I’ve struggled with a skin-picking problem since I was tall enough to look over the sink into the bathroom mirror – and I have memories of pulling a chair up to get closer, so it might have started before I can even remember. I thought for a long time that it could be my brother’s suicide which prompted my strange habits, mental and physical, but as I age I’m starting to think maybe it was a lot more than that. Maybe it was before that. Maybe it’s shallower than that – or maybe it’s deeper.
When I was in high school I picked my face at my desk – this is the first time I think I did it in public. I would feel oil on my face, and rub some of it off onto my fingers, and then my fingers would find patches of skin that were raised or peeling, and I would start to go at them furiously and often subconsciously. It was like my hands liked it, not me.
I would actually bleed.
My fingers would come up off my skin and I’d feel that cool feeling and look down and see blood and it would make me feel awful and ugly and disgusting. And then I’d keep my head down even more and keep my hands on my face even more because I didn’t want anyone to see.
And people would notice. They’d be like, are you okay? And then my face would get red and blotchy and that’s how I’d live. It’s impacted every part of my life. My self-esteem but also my relationships and my health and my job and school.
I wish I had known about makeup. And not for the reason you think. It’s just that when I have a full face on, I don’t have any urge to pick at my skin at all. Not even the tiniest bit. It was like a miracle the first time I tried it.
Why Not
When I was very small, people still used to say that using makeup would make your skin break out, that it was unhealthy, and that was probably pretty true because we didn’t have all these good brands back then, and things were full of mineral oils and all that nonsense. So not only was I discouraged from getting into skincare and makeup because my parents were very strict and didn’t want me to be obsessed with my looks or become vain, but also because there was a negative impression of cosmetics on the whole.
It’s a totally different story now, but I figured it’d be good to write down my experience and talk about why these things are important to me.
I still pick at my face. I’ve made so much progress and had so many highs and lows over the last few decades. And I’ve given it a lot of thought.
My Mentality
I’m not medicated for whatever it is that makes me do this, because I don’t regularly see a doctor. GASP. I know, as I get older I’m sure I’ll wish I had been going more regularly, it’ll be harder to maintain my health without professional help. But some things in my life sort of uprooted me a long time ago and I never really did settle back into a lot of cultural norms. I have some bad habits that stuck with me and I have some things I never got in the habit of doing.
I’m also not medicated because I’d like to learn self-control on my own. Or at least, I’d like to give it a really good concentrated effort before I medicate. I have nothing against medications and I know they save a lot of lives. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong or whatever. I am not a medical professional, have no experience in the medical field, pretty sure I don’t even know anyone in the medical field. All my opinions are principle based. And not as in, I have principles, but more like, it’s the principle of the thing, it’s the idea.
I think a lot has gone right and a lot has gone wrong with the mental health movement over the last few decades – a lot of it is linked to generational differences, I think a lot of it is related to sexism, and I think it’s very sad. Some things make me very very sad.
When I was small, maybe 9 or 10, I remember my dad telling me about the first time he heard the term “self-esteem” and what he thought about it. At the time he sounded pretty cold, and I remember thinking Dad, self-esteem is so important, how can you think it’s a problematic term? But as I get older I’ve started to understand his perspective.
Self-esteem can mean a lot of different things, and some of them are great, but I think some of them take it too far. Self-esteem, in my opinion, should mean that you are able to recognize your own worth as a person and see your inherent value aside from what others gain from you. Self-esteem should not mean, in my opinion, the ability to deflect genuine critique, and convince yourself you’re perfect just the way you are, even when you’re hurting others, behaving poorly, or being “toxic.”
Self esteem shouldn’t be a word and tool used to conveniently ignore society’s cues that you are somehow missing the mark. Society, with all its faults, does a decent job at communicating where you’re failing and you should listen, and still know yourself to be human and worthy of respect.
So my journey with self-esteem has been complicated – and it still is, even though I’ve achieved it. I’m an independent experiment of my own.
About Me
I’m self-taught with makeup. It’s been a lot of YouTube, a lot of asking my friends and coworkers, and a lot of buying random brands and subscription boxes to try new things out myself. The journey has been pretty exhausting and extensive and for a long time I carried some of the prejudices with me that other people had given me, about how girls who wear makeup are just insecure, just need more development, just need … just aren’t enough … just can’t …
And I’m sure that maybe some girls who wear makeup wear it because they are insecure? Or like, for the wrong reasons? But for me, it would have just been great to not have my face constantly bleeding.
