Healing Process in Lips Compared to Other Skin Areas

I'm new to this board, so I'll share my background with you on this condition. This is a long post, but please read and address any theories you may have on the cause of this condition. I want to treat the cause, not the symptoms.

I believe it started out 3 years ago with a case of normal, but probably extreme, chapped lips. I picked at the skin to the point of tearing it off the entire bottom lip (except for a thin border along the bottom of the lip), and also parts of the top lip. Now the skin on my lips is raw, flesh-like, and burns sometimes. I too get a weird peeling process every couple days that never seems to heal properly. And yes, the skin does turn white when coming in contact with water.

I have had a biopsy, which came back negative for any kind of bacterial/fungus infection. I consider myself to be in good health and on a good diet (19 y/o male, 5'6", 133 lbs). I'm confident that I get all my vitamins, and probably essential oils, but I've never looked into the latter.

I believe this condition is called Factitious Cheilitis. It appears many of us on this board suffer from this, and not Exfoliative Cheilitis.

Its evident that not all of us have the same condition, but after reading many posts on here, it appears that the majority of us suffer from this Factitious Cheilitis condition. Clearly our lips dont heal like the rest of our body does, but maybe some how we can alter it to make it heal the same way.

Surely, the healing process in the lips is very different then the healing process of other parts of the skin, so can anybody offer input as to how/why it is different?
It appears that using lip balms and other moisturizers only help the symptoms, not the cause.

I have a couple theories myself about the whole cause:

Theory 1: the memory of the skin cells in lips is more easily damaged than in skin cells of other parts of the body.
-> For me, and probably many of you, notice that when the thick hard skin tries growing in, you can see little grooves and lines that resemble the grooves and lines in healthy lips. It appears the lips remember these lines, but somehow dont remember enough about the top layer of skin in order to restore it.

Theory 2: this theory pretty much comes after reading posts on this board. But maybe its possible that the lips are more sensitive to our internal system than other areas of skin are. This would support the whole Liver Flushing view. This would also support the view that applying essential oils to your stomach would help.

I relize the lips are more delicate and have less layers of skin than the rest of the body, but I dont think this is a direct cause. (some people have reported that after a year or so of no picking, their lips do appear to be improving. I think that this amount of time is ridiculous, even if the lip structure is so much different then the rest of the body. Other areas of skin simply heal in a matter of weeks or days)

So please post any ideas you may have on the cause of this condition, relating to the idea of how the lip structure is different than the structure of other skin areas. I want to treat the cause, not the symptoms.