What is the border

I have been a compulsive skin picker for years and I am finally getting a handle on it.  I am so afraid of damaging my skin again and forcing it into a vicious cycle of overgrowth and keeping the OCD alive.  I have been leaving my few pimples alone but touching them periodically just to check how they are doing, sometimes unconsciously.  Sometimes I let them completely fall off on there own and other times when it is finally a hard white ball and barely but still attached I will gently rub or pull off the ball (sometimes consciously and sometimes subconsiously).  This often happens when my anxiety may be high or I am trying to relax in front of the TV and forget to occupy my hands.The skin left is still pink but smoother and mostly closed.  I even picked a pimple on my face that acne cream would not take down all the way after a week or two after I touched it (I had also been touching other ones on my leg but left them alone so I guess you could say I was in the zone or sensitized).  It had a hard head and squirted out easily with only a tiny hole left.  It did not create anxiety for me although a couple of days later I picked off the remaining tiny bump and skin left behind when anxious (maybe the picking the two days before left me sensitized?).  My husbands says now I am just doing normal behaviour and that is realistic.  But I am wondering if a compulsive picker can ever touch or check a pimple or even just dead skin again without it being a relapse especially if something was picked/pulled/rubbed out even if it is on it's last legs but still attached.  I try hard to just exfoliate skin and pimples normally with cleansing scrubs in the shower and let them fall off/out when they are ready through this exfoliation or on their own another time.  This is the ideal right?  I just need to have some border of how far a compulsive skin picker can go with skin grooming without living on the edge keeping the OCD active.  Thanks for your time and response.
  

[Ted A Grossbart, Ph.D.]

Intriguing question.  I don't subscribe to the notion that CSP is like some views of alcoholism and total abstainence is the only route to success.  It sounds like you are doing a great job on the behavior level.  I agree with your husband.

It sounds like you have beaten the compulsion but still have an obsession, the mental part.  It sounds like that is where the remaining problem lies, not the odd touch or pick.

Consider the question:  "What would I be thinking about or feeling if I weren't focused on my skin?"

Let me know the answer.

tg