I may make this a zine later but for now here’s a list while i’m thinking about it:
1) Accept it happened so you can move on
Obsessing over how you picked isn’t going to unpick your skin, but keeping yourself agitated about it might stress you out enough to go back for round two.
2) DON’T EXFOLIATE A WOUND
DO NOT use exfoliating face wash within a good 48 hours of picking. We don’t exfoliate gashes, we shouldn’t exfoliate facial wounds either.
3) Gentle face wash
I use Cetaphil daily facial cleanser. Try not to scrub or pull at your face too hard or you might open up your wounds more and delay healing. Aggressively sanitizing your face usually only does more damage & can hurt the integrity of the rest of your skin (your sheild!), leaving you open to getting painful deep cystic acne from any passing dirt in the air. If you have an especially deep wound, GENTLY! wash it out. If it feels kinda zingy like a splinter (like there is something Not Right in there) use an antibiotic cream. Avoid things like hydrogen peroxide, as tempting as it is, it mostly just bleaches and flakes up your skin and makes things very painful, dry, and difficult to heal.
4) Gentle moisturizer
As soon as you pat your face dry, slap some moisturizer on there to keep in that precious healing energy. Make sure to use an unscented uncolored (?) (unpigmented?) moisturizer that is at least marginally suitable for use on / around wounds. Again, you don’t want to irritate your skin further. If nothing else, having itchy, burny skin is going to make you hyper aware of it & that tends to be ermm bad for derma. (e.g. i learned that even though my snail face cream is really nice on closed scabs, i don’t want to use it within 24 hrs of picking or else it burns)
I use an aquaphor (what people use on healing tattoos) knockoff for the really bad wounds & I use neutrogena hydroboost gel-cream for all-over gentle moisture.
5) Leave it alone
Slap a bunch of bandaids over it or put on some gloves if you need to. Distract yourself with something until you no longer feel that vibrational pull to the mirror. Your skin (mostly) knows what it’s doing. It can repair itself, but just like with tattoos and piercings, the more you fuss over it, the more you risk it getting messy. Look out for signs of infection over the next few days & take them seriously.
In the meantime, you can try using Distracting techniques like watching a show you like / listening to music / taking a shower / scrolling tumblr to get your brain to Chill. Whatever works for you.
Good luck <3
Side Note: Other people are oblivious. I know that paranoia where it feels like the world is staring at your inflamed face. Even when people notice, they tend to think it’s your standard acne. AND Those who would recognize it as self-inflicted are usually other people with dermatilliomania (and are probably experiencing some sort of “same hat!!!” feeling). When you’re feeling really paranoid / self-conscious, you can try wearing sunglasses to hide a bit of your face, it helps a lot for me (even though my sunglasses don’t cover a whole lot, it makes me FEEL covered and that’s all that’s important. Whatever helps you get out of the house afterwards)
queerdraws
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