I didn’t even know that it would have helped, back then, when I wasn’t allowed to wear it. I hadn’t even considered that it would help with my actual impulses, or like impact the focus. At the time I just thought hey, maybe I could cover all these awful red marks up with something else and feel better and look better. It didn’t occur to me until a long time later that it might psychologically affect me or help with the actual source of the problem.
So anyway, there’s a lot of context I need to go over, and some things that are hard to explain, but here is where I’ll be talking about my personal journey through makeup and skincare, and the things in my life that have impacted – and still do impact – the way I see myself and the reasons I reach for cosmetics. And I’d like to spend time here reviewing products and talking about my preferences and just having an outlet for everything I’ve absorbed.
And probably some self-confidence talk too, because I didn’t grow up with any of that, but I found it, and I hold onto it and I cherish it and I show it to everyone excitedly like I’m five and it’s my favorite pet rock. I worked hard – consciously, intentionally worked hard – to get to experience some confidence and I love the journey I went on and where it brought me.
The Tragedy
I mentioned my brother’s suicide and it’d be good for me to get that out of the way, I don’t want to talk about it any more, I don’t honestly want to talk to anyone about it ever, but as you can imagine it comes up. It’s not incredibly relevant, I don’t think, but when I was younger I thought it was the reason all sorts of things happened with me and my sister and the family.
He was fifteen when it happened, I had just turned eight the day before. We were both babies, really. Tore my family to pieces. Everyone scattered. Moved far away. The ties everyone had arranged between themselves fell hard. My mother lost a huge part of her soul. I heard the words out of her mouth like they were trying to twist back into her, like they had a hold of her and wouldn’t let her go.
Daddy
I’m dealing with it, but it’s such a huge part of my life, and I’d really like a space where I can talk about it. It’s the reason for the way my life went, and so many of my good and bad decisions, and honestly no one talks about it enough.
I’m just really attracted to men who are much older than I am. It’s been this way since before I can remember, and I’m pretty sure it’s why I struggle with the things I struggle with. I like men who are about a decade past me and it shows, who are intelligent, maybe a little
I have a hard time feeling attraction towards anyone less than 10 years older than me. I have tried. I have intentionally gone out on dates with people just because I’d like to see if I can feel something – and I don’t.
For a long time I tried to fight it, and my early twenties were just a huge escape attempt from what I thought was a limiting, socially weird thing that I had going on. But after some bad experiences trying to fight my nature, I realized maybe I can just embrace it. Maybe I am the way I am, and maybe what I need to be happy and satisfied is valid.
I’m currently living with my boyfriend in a gorgeous apartment in a really nice little town. I have a 9-5 full-time job that I like, and even though our relationship has had some rocky patches, I love this man and I’m hoping we can be together for a long time. He’s ten years older than I am, and we’re very similar people in a lot of ways.
He’s not my daddy, I don’t have one. He plays a crucial role for me, and he’ll give me what I need when I ask for it, but he doesn’t see me that way, doesn’t have that specific attachment to me. And I’ve learned how to be okay without that – more than okay, actually. This man satisfies me, cares for me, and encourages me to be better and work on myself and learn new things.
He’s handsome and talented and intelligent and everything I’ve always said I wanted in a man. And he hurts my feelings sometimes, and he’s crossed some of my hardest boundaries, but we’ve gotten through it. He loves me and I feel that from him and he’s willing to compromise and mostly willing to communicate, and right now that’s more than enough for me.
Sometimes I do wish I could experience some of the things that people with daddies experience, sexually and otherwise. But for the most part he gives me everything I want and he’s made a lot of non-lifestyle things really nice for me.
I probably won’t spend much time in this project going over anything graphic, but there’s definitely days when it’s on my mind or I’m missing something and I want to write about it. And if it helps someone accept themselves, or if I can give some advice based on what I went through, that’d be great too.
I’m twenty-six years old, and every year it’s harder and harder to age regress, which is fine because like I said my current relationship doesn’t involve very much of that anyway. But the things I used to like are starting to feel silly and childish, and I’m really grateful to have my boyfriend because he’s taught me a lot of new things I can love.
Thanks for reading this far and getting interested, I’d really like to share my story and talk to girls my age and younger about all this stuff. I feel like feminism has done a lot of good for women, but it’s missed the mark for me in a few ways I want to hopefully address.
One last thing, I’m starting this blog partially because I’m starting a fiverr seller account, and I need to be consistently writing and learning.
I’m excited to get started.