bad habits

squeezing until something comes out

I’m breaking out. All over my face. With small, itchy, inflamed spots—like hives or bug bites, except it’s neither of those things (I am also breaking out in the normal way). With these bumps dotted along my cheeks and chin and neck, I have no choice but to scratch, scraping my stubby nails against my skin until it gets to be too much.

All day, the itch is sharp and relentless, a buzzing in my ears that refuses to quit. Something to do with the heat. The evening breeze pushing gently through the open windows of my bedroom here offers a much-needed respite from everything. A welcome change from the stuffy, 73-degree nights of summer at home. In bed, I lay awake listening to the noises of the courtyard below—the jangle of someone’s keys and the subsequent beep of their car as they return home from a long night, a burst of laughter between friends enjoying each other’s company while they still can.

This summer feels different, and yet the same. In the way my life always does. For the first time, I won’t be wasting away at home, stuck in the monotony of the suburbs as I ruminate on my past, literally and figuratively back in my childhood. I want to believe that I’ve changed, and I have, just not in the ways that truly matter. Throughout these constant cycles of growth and discovery, or rediscovery, I seem to find myself back in the same place I began.

Another extraction video pops up on my screen while I’m in the middle of my nightly (and morningly and afternoonly) scroll. Armed with surgical gloves and a small tool ending in a loop, the girl methodically pops each of her pimples, a series of small tensions and releases as she presses until the skin gives way. By the end, her skin shines red, with pus and other liquids leaking from the various wounds she has just opened. It is almost an exact reflection of my own face. Some twenty minutes prior, I stood inches away from the bathroom mirror, picking and squeezing at the slightest texture felt beneath my fingers until my whole face buzzed, irritated and inflamed from my inspection.

The hard white matter deeply rooted within a pore, I’ve learned, is called the seed of a pimple. Supposedly, removing it ensures that the pimple does not regrow. I feel as though I’ve removed a seed from the same pimple over and over again, each time hoping it will be the last.

One firm squeeze expels the small lump from my skin, another brings a flood of translucent, yellow-tinged pus with drops of bright red blood. A third squeeze, to be safe, only forces out more pus. With the foreign mass finally purged from my body, a twisted sense of satisfaction washes over me, settling deep within my bones. I feel cleansed, convinced that I won’t mess with my skin anymore. At least until the next pimple forms.

I just can’t help myself. Of course, I’ve heard all about how bad this is for my skin, how I’m only going to leave myself with scars and hyperpigmentation. And yet, I continue to pick. I have always been a picker, never able to let anything be. Once I get it in my head that something is bothering me, I have to fix it. Stopping at nothing until I feel that sense of relief and satisfaction. As a young girl, I would often have to sleep with cotton gloves on, medical tape securing the ends to my wrists. My mother was desperate for anything that would keep me from scratching at my eczema throughout the night. Persistent as ever, I thought I was clever for using my toenails to scrape the rash at the back of my calf. As I grew up—and out of my eczema, for the most part—the scratching turned to squeezing.

I can’t help but wonder, is this something I was born to do? As if there is something innate within me that insists I must scratch and pick and squeeze, even when it’s painful. It almost feels easier to believe that this is out of my control, just something I have to accept about myself. Otherwise, it’s simply a bad habit that I’m not strong enough to kick.

Just the other night, hot tears soaked my pillow as I couldn’t seem to decide whether anything would ever be enough for me. I’ve joined clubs and changed how I dress and tried new things and talked to new people and cut my hair. For someone else, that might have been enough to feel better. To feel like their life means something. My brother tells me I’m too self-hating. Another bad habit, I hope.

I’m not sure how I became so dissatisfied with my life, so unfulfilled. The (not-so) distant future seems bleak, no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise. I can’t help but look back to my sophomore year in high school, when I got through each day with gritted teeth and a naive belief that it would get better, eventually. And yet, eventually somehow became now and I still feel the same—deeply unhappy with what seems like everything in my life. Not exactly a feeling I can alleviate with a quick scratch of nails against flesh, or the firm pressure of fingertips on either side of a zit.

In these moments, I feel all the different versions of myself collapsing in on each other. Ten years ago, I felt that first flash of insecurity at the realization that I didn’t look like everyone else, in countless ways. Five years ago, what I wanted was the last thing to cross my mind as I planned my future, my life. Three years ago, my life changed forever when I moved away for college, and I had never felt so unsure, but also excited, yet still scared. Looking back, so much of my life is characterized by a deep disconnect from myself, my hopes and dreams and wants and needs, which truly makes me question whether I will ever be able to enjoy life in the way I wish I could. A sort of pure, easy happiness that always feels ever so slightly out of reach, no matter what I do.

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The working title for this piece was ‘Concentric’, referring to the concept of circles with different sizes sharing the same origin. The idea of growing and expanding outwards, while maintaining a connection to all that had come before, resonated with me.