This poem is about a mental disorder that I have been diagnosed with and I hope that my poem sheds some light and brings awareness to this horrible monster of a disorder. And that if you know someone who picks their skin (dermatillomania) or pulls out their hair (trichotillomania) then you will be more understanding and try to understand that it is something that is extremely hard to stop. If you have any questions about this disorder feel free to message me. I also create photo art and above is one of my art pieces also titled "Skin deep" The photo is of me and how derma makes me feel.
(TRIGGER WARNING IF YOU HAVE DERMATILLOMANIA)
A mirror reflects my innermost haunting fears.
Inside I'm screaming and flooded with invisible tears.
The ritual now begins,
A new cycle
starts again.
A secret beneath the surface, that my skin can only tell.
No one knows I've been living in my own private hell.
And each time I defy reason and convince myself "I'm simply just fixing my skin"
And I scratch and I squeeze and I dig and I pick,
like I'm trying to find a hidden treasure buried within.
Hours go by, and my mind just lingers on one thing,
"Just this one, and then I'll stop", but then I just end up doing it over and over again.
And then at some point after the hours have flown by,
I'm too exhausted to keep going, and I see my face and I break down and cry.
I see all the red and I panic, "Oh God no! Is that blood?"
Overwhelming pain and guilt seeps in and buries me in a confusion flood.
These bloody constellations
Form a cold shattering realization
And an explanation
Of an excavation
Of the truth that I can not deny
I have done this to myself,
And it makes my heart sink and I feel a heaviness deep inside.
I put on makeup but its so fresh the blood just seeps through.
So I think of ways to hide it, and I even pick and dig some more then too.
"Oh God! Why cant I stop?" I beg, I plead!
Why do I have these thoughts? What is wrong with me?
My complexion ripped to shreds along with my self respect and dignity.
Why cant I be normal and not think like well...me?
Cold fears, and thoughts of rejection penetrating my soul nearly driving me insane.
And I get taunted with an "I told you so" from somewhere else deep inside my brain.
So I promise myself I won't do it again.
But I see I am picking before I can even count to ten.
This thing that destroys my skin, my thoughts, my life...
it has a name.
Its called dermatillomania and I will no longer be ashamed!
I will fight proud with my leopard spots.
I will be strong and defeat these unnatural thoughts.
I will aim my claws at derma and proudly stand.
For I am worth so much more than being destroyed by my own hand.
For little did I know that no amount of digging could ever compare,
To all the strength I have inside and all the hope Im able to share.
I am beautiful and strong and no matter what, derma cant take that away from me...
It can't hold me back from being exactly who I want to be.
Because that hidden treasure that I was digging for all along,
was buried deeper than my skin,
I had it all wrong.
I'm not a girl that has to live with Derma, Derma has to live with Me!
I will fight by putting a face to its name so the whole world can see!
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That is so beautiful! I have derma too... I really like the part about derma having to live with you not visa versa. Stay strong and keep writing!
Thank you so much!!! Im a year late reading thjs but it came at the perfect time, thank u!
OMG someone who finally understands what I go through. Gosh I use to be so bad. Whenever I get anxious I pick at these little bumps on my skin and then I have scars all over and I feel guilty. I try to stop but I just never can just like you said. I would love to talk to you! Message me!
I can only hope that somehow i can make a difference.
This disease has given you a great thing to share and write about. I honestly and sincerely hope you get better, I know people who cut themselves through their problems and I find this similar. Your writing could be a cure. I won't tell you I understand how it is, because I truthfully dont. I don't know what it feels like to want to get inside yourself to hopefully find something, someone better, but sometimes I think my brain does. It's like I can write things that I didn't even know I knew, or felt. It's sometimes scary to me, that I can write down anyone's perspective on arguments without knowing how it actually feels myself. Well I just wanted to say that I love your work!
This disease has given you a great thing to share and write about. I honestly and sincerely hope you get better, I know people who cut themselves through their problems and I find this similar. Your writing could be a cure. I won't tell you I understand how it is, because I truthfully dont. I don't know what it feels like to want to get inside yourself to hopefully find something, someone better, but sometimes I think my brain does. It's like I can write things that I didn't even know I knew, or felt. It's sometimes scary to me, that I can write down anyone's perspective on arguments without knowing how it actually feels myself. Well I just wanted to say that I love your work!
Wow, thank you. And yes I know exactly what you mean. Its empathy, and its rare. I can write about things that Ive never experienced and people will read it and think I have because it reaches them in that way. Hold onto that, it really makes you special, especially as a writer! I appreciate all the love and support and I will say that my writing has been a great coping tool for me. Skin picking is not exactly the same as self harm (which Ive also suffered from in the past) Its more on the side of OCD because the behavior is obsessive and compulsive. I dont want to hurt myself in fact my brain tells me that by picking, the result will be smooth and flawless skin, which isnt logical as with most OCD driven rituals. Ive had this since I was 4. Im not sure what caused it, I just remember doing it and not even noticing that I did it, and then realizing my ankle (thats where I used to pick before my face) would start bleeding and someone would scream "ewww shes bleeding gross!" And id get sent to the nurse for a bandaid. As I got older Id just run to the bathroom and wipe it up with toilet paper, or roll my socks up past the spots that were bleeding. Although that would still leave very obvious blood spots on my socks.
