I bite my nails...a LOT. Worse than what you're imagining as you're reading this. I bite them back past my finger tips, I bite the skin around the nails, the skin on top of the nails, I even bite my skin off of my fingerprint areas. They will sometimes bleed in the corners, in which I squeeze my fingers so the blood can flow out faster, and then continue by sucking on it until the blood is gone. I've done this for 16 years when I was a little kid. I remember when I was young I always had this blanket I would sleep with and there was just one corner I would grab for when I would go to sleep. I would rub the corner between my fingers until I fell to sleep. You would easily be able to tell which corner was the most used, that's how often I picked at it. I'm not sure when my feather obsession began, but whenever I find a pillow or cushion with feathers in it, I will sit there and pick them all (not all but LOTS) out and basically make a collection for that "session". ( probably have at least 3 sessions a day with doing this. My grandmother, girlfriend, mom, whoever would always tell me to stop picking at the pillows and put the feathers back, which I never did. I'd always say "just one more and I'll stop!". I'd find one or two and then put the pillow up. I won't pick at bird feathers (the big ones you know?) because they have to be small, pointy, and able to twiddle between my fingers. I've never come to understand the reason behind these two obsessions. I just got a couch for my new apartment which happened to have feathers in it, I could take a picture of all the feathers I have taken out and played with within the last month or so. It's a pretty large collection haha. I must have picked out more than 1,000 feathers since I can remember starting the habit/obsession. I take them to work, I carry them in my pocket (I always find myself putting on a pair of pants/shorts after laundry has been done and finding two or three in each front pocket. I take them everywhere, and if I happen to forget one or loose the ones that I bring with me, I get upset and start wishing I had something to pick at. I don't make a scene or anything, but I think to myself how I wish I had one to pick at. WHY AM I SO WEIRDZ GUYZ N GALZ?
i was a chronic nail biter like yourself. i did it from a very young age, like 5 if i remember. in the end i was able to stop. i was embarrassed by them, they hurt and were ugly to look at. so i put band aids on my fingers, 2 at a time. i kept that up until the 2 fingers were healed. once healed it was incredibly easy to not bite them for some reason. it is crazy, like it has something to do with my fingers not looking and feeling like they did when i was chewing on them. it takes about a week to 10 days before your fingers are healed enough to move on to two more fingers. the cool thing about it all? no one can tell i ever bit my nails or chewed on my fingers like i used to do. so when you get them healed up they look like nothing happened to them. to keep myself from biting them and curbing the urge, i took pictures of them with my cell phone so i could look at them. i could also visualize pretty good what they looked like. but honestly, it wasn't hard once i got my fingers healed up. you can do it if you try and plan ahead!! you can do it!! you can!!!!
I like the band aid/two at a time idea. I might try that out. I used to try and stop by choosing certain fingers to leave alone without using band aids, it would work for about a month and then within a week they were all gone again. I think I do have some form of autism, that or just depression. I believe me and some of my family has aspergers, but not any serious forms of it.
Gonna have to agree. Anything related to the hands like that is usually anxiety linked and you taking them with you places may passively help to try and cope with the anxiety. If you can manage it, then manage it. Do not take pills if you do not have to but you should probably see a professional about things that you can do to help with your anxiety. Maybe start a work out regiment and change your diet. Also, if you start 'picking' as it is called (Picking around the skin of your nails) you should try and find a healthy way to engage yourself. Do you find yourself losing time, OP? That could be something else you can try and keep track of.
I have major, MAJOR, free time and it's terrible to think about. When I'm not at work at the restaurant, I'm at home on the Internet. I'm lazy and have lost my motivation to do just about anything. Even eat. I will never take anxiety pills in my life. I know there are better substitutes out there. My mother is a pill popper since I can remember and I don't want to end up like her. Maybe that should be my motivation? Don't end up like my family, except my grandmother...she was the strongest in the family and was always helping out her kids whether it was for good reasons or not. Maybe a nice hobby and a better diet will help me out? My dream job is to be a film maker/content creator. I have a YouTube channel but I haven't made a video since 2010 and I can't think of how to start back up. I don't know why I stopped producing videos, possibly because that's the year I started my first job. That first job, still being the job I work today five years later. Maybe I need a new job also! I feel stressed, but at the same time I don't consider myself stressed?
You do not need pills for your anxiety.. What i am saying is that these actions are probably helping you cope with your anxiety. That is a good thing; some people get such anxiety they need to self harm or bang their head against things or something drastic like this and its good that you do not have that level of anxiety but from doing those things, it is your mind telling you that you need a better way to cope with your anxiety. Anyways, maybe i am totally wrong about the anxiety thing; i don't know you and no doctor knows you either, which is why it is important to begin the process ASAP, so a psychologist can begin to get to know you and thus, help you out in an effective way. Begin to record notes about yourself, note what you are thinking about when you begin to get the urge to do whatever action it is that you find alien in your environment (In your case, picking the skin around your nails, which is actually very common and also the feather thing). Do not take my words for granted. Gather all the information you can about yourself and present it to a psychologist that you think has your best interests in mind and by doing this, it will speed the process up of you getting help even faster. Maybe you have no anxiety at all, i don't know, but i work with a lot of people that do and the picking of the skin around the nails really stands out as something that people with anxiety do. And for the record, if you chose to get no help at all, that would probably be fine, since you are not self-harming in a big way, but if you want to put these habits to rest, they can certainly help you do that,
yea I think it's an anxiety thing or a bit of ADHD.. I bite mine down far too and I like to fold crisp dollar bills up to a sharp corner and scratch in-between my fingers with it
I just don't have the money for a psychologist right now. I will begin to note my thoughts before I start doing those things. I don't think that I think of anything specific before I do these acts
so I did it this morning...i was on the phone with my dad asking when he wants to go pick up wedding suits. I sat down on the pillow, felt a thick feather point and instantly pulled it out. I've been picking at it all morning since. It just feels good!
I haven't seen a pillow with feathers in ages.. but used to pull the feathers out all the time as a kid. As for the fingers, sounds like a nervous tick. My cousin used to bite his all the time, so when we were kids and doing a weekend grandma visit.. I'd take a bittering agent made just for nail biters and put it on his nails as he slept. The next day he'd go to bite them and get a nasty, bitter taste in his mouth and not know why. It was great. Not sure what the stuff was called, haven't since it ever since then.. but it was made just to put on your nails to give you a bitter taste and hopefully break the habit. You could try something like that, but if it is a nervous tick you'll probably end up doing something else in its place.. which could go either way in terms of being better or not.
How's your diet? I used to be a serious nail biter. Changed my diet (unrelated health reasons), and my anxiety and nail biting decreased and is near absent. Not going to say what I eliminated, because I don't want to lead you down a false path, and you should probably discuss this with a doctor or nutritionist. Good news: changing diet usually saