Ah yes, skin picking. the bane of my social existence for so many years. My teenage years began in about 1970; a time of great turmoil in the USA. We were still engaged in losing the Viet Nam War, the ‘60’s had come with such hope, and gone with little fanfare… I was 14 and living in Mexico. My boyfriend Steve and I had hitchhiked to Merida, where we stayed in a tiny hotel withn a mirror on thje wall by the door. Steve went to buy us some food, and I unacked from our single suitcase. Glancing in the mirror, I noticed a spot on my cheek; getting vcloser to the mirror, I realized it was a humongous, disgusting, blackhead! It looked wide in diameter, slightly cratered, yet was obviously FULL OF STUFF! I became obsessed weith removing it, getting it OUT. Steve came back and knocked on the door, having bought vus some dinner. I could NOT stop what I was doing; I was rooted just 3 inches from the mirror, and I was SO CLOSE to removing the thjick viscous blob thjat was emerging vafter being squeezed…

It wasn’t until he started pounding on the door that my trance was broken and I hurriedly opened the door. “What happened to you? Did you fall asleep?” he inquired, as he set down the food on a table. “Yes, I fell asleep, Sorry!” For the next 30 years or so, I would spend hours doing what felt like “necessary house cleaning,” where I would zoom in and focus on removing “stuff that doesn’t belong there” from the pores on my face, my shoulders, and my thighs. I used tweezers, needles, and my fingers, damaging my skin until I looked like I was diseased. Small sores erupted with infections across my body until I learned has to be moreantiseptic, using alcohol and neosporin as I went. At 34 years old I had a marvelous, life changing vision about what we call BFRBs today. I set out on a new path of discovery and self acceptance, changing the world for myself and many others as the years unfolded. Today? I have just over 30 years of freedom from the overwhelming compulsion to pick my skin and “get that shit out of there.”

Daily BFRB Recovery Text Message: Some Samples of the Things I Like to Share Bbout.

BIG NOTE! I have chosen to use MMS texting, instead of the shorter, more common SMS texting format so I can convey longer messaging, so it's very important to make sure your device can receive mms. Otherwise I recommend receiving them via email.  Below are some sample texts to give you a sense of what might catch my fancy, regarding my experience with BFRBs, Life in general, and the whole Universe!

shortly after I discovered millions of people did what I did, I began to have a series of dreams. One night, I dreamed I was on a tropical island, all alone. As I sat there on the island, looking out at sea I began to do what I had always done. To pull my hair. My fingers searching, searching, scratching through level s of hair, seeking for a particular hair, with particular qualities; that would consume me with a single type of sensation; grasping and feeling, burrowing to find more, ooh, almost, but not quite! Then, I would find THE ONE. Gently grasping it, doing a controlled tug, in a certain way with a certain awareness of how much tension to unleash… the hair would “pop” out, which I could “hear through my scalp,” feel through both my scalp and my fingers, experience the sharpness of a miniscule tingle on my scalp, the silkiness of the single hair between my fingers… as I would bring my hand up so I could SEE the root bulb, vision was SO important to this ritual; if I dropped the hair I would feel the wrongness of my loss, feeling bereft, unless I found it again. As I sat there, pulling my hair and looking out over the seemingly limitless expanse of ocean, I realized something. I felt absolutely no shame about pulling. It was simply something I did, that engaged me in a particular way. Nobody was watching, and nobody knew. because I was the only person in the whole world right then, sitting on that island. I also realized I LIKED pulling, I liked the way it felt, the way it tasted, and that it was not my enemy. It was my companion; yes, a companion thast grew in response to great need. It was not out to hurt me, belittle me or shame me; it was solely emerging as a pathway to disperse the charges in my nervous system I had no idea how to process.

ON EMOTIONS: a huge driver for my BFRB behaviors was having intense emotions that I did NOT want to feel. I would panic when the more difficult emotions arose; fear, anger, sorrow, frustration, impatience, etc.. I felt letting them flow would literally kill me! I would clamp them down, get drunk, dissociate, simply deny them, do ANYTHING to NOT feel them. That did NOT work, as I began self-medicating with drugs & alcohol to not feel; It took a serious intervention to get me checked into an inpatient rehab to receive life-saving treatment for my “self medication problem.” Today, I have learned not to fight how I feel, finding the less resistance I have to the flow of my emotions the more enjoyable they are, & the better they are processed. AND …. my BFRB behaviors are less often triggered!

. Today I notice my emotions, feel them, & if needed, take immediate action. This might be:

1. Slowing down, & focus on diaphragmatic breathing to engage my parasympathetic system;

2. Jumping in the shower to flood my aura with negative ions;

3. Getting out in Nature, barefoot if possible;

4. Asking a loved one to ive me a hug;

5. Standing & shaking my whole body! (see Peter Levine’s somatic trauma work).

Over time, I've learned to process, & much more easily navigate, emotions at levels that seemed unbearable in the past.

Today, I am SO much more at ease in my body!

Much Love, Christina

To OPT OUT, enter STOP

I don’t know why, but I am a visionary of sorts. All my life I have received visions, of varying intensity and complexity. From childhood, I felt the Presence of a Love greater than me, but felt so broken, I feared seeking it. Early on, I named it Jesus, then Buddha Nature, followed by Great Spirit and Higher Power. At 34, I experienced a vision of such beauty and clarity, it compelled me to develop a “voice” for BFRBs. I opened TLC. Today, I have no need to name this Presence other than Love. But as words help convey information, somtimes I will use the words “God,” “Allah” “YAHWEH,” or “Higher Power,” but mostly use “The Flow for the Greater Good” which sgnifies to me the embodiment of Living Love. Over time I came to understand the source of what I call “me” (which is ALL of me, including my BFRBs!) is this Great Love, a Force completely beyond my limited comprehension, but worth true devotion.

When I transit onward, I have a hunch it is to this Profundity of Love I shall return. My problem is as a busy minded human, swept up regularly in the chaos of daily life it is often difficult to remember this deep truth, staying grounded in the unfolding moments of Creation. As Mother Theresa stated at a talk she gave in the late 1970’s in San Jose, California, that I read about at the time in the San Jose Mercury News; “Lord, the little I can do, let me do now. For I am but a drop in your Ocean, but without me, the Ocean is one drop less.”

"In the End, Love Wins.”

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