Wow, I can only imagine going through something like that. Is it odd that I've never even heard of skin-picking before this passage? Are there actual cures for something lIke this? Mental therapy?
Not odd at all. Thats why Im trying to spread awareness. There are a lot of people who have it but there is a certain amount of guilt and shame that comes along with it so its hard for people who have it to even tell their friends and family. As far as cures, there isnt anything yet because they havent figured out what the cause is, so doctors are still learning about this disorder. There needs to be more research done though in my opinion. There is therapy, and different coping skills. For instance, i started something called the Butterfly project, Its where everytime I feel the urge to pick, instead I draw a butterfly and color it and put it up on my wall, it keeps my hands busy for that time, theres also fidget toys available out there like spinner rings, that will keep your hands busy when you feel the urge to pick. But the urges never go away. And its a constant struggle everyday.
Wow thanks for your help and opinion on this new subject, I hope you spread as much awareness as possible about this.
Thank you
And I will try my best.
Hi, Ashkitten83!
Introduction:
Great job. This poem really resonated with me, as I'm sure it will with your other readers. In this review, I'll just highlight a few suggestions and a few things that I loved.
Title:
First of all, your title is brilliant. You take a well-known phrase and turn it into something more profound. It's, quite honestly, masterful.
Formatting, Punctuation, and Grammar:
This is free verse, to you can obviously disregard any advice I mention here.
"Cant" should be "can't".
Three dots in the ellipses.
"That" shouldn't be capitalized. Fairly sure that this is a word processing error, though.
"i" should be "I", just for consistency's sake.
AGAIN: If you choose so, definitely disregard the above changes.
Flow and Phrasing:
Flow is, again, subjective, so feel free to just forget about my comments here. But there are two main instances where I think your phrasing could improve:
This could be "A mirror reflects my innermost haunting fears.
Inside I'm screaming and flooded with invisible tears.
The ritual now begins,
A new cycle
starts again."
Putting "starts again" on its own line is more powerful and adds more emphasis to your beautiful phrasing.
My other suggestion would be this:
If you put more emphasis on "it has a name", you can build up suspense and keep the reader engaged, like this:
"This thing that destroys my skin, my thoughts, my life...
it has a name.
It's called dermatillomania and I will no longer be ashamed!
Vocabulary:
No specific edits here. Just an exercise that I recommend to all poets and that I think you would benefit from. I certainly do!
Style:
You're obviously writing this from a deep, beautiful part of yourself, and that I appreciate. I think that--at this point--the thing that you could benefit most from would be the vocabulary exercise above. You have such an innate sense of timing and you're very genuine, but vocabulary can only be developed through experience.
Keep writing,
IronSpark
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and for such a thorough review. Usually I am quite good at finding mistakes in other peoples work, but when it comes to my own (besides spelling) I overlook so much. Anyways thank you for finding the mistakes, and I've already fixed them because you were absolutely right about all of them. You were right about moving those two sentences to seperate lines too, they are more powerful that way. I changed a couple words with that excercise but I would still like you to let me know if you have any more suggestions. Thank you for all of your positive comments!
Wow, great poem! It's rather sad, although I love the triumphant feeling at the end.
Normally I don't like poetry that much, but you strung the words together so well I can't help but click the "like" button. Great job, I look forward to seeing more of your work! 
Good luck with your writing.
Thank you so very much! I appreciate such positive comments. It really made me smile.
*Stares at the computer in awe*
Hello AshKitten! Celtic Thunder's #1 fan here to review some of your work. You can call me Selina, since Celtic Thunder's #1 fan, is long xD
First off I would like to say that this poem was a really good and inspiring one. Even though I cannot relate I felt what you were trying to say, with a bunch of other problems I have =) I didn't even know that this thing even existed so it was really nice of you to let the world know its out there. Good job.
For the review, I have to say that there are a lot of grammar mistakes. I suggest you read through your poem and check for them. There are quite a few, too many to ignore actually. Sometimes you didn't capitalize, other times there were different grammar mistakes. Over all, I just suggest you reread and check them out =)
This poem was very well written, and it showed to the world what that disease does. Good job with that!
Anyways, I have nothing more to say except, KEEP WRITING.
Look forward to seeing more of your work,
~Selina
Thanks for the positive comments, and yes the grammar was horrendous because I was doing it from a phone. I have made some adjustments so let me know if you would like to critique it now to make sure I got everything.