. Notice the feelings without letting them hurt you. Engage the logical part of your mind that perceives the addiction as separate from the self. 

Remember, you’re not alone. Virginia Woolf wrote, “I am talking of the common life which is the real life and not of the little separate lives which we live as individuals.”

~Sarah

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Stop Skin Picking Strategies: 4 Options for When You Can’t Cover the Mirror

[cursed-with-derma-blog]

These are some awesome ideas

[rubyetc]

I found these gifs I made a while back for a site that’s not running anymore, so I thought I’d post them here. It’s a description of psychiatric symptoms and states of mind using a pink box and some other stuff. 

[dermrecovery-deactivated2017111]

The Dairy Factor

Recently I started to suspect that dairy foods are playing a role both in my breakouts and in picking urges. Annette Pasternak talks a lot about how sugar and dairy show a correlation with picking. So I went to the literature to see if there have been any studies. 

2008. “Milk consumption and acne in teenage boys”. Published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. States: “We found a positive association between intake of skim milk and acne. This finding suggests that skim milk contains hormonal constituents, or factors that influence endogenous hormones, in sufficient quantities to have biological effects in consumers.”  

2012. “Whey protein precipitating moderate to severe acne flares in 5 teenaged athletes.” Found on PubMed. States: “Acne vulgaris has been linked to milk ingestion… Whey protein may be the fraction of dairy products that promote acne formation. Larger studies are needed to determine the mechanism of comedogenesis.”

2013. “Role of insulin resistance and diet in acne”. Published in the Indian Journal of Dermatology. States: “The major protein fraction of cow’s milk is casein (80%), and the remaining 20% are whey proteins. The insulinotropic component of milk resides predominantly within the whey fraction, whereas casein has a stronger IGF-1 stimulating effect than does whey. Inclusion of milk and hyperglycemic foods in diet may have potentiating effects on serum insulin and IGF-1 levels, thereby promoting the development of acne.” 

2015. “Linking diet to acne metabolomics, inflammation, and comedogensis: an update”. Published in Clinical, Cosmetic, and Investigational Dermatology. States: “In 1885, Bulkley reported on acne-aggravating effects of milk consumption in his extensive dietary studies involving 1,500 patients with acne. Harvard epidemiologists Adebamowo et al provided the first epidemiological evidence for the association between milk consumption and acne by evaluating data of the retrospective Nurses’ Health Study II and the prospective Growing-up Today Study. Further controlled clinical studies corroborated the milk–acne connection. A recent semantic connectivity map approach of 563 subjects showed that moderate-to-severe adolescent acne was closely associated with high consumption of milk, in particular, skim milk, cheese/yogurt, sweets/cakes, chocolate… Milk is a very special functional food designed by evolution to promote anabolism and growth of newborn mammals… Danby emphasized that 75%–90% of marketed commercial milk and milk products in the US are derived from pregnant cows. The milk of these animals contains DHT precursors.”  

This is by no means an exhaustive list of the evidence. And all the studies I found talk only about acne, not about picking. But what I’ve come to understand is that dairy products, and more specifically, the whey protein in dairy, seems to push certain hormone pathways in the body into overdrive. 

Dairy products that contain a lot of whey protein include skim milk, low-fat greek yogurt, ricotta cheese, and many protein bars and supplements. 

-Sarah

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I just returned from 3 days of hiking around Munising, which is in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Sometimes I feel that so many of our mental imbalances stem from a fundamental disconnect with nature. Less time indoors meant, for me, markedly fewer compulsions to pick. 

I want to say a little bit about setting small goals and rewarding yourself. I wrote earlier that I don’t journal days picked vs. days “clean”. I don’t believe in setting up that score with myself. When the day comes that I haven’t had a damaging picking session for a year, I won’t even know it. And that’s the way I want it. 

What really is the goal for those of us with SPD? Everyone picks their skin a little bit. A little bit of picking is even natural, if you think about the way that animals in the wild groom themselves. Lying on the beach the other day I watched a little ant clean himself from head to toe and it made me smile. 

For me, the goal is to not think about my skin. The goal is to cover up blemishes and then forget that they’re there. To see a zit and feel no urge to pop it. To let a scab heal and fall off on it’s own without my even noticing it. To be free from buying this and that expensive product to make my skin clear. This goal has nothing to do with the way my skin looks and everything to do with mental freedom. 

First we have to break the physical habit of picking, and I want to write about that tomorrow. But secondly, and just as importantly, we have to stop caring so much about what our skin looks like. Zits, scabs, scars… it all fades with time. 

~Sarah

[dermrecovery-deactivated2017111]

Fighting a Compulsion

I have a derma buddy now and we regularly check in on each other via text to encourage and share ideas. It’s been helping me a lot to not get lazy and give in to what feels good in the moment, because I know that every day I can go without picking is proof for her that recovery will come. 

She and I have similar stories about starting to pick (I plan to write about mine tomorrow) but our habits are a little different. I thought I would share in sort of a list format the different ways we use to fight compulsions. 

If you want to beat derma, wage an all-out war on it. Try lots of different things. Journal what works and what doesn’t. Most importantly, be patient with yourself and try not to get discouraged when something doesn’t help. 

I am almost exclusively a face-picker, and I’m driven by the compulsion to pop and squeeze things. This is how I fight compulsions:   

Grooming by candlelight 

Streamlined routine to spend as little time as possible in the bathroom 

Putting on foundation right away to minimize examining imperfections 

Coloring and breathing techniques to manage anxiety and boredom 

Covering mirrors  

My buddy seems to pick most at night, and mostly on her arms and legs. She’s triggered by scabs and will pick in the dark. She has trouble falling asleep, which seems to exacerbate the problem, and she has medical conditions that necessitate a grooming routine to prevent skin infections. These are some of the things she is currently trying: 

Magnesium supplements and herbal teas for sleeping  

Reading at night to wind down

Aromatherapy to relax 

Nighttime gloves that allow her to use her phone    

AbyssRium aquarium game app

Fidget toy  

Recently I read on someone else’s blog (can’t remember whose) that they say to themselves, “Anything is better than picking” over and over when they’re having a serious compulsion. I like this idea because sometimes you get caught really, really wanting to pick despite your best efforts, and you need to ground yourself in those moments. 

Remember that even if what you’ve tried thus far hasn’t been successful, none of your effort is wasted. It’s all part of the process. 

~Sarah

[cursed-with-derma-blog]

Hey guys. Sarah is my Derma buddy. She's been such a major help and support system for the last few weeks or so. She has offered some super helpful advice and encouragement, as well as helped me discover a lot of my triggers. She's also helped me develop some great coping mechanisms. I highly recommend all my Derma friends to follow her blog and check out her posts.

[dermrecovery-deactivated2017111]

Good stuff, you guys.

[nayyirahwaheed-deactivated20180]

poem.  from salt. by nayyirah waheed.

[vodkaheaux]

Yano, everyone wants to glorify and worship girls with scars and cellulite and stretchmarks and I’m here for that 100% (I’ve got stretchmarks) but I never see people supporting or doing shit for girls with severe, chronic acne and acne scarring, or any severe skin condition that is incredibly obvious i.e psoriasis, eczema etc. So to all my fellow gals out there suffering from painful, noticeable skin conditions that require medicine and treatment creams and make you want to stay in bed and never show your face: we’re beautiful and we’re hardcore as fuck for living with this shit daily

[sa2ha]

ok but this is real

[sheisrecovering]

Confidence is not “They will like me.”, it’s “I will be fine if they don’t.”

[thatscreamingrat]

a sequel.

[artbytesslyn]

We will be stronger tomorrow.

Patreon | Commissions are Open | Please do not repost without credit

[seashellronan]

can we just like romanticise being bare faced?? like really bare faced, not this “no makeup makeup look” shit like pls lets romanticise dark circles and acne and discolouration and redness and skin conditions and eyebags and oily skin and just regular old eyebrows and looking tired because I am tired stop treating these as things that take away from beauty and just celebrate them like jesus pls 

[slim--pickins]

Injury- free substitutions 🌸

[bfrbirdy]

You are not your bfrb

[cursed-with-derma-blog]

Me: *walks past mirror*

My shit brain: time to Lean™