OUTBREAK
I was left with ‘permanent chickenpox’ for 10 years after picking my face for six hours a day
AS a teenager, Aubrey Wagner suffered from tension and anxiety.
It was this that led the then 13-year-old to start picking her skin, using it as an "unhealthy coping mechanism" to deal with her emotions.
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It's a habit that only intensified during stressful periods and Aubrey said she would often find herself in a "trance" picking her face, while staring in the mirror.
The intense picking left her with so many bloody scabs that it looked as though she had chicken pox.
At the age of 18, Aubrey, who lives in South Carolina, was diagnosed with dermatillomania - a disorder whereby you are unable to stop picking your skin.
Now the assistant boutique manager is speaking out about her condition after overcoming it "little by little".
Aubrey, now 24, said: "The longest time I've gone was probably six hours before I snapped out of it and realised what I was doing.
"I found myself sitting on my counter and that made the time go by even quicker because I didn't realise how long I was standing.
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"My roommate finally had to use the bathroom after being gone pretty much all day and I was so traumatised to even come out of the bathroom because I knew what I had just done after I'd kind of snapped out of this almost trance so to speak. It was really scary.”
Describing it as being like an "out-of-body" experience when she stepped back from the mirror Aubrey said it was like a monster had been the one picking her skin.
"It's so unconscious that once you step back from the mirror and you see yourself, it all really hits and it's like a drop in your stomach.
“It's really hard to look at after you've done something like that because the first thing you want to do is go and hide, and that's what I would do”, she said.
As a teenager, Aubrey started to pick her skin "lightly", but by time she got to college she was picking her skin almost every day.
"Often, for me, it was when I found myself with the most schoolwork, stress or something on my plate. I would go into the bathroom, take a shower, whatever I needed to do," she said.
It almost looked like I had chickenpox. I would find myself just picking away at the scabs making it only worse
Aubrey Wagner
"I would then find myself in the mirror with just one little bump and I'd be like 'that needs to get popped, I'll pop that' and then I'd find another one on my face because I was looking so closely.
"It just never ever really stopped. It just felt like there was always a place on my face or my back that needed, in my mind, extra TLC one might say. I needed to pick it in order to make it better, that's how I always thought about it."
After a few hours of picking, Aubrey said she would often step back and feel disheartened about what she had done.
She added: "Every time I pick, often I would find myself bleeding with red sores. Those would tend to scab over in the next few days but they were open wounds that I would create.
"It almost looked like I had chickenpox, some may say.
What is dermatillomania?
Dermatillomania is a compulsive disorder that makes sufferers pick their skin, causing nasty wounds.
People with the condition can't stop themselves, and pick by habit.
They will excessively pick, scratch, gouge or squeeze healthy skin.
Typically sufferers will focus on their face and lips, as well as arms, hands and scalp.
Freckles and moles are also targeted for picking, and in some cases people will pick inaginary skin defects.
They will use their nails, but also pins or tweezers.
The result is bleeding and bruising that can cause infection and scars.
"Often after I had picked my skin, if I was going to do school work or trying to do something that I had anxiety about, I would find myself just picking away at the scabs making it only worse.
"That was something I like to call 'mindless picking' - where you're not intentionally doing it, like I have when I sat in the mirror."
Because of how intensely she picked her skin, Aubrey is still dealing with the scarring.
She said that after her dermatillomania diagnosis, she felt relieved, but knew that it wasn’t something she could immediately stop doing.
Aubrey said that she tended to stay at home a lot as she didn’t feel confident showing her face, even though she says she was very good at covering the marks up with make-up.
'I DIDN'T FEEL PRETTY'
"I was not only ashamed. I didn't feel pretty. I knew that a conversation was going to have to come about it and I just didn't want to have it either”, she added.
Aubrey said she started posting videos on TikTok in order to hold herself accountable when it came to her habit.
She explained: “I thought it was a way for some people to see it and hopefully see my progress, so that way I would feel like I owe something to those people in order to make that progress.
"It was so surprising when it gained popularity with people dealing with the exact same thing and it was nice to know that honestly, I didn't feel alone because for ten years I thought I was."
Aubrey puts her success in trying to ditch her skin-picking habit down to a reduction in her stress levels after graduating from college.
'PROUD OF MY PROGRESS'
She regularly shares informative TikTok videos about dermatillomania from which she has received a lot of support and amassed more than 831,000 likes and followers.
Aubrey said: "A lot of people see my skin now and ask me 'how did you stop?' and the craziest thing is I never really fully stopped, and I still haven't.
"I think that's because the goal for so many people with dermatillomania is to stop picking and that was my goal for a really long time too.
"But I figured out that that didn't necessarily work for me. What I did was slowly back off, little by little and celebrating when I did make progress.
"With my mental health, I don't think I'll ever be able to fully stop and honestly, I think that's ok.
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"I'm very proud of the progress that I've made and the scars on my skin don't really bother me compared to what I used to do.
"I don't feel like hiding my face anymore, which was crazy because I was so used to doing that in social settings. The amount of confidence I have is much higher."
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