How to stop squeezing skin?

First of all, I am not sure if this is the right section of the forum to post this, so if it is not I would appreciate a staff member moving it to its proper home. That said, moving on...

I am 19, and I have had a particular... issue for a good few years now. Since puberty, spots and blocked pores and all that fun stuff has arisen, and surprisingly my face has been spared (likely helped by a diligent skin care routine and healthy eating). My shoulders and chest, however, have many papules and blocked pores, and this irritates a part of me to the extent that I will squeeze my skin on my shoulders to the point that it is covered in red finger marks. This obviously gets the attention of the undesirable kind. I am not going to lie, it feels really good to remove all the impurities and sebum blocking my pores. I feel cleaner, but what I do not like is looking like my shoulder and chest has been attacked by a clawed animal.

I fully understand that it is completely natural for the hundreds of pores over our skin to get blocked and that they clear themselves on their own. I do have autism, so that might contribute. Even across the typing of this post, I have multiple times turned my head, bent over my shoulder and squeezed at tiny, tiny papules and blocked pores. It's almost compulsive, if not compulsive altogether. I was wondering if any of you have had experience with this, and solutions to solve it.

Thank you.

 

I honestly have a very similar problem, and it's something I've been working on slowly. For me, it's always been a self-esteem thing, especially given how badly I'd mess up my face with scratches and similar from picking at spots and similar.

I don't know how severe it is, but I make a mental effort to remind myself of how much longer it takes to heal once you've picked at it, rather than if you leave it alone. I still struggle with this, but I've found that by getting into a daily routine of moisturising my skin, I often get less breakouts, and the ones that do come, I get a good spot cream, so that when I do struggle and pick at it, it's not as severe as scratching away fully dry skin.

I know it's not a brilliant, 100% fix, but I've found this helps me! Get into a routine of moisturizing suspect areas with a natural cream daily, and you'll see the benefit!