i actually brought up pretty much this exact problem with my therapist a couple days ago, and the conclusion that we came to is that for me, it's not a disorder because it doesn't... really bother me, i guess? i know that it's not good, but i still enjoy it. Spoiler: gross TMI anecdata i'll pick at anything: my face, ingrown hairs on my legs, scabs (to the point where i'll have a particular scab for weeks because i won't let it heal). if i can pick at it, i will. sometimes that means i have a few tiny scabs on my face, but a few scabs bother me less than 'something under my skin that i could probably remove with tweezers and a safety pin'. i cover it up with makeup if i have to, but my skin is pretty good so i don't have much reason to pick at it most of the time. BUT. if there's nothing to pick at, sometimes i'll create something to pick at. i have, in the past, gotten bored and curious and decided to see if i could pick the pigment out of a freckle/birthmark on my leg with a safety pin. (spoilers: i could.) is it a compulsion? ......mayyybe? it's hard for me to tell, because i don't put any effort into resisting the desire to pick, so i don't know if it's something i can't control. i imagine i could stop, if i wanted to. but it's fun and it gives me something to focus on for a few minutes. describing it out loud to my therapist in these terms was weird, because as much i as don't view my own behaviour as harmful, i understand that it's a bit strange. anyway. definitely weird behaviour but since it doesn't distress me at all, we decided it was probably a weird anxiety-and-ADHD-fixation behaviour, rather than a sign of a disorder. SHRUG!!
i find that interesting bc my therapist was pretty set on calling my picking "self mutilation", even though i told her no, i do not do this because itll scar or because itll hurt (it normally doesnt, unless i dig at one for too long, and that is not the desirable outcome for me), but that is what she wanted to call it!! shruuuug
haha my therapist asked some preeetty pointed questions regarding the motivation behind the behaviour, but, i mean. i've told her that i've engaged in very minor acts of intentional self-harm before, like scratching myself with a safety pin, so it's not like i wouldn't be up-front about the picking if it really was self-destructive. i wouldn't describe my own picking as self-mutilation, but i guess it is, strictly speaking? i mean, it wouldn't be incorrect to call it self-mutilation, it's just that the mutilation part is incidental. really i'm just super fascinated with Pickable Things. is your therapist just being Technical at you, or is she making a statement about your intent (even though you've told her otherwise)?
oh. yeah, thats me haha i would have put more effort into separating the two, but. i didn't think i'd be posting anything here when i made the account. shrug!
yeah!! i stumbled across it and i was like gee....this url.......looks familiar.......... yes thats me :D
