Aharon wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
Interesting.
At two points in my life I engaged in what I classify as "self injury".
When I was around eight I developed an obsession with skin and elbows. I was just pick away at the skin on my elbow just for curiosity. I even uncovered a green thread like thing in the skin in my eldbow and thought "wow...that must be a nerve-cool!"
Utterly grosses me out to think about it now!
I out grew it after some weeks and never went back to that behavior.
But around 12 I decided I didnt like the shape of my nose and started pulling on it to make grow into a different shape( which ofcourse didnt work- but I got stuck with the behavior as a permanent unwanted obsession). And decades latter I still am fighting the obsession today.
But both body part obessions started from kinda objectifying the body part- somehow I stopped 'reading' the sensation as pain-atleast while the injury was being inflicted. Like I would think of my nose as a medium for sculpture instead -omg! that vital organ I need to protect!
Even today if I do the nose pulling thing I dont read it as pain while Im doing the behavior. But then I have to live with several days of pain in my nose and face afterward.
So I think your behavior and my two behaviors and that of people who do cutting etc are really the same thing.
I would think regularly pulling your nose WOULD stretch it or something; like those large gauge ear expanders some people wear and their empty ear lobes look like melted hula hoops.
Well.. you nose is a complicated organ.
The top is framed by actual bone from your skull, but the frame of the lower half of your nose is cartilage.
Pulling on it like i did does eventually cause the soft tissue (skin and the cartilige part) to slighly shift in shape temporarily. But even thats temporary- it eventually heals and bounces back. You need a real surgeon if you want to remodel the bone part. And the temporary damage is just that-damage. It messes up your breathing and causes you to be in constant pain.
To make a long ugly story short- I did finally do some almost permanent damage to the soft tissue of my nose at one point many years ago-which caused me to be in constant physical pain for two years while my nose healed up (but it didnt make me look noticeably handsomer). And that pain begat even more emotional pain because it interfered with my relationship to everyone else in my life at that time years ago.
A lady shrink I mentioned it to said that she had other patients who did repetitive things to their noses as well. My fetish was thinking mine was two short and turned up- so I would pull down on it. But she said "I had a young lady who thought her nose was too wide and she would habitually pinch it to make it narrower, and another young man who who try to make his shorter because he thought his was too long, and ..." So I guess noses are a common focus for obsessive compulsive behaviors.But pulling and pinching are not really the same thing as rhinoplasty by a real cosmetic surgeon if you seriously decide to remodel your nose but keep it functioning right!
07 Dec 2012, 3:55 pm
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