Tulisa Contostavlos has bravely opened up about her past health struggles, revealing the intense battle she faced with a skin picking disorder that had her "tearing into her face".The 36 year old N-Dubz star and recent I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!
contestant shared her experiences with Bell's palsy, which often left her face looking like she was suffering from acne. In her heartfelt memoir, 'Honest: My Story So Far', Tulisa recalls the distressing times as a teenager feeling "trapped and isolated", where she would retreat to the bathroom to pick at spots, sometimes even at "non-existent spots".
She recalls one particular instance, writing: "One on occasion, when my mum was having a particularly bad day, I shut myself in the bathroom and began scratching and picking at a tiny little spot on my chin. "It was a strange feeling, and hard to describe, but concentrating on this little spot seemed to distract me from the situation at hand. "So after I'd picked away at that spot for a while, I found another spot, then a small blackhead, and then a tiny mark that wasn't even a spot, and after an hour I felt extremely relaxed.The only thing was, I'd picked and squeezed non-existent spots all over my face until it looked like I had really bad acne." Tulisa, whose mum has schizoaffective disorder - a mix of schizophrenia and bipolar - says her skin picking went on for "years", with the last major episode in 2010.
At that time, she was filming a documentary about youngsters with parents suffering from mental health issues, reports Gloucestershire Live.