Does Anyone Else Feel Like Picking Their Skin to Feel a Release?

Question by Rebecca: Does anyone else feel like picking their skin to feel a release?
I don’t mean to sound dark when I ask this but I have been picking my fingers for as long as I can remember and I don’t do it out of boredom. I suffer from anxiety and some depression and I’m concerned as to why it makes me feel better. Is this a form of self-harm? I’ve tried to stop but no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to get over it. Does anyone have any advice?

Best answer:

Answer by Durable Med
Your question does not call for a simplistic “stop doing it”, because there is obviously a reason for it. And indeed, it is a self-harm thing, certainly not as severe as cutting, perhaps at about the same level as hair pulling. But let me give you some insight into why you do it. Although cutting is the most common form of self-injurious behavior, self-injury can include burning oneself with a lighted cigarette or match, biting, banging one’s head, punching oneself or pulling out one’s own hair (trichotillomania).
Very simply, you are addicted to the endorphins this causes your body to make. Those are the morphines that most people make naturally, and don’t understand that narcotics, alcohol, self-inflicted injuries, etc. are a way of self-medicating. Even bulimia, because the body makes endorphins after vomiting. So let’s start out with you understanding that you are not a bad person, you just have an endorphin shortage, and no amount of ‘talk therapy’ will change that. Okay?
I’m going to share what is probably one of the best-kept secrets within the drug rehab community.
You do this because your body is only producing about a portion of the endorphins that the “normal” person makes. But there’s a way to cause your body to make a lot more, and by using a narcotics rehab drug, Revia, to do it. Now, that’s the making of an Urban Legend, except for being true.
In the early 1980’s, the narcotics addicts were filling the New York jails, and if they were probated, they went right back to robbing, burglarizing, mugging, etc. to get their next fix. Well, a drug was approved, called Naltrexone. Trade name Revia, and others, depending on where it’s made, etc. You could give the addict the Revia at the local community center as the term for their probation. They swallow it down, and stay in the room for a half hour. After that, free to go. Because even if they were to throw up, it would be sufficiently absorbed.
The Revia is an oral version of naloxone (Narcan), which ties up the body’s narcotic receptor sites. A person in respiratory depression from a narcotics O.D., with enough to kill a horse, could be up and chatty within minutes after an I.V. push of Narcan.
So there was no point in taking any narcotics, the sites were not available. The addicts were able to be probated. But, they HATED it. It made them feel terrible, without a way of getting better.
Switch back to 1977. Some researchers shared a Nobel Prize for the study of endorphins, the body’s natural morphine supply. So the study of endorphins was a big deal in the early 1980’s.
Anyway, a neurologist named Bihari was part of the naltrexone administration. He wanted to know why an addict would go right back to doing it, even though they ran the risk of “cold turkey” if they got caught. He hired a researcher, who found that addicts were only running a third of the endorphins of the ‘normal’ population, so the heroin etc. was a self medication.
Long story shorter, he found that if you give the addict a small portion of the naltrexone, at bed time, the body checks its supply around 2 in the morning, finds it at zero, and brings the endorphin level to as much as 5 times what it would have been. So the addicts were waking up WITH NO NEED FOR THE HEROIN. And YOU COULD BE WAKING UP WITHOUT FEELING THE NEED TO HURT YOURSELF. And by bringing up the endorphin levels, it also serves as a mild antidepressant because the brain neurotransmitters are the precursor of the endorphins.
Interested? Of course you are, or would not have asked. I’m going to invite you to read the articles I’ve given in the site, beyond that calls for other things to be done, including getting a prescription for the Revia. And there are pharmacy companies that supply it without a prescription, such as one in India, another in Mexico. After all, it is not a narcotic, it’s a narcotic rehab drug.
And note that in the third site, it reminds that the endorphin production can cause the activities to become compulsive behaviour, when it says “The brain releases endorphins when the body is cut. These endorphins provide pain relief and a sense of well-being, thus relieving psychological pain.
Because of the release of endorphins, cutting can become a compulsive behavior. The next time emotions are at a high, the brain craves the relief that the endorphins provide. ”

I hope I’ve given you some insight into the self-harm you’re having difficulty with. And I’m glad for you that you didn’t start with an activity that would be worse, even if you have some bloody fingers sometimes.

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