I can't stop picking the skin off my lips.
It's an anxious habit I used to do A LOT as a child and until I was around 17 but I THOUGHT I had grown out of if after some intense therapy.. I haven't done it for a year!
First I woke up a few nights ago with bloody lips from doing it..and now I'm back to doing it when I'm distracted/stressed.
My therapist says it's part of an OCD issue I have with anxiety and that ever since i was a child I had issues with anxiety and these kinds of things (I was always very obsessive about counting/lip picking/hair pulling/biting inside cheek/pacing/nail biting)
Ugh it just drives me so batty! I do it and do it and do it until my lips are bleeding and keep at it until they are even and I don't even NOTICE I'm doing it half the time
It's so frustrating.
and relaxing.
and annoying.
but it hurts.
but it helps with stress even when I don't know I'm doing it..it's soothing.
My therapist says I need to focus and relax..and that it's my anxiety that comes out into these problems but I just can't seem to stop.
at this point they say since it's been going on so long they are considering putting me on meds but I just can't believe I have allowed this problem to get so bad.
Nearly ALL my signs of OCD I have re-covered from. I overcame an eating disorder, the counting, the germaphobia, the social anxieties.
I am not being put on meds for something as stupid as lip picking! UGH!!
My normal coping mechanism is running/pacing/walking and if I can't move I just PICK PICK PICK and it's so dumb and just UGH WHY?!