Many people have the bad habit of squeezing blackheads and pimples on their faces. But for one New York-based writer, the urge to stand in front of a mirror and poke at and squeeze her pores for hours on end became so bad that it actually started 'sabotaging' her life. In an inspiring essay for Marie Claire, Jenna Marotta, 27, tells of her experience with dermatillomania - a compulsive skin-picking disorder that left her face bleeding - and how she managed to overcome it. 'I'd descend "into the mirror" for up to four hours a day,' Jenna writes in the essay, explaining how her actions horrified her parents. 'I would nick and squeeze and yank at every clogged pore on my face.' Scroll down for video . Obsessive behavior: Jenna Marotta, 27, of New York, says her habit of picking at the pores on her face was so all-consuming that it became 'self-sabotaging' At first, Jenna was just looking for a way to break out of her binge-eating routine. As a child she developed bad eating habits - she would skip breakfast and lunch, then stuff her face with whatever she wanted for hours when she got home. Her binge-eating cycle continued through college and after graduation, when she moved back home to her parents' house in Illinois. 'I knew I was bingeing while I was bingeing,' she writes, adding that part of the problem was that she would head to the kitchen whenever she felt bored. 'So I decided to find a new place to spend my ample downtime.' That place became her parents' bathroom, where her mom kept a stainless steel 10x magnifying mirror and an array of Tweezerman tweezers. Jenna's use of the tweezers started off innocently enough, with her plucking out stray hairs along her eyebrows. Then she started to become obsessive, revisiting her brows several times a day and moving on to other areas of her face, where she would use those same tweezers to clear out pores and remove ingrown hairs. 'At one point, I became convinced that there was a lone dark hair trapped under my chin,' she says. 'I could think of nothing more vital than removing this growth from my face. In the process of freeing the (probably imagined) hair, I dug an eighth-inch deep hole.' Getting better: After accidentally going ten days without touching her pores when she forgot to pack her tweezers for a trip, Jenna managed to move away from her bad skin habit. She still sees a psychiatrist . Jenna was aware that her skin-picking was growing out of control and visited a 'battalion' of dermatologists, who told her that her problem was psychosomatic. So she enrolled in an an outpatient program for mental health. But once the three-week program ended, she insisted she had her problem under enough control to move on her own to New York City. The problem was not under control, however. Though the dreaded magnifying mirror was back at her parents' house in Illinois, Jenna would still lean in close to her own bathroom mirror to pick at her pores. 'I would tweeze and squeeze, filling my garbage can with tissues dotted with blood,' she writes, adding that she would hide out in her bedroom to avoid seeing her roommate, who might question her about the bloody tissues she threw out in the bathroom. And she didn't stop at using tweezers. Jenna admitted that she's also 'attacked' her face with an extruder, an earring post, an unspooled paperclip, a pushpin, a toothbrush handle, the rough side of a nail file, lotion caps, and nail clippers. One of Jenna's most agonizing memories was when the writer had to interview Steve Carrell after picking at a cyst on her chin until it bled. She worried the blood wouldn't dry in time to apply makeup before the interview. 'The urge to self-injure just always pulses through my head and hands,' she says. 'And it's my go-to method of procrastination when I have a deadline.' Luckily, while travelling to the Sundance Film Festival in Utah this January, Jenna forgot her tweezers at home, resulting in ten whole days during which she didn't pick at her face. Now, the 27-year-old says she has overcome her condition - and is working on being 'nice' to herself. 'I continue to work with a psychiatrist to stay on track since I first put the tweezers down,' she says. Dermatillomania - or compulsive skin picking - is an impulse control disorder characterized by the uncontrollable desire to pick at one's skin. Some sufferers have the condition so severely they pick at their skin until it is damaged. Sufferers usually start by picking at their face before moving on to other parts of the body. The condition is often categorized as an obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). It can lead to bleeding, bruising and infections. CSP will often be carried out after the individual has experienced a high level of tension which has caused an urge to carry out the behaviour. The skin picking is often accompanied by a feeling of relief or even pleasure due to the reduction in anxiety levels. However, once the damage has been done, those affected will often be left with a feeling of depression or hopelessness. Although the damage that is caused can be very severe, the gratification experienced can lead the individual to carry out CSP again and again. Treatment usually involves counselling and cognitive behavioural therapy. Source: Anxiety UK .
Jenna Marotta, 27, suffered from dermatillomania, a psychosomatic disorder that caused her to obsessively pick at the skin on her face.
The New York-based writer said she used to spend up to four hours a day squeezing her skin in front of the bathroom mirror.
She developed the condition while trying to battle binge-eating addiction.
Has now managed to overcome it - but sees psychiatrist 'to stay on track'