I Can't Stop Reading

Is it weird, or wrong, to continuously read my writing?

Am I egotistical?

Am I allowed to be proud of my ability to put my thoughts on to a computer screen?

Or is it the emotion, the catharsis, of reading my stream of consciousness?

Oh Faulkner, you will always be my first treasured author.

Today, I got a few more spots on my face.

And today, I told myself, "you don't need to pick at that, it's not that big of a deal."

And today, I listened to myself. I didn't do it anyway.

I really wish I had some sort of insurance to determine if I am really truly depressed, if my anxiety is as bad as I think it is, or if I am just kind of lame and unable to handle disparity well.

I mean, I think I have pretty bad anxiety. I show symptoms of having a skin picking disorder, which are linked closely with anxiety and depression.

But really? Am I gonna trust Web MB and whatever Google brings up for me? Nahhh.

I might trust a PDF written by a doctor, though.

I need to figure out what triggers me to pick at my skin,

One thing mentioned was mirrors - I may need to cover my mirrors for some time in order to help my recovery. I don't need them in my room, and I can remove the covers if I need to do my makeup or something for going out.

I absolutely have a problem with picking at my face. I need help. But I have no money and I have no way to access a doctor of any kind any time soon. I can't even get my root canal until July because I couldn't make the April 23rd apt. My Mom was out of town and it was too far for me to get there on my own... and unlike my mother, I don't believe in burdening my friends with my personal problems, especially when they live half an hour away in Elk Grove. Yes, my friends theoretically should be happy to help me, but they have their own lives to deal with. They have to work, gas is expensive, and it really is a lot to ask for someone to pick you up, drop you off, and return to do so. That is honestly just too much.

I think I need one of those sunshines from CRPD to squeeze. I need to do something else other than to pick my face. I need to find some sort of behavioral conditioning tool. Whenever someone tells me, "don't pick at your face!!" It just evokes supreme feelings of shame and guilt. It encourages me to hide my issue, rather than deal with it. It reminds me that I have self confidence issues because of my own inability to keep my hands away from my face. That just continuously spirals into more despair, depression, and lack of hope.

I recently discovered that it is not simply my face that I pick, because when I am out I won't pick at my face. I wouldn't dare mess up my makeup in fear of the shame of a half made up half acne filled monstrosity. I don't know if anything screams "Please help me, I am caught in a cesspit of internalized misogyny and mental health issues and I don't have the resources to help myself," more than an obviously freshly picked at / still sort of made up face. So I have taught myself not to pick my face in public. When I am at home, though, there is no fear. I can lock the door to my room and just pick at my face until I feel better about it. Until I feel like my blemish is at least. "off my face." Let's not even talk about the dermatological setbacks constantly touching, picking, squeezing, and scratching at my face encourages. I know they are there. I know that I am not supposed to touch my face often. I just do it anyway. It relieves stress.

Lately, I have been trying to move on from Marine and combating the stress my boy internalized by doing whatever I can to help myself. I went to Ulta, talked to this super nice lady named Vicki Sue, and she is gonna hook me up. It's like she could really see right through me to the pain I have held in my soul for so many years. I have been doing very well. The first week I had the nice, new, "hope in a bag" as I call it, my face got visibly clearer. I believe that my new-found hope for myself really propelled me into not touching, picking, or scratching at my face. However, this second or third week, I can hardly remember how long now, I have discovered acne in spots where it shouldn't be, and I have picked at it. I need to constantly remind myself that even though a sore may be painful, gross, and awful to look at one day, it is usually just for one day. That's it. Just gotta leave it alone and it'll be better tomorrow.

I think another issue that really explicates my picking issue is my constant state of discomfort. I don't know what I did to my back in the 6th grade, but I was sweeping one day, pulled it, and it has never been the same since. My back always hurts. Always. I only have so much mental capability for dealing with constant pain. I want any new, temporary pain to go away immediately. Apparently, this means immediate enough that I will literally rip my skin apart to not feel the pressure of a forming spot.

Does writing about all of this help? Maybe? Dunno.

We'll see. I really need one of those sunshines. It's kind of crazy, I should have like a million of them.
I also have this bag from SF Pride like three years ago. Stress ball squeezy-things are pretty common "swag" from large scale events.

Actually, I don't want one of the sunshines. I want the ball. The sunshine is cute but the whole point of a stress ball type-thing is that it is a ball. It is round, and it fits in the palm of your hand in a way that is easily squeezable.

There's gotta be one of these around here somewhere! Gosh I could've made a ball pit with all the CRPD swag I had or have... not sure which.

I am almost done writing for now. But I need to mention that thing again.

The whole reason I woke up to read my writing was because I wanted to think about how much my simple silly friend from Colorado has changed my attitude towards myself for the better.

I am so grateful to him. I stayed up with him until the light of dawn last night. We just talked about the things we loved, and it was lovely.

I don't use my webcam with him yet. And it's funny, because it's not actually because I am so embarrassed, well, it's not all that, anyway. It's absolutely part that. But it's because my reward for my face clearing up will being able to make him happier. I want him to see me as all smiles, a beautiful, lively girl on the other side of the mountains. A person who has the confidence to wake up in the morning and not rush to the mirror to see if any new spots have appeared. I know I can do it. He is my encouragement.
...and he is not mad.
He doesn't see my insecurity as a fault of his own. He knows it is my problem. He does not think he is lacking in any way because I feel bad about my face.
But he does not blame me. He does not make me feel bad about not wanting to be on webcam. He does not pressure me to do so. The other night, I was thinking about it and I changed my mind. He was simply happy that I had reached the point where I had considered it again. Granted, he was a little sad because he thinks I am beautiful, and would just love to see my face, but that's okay. That's a reasonable emotional response, and does not place blame or guilt on me.

Man, when he comes back to my blog, he is gonna have a hell of a lot of text to read! I'm so excited because he'll be so proud of me for continuing to write. He'll tell me that he loves to read my writing, and though I never want to hear it read aloud, he'll tease me by reading select bits, and now he'll probably read a little bit extra just to mess with me because I wrote this! The meta is meta is meta is meta is meta.

. . .

I honestly don't even know if that is correct or true or anything but I feel like writing the word "meta" in my blog makes it entirely more profound, right?
And I mean, I put five of 'em in here. Five "metas."
Six now.
Writing is so weird and magical and line breaks and punctuation make me so giddy.

Thanks for reading, internet, see you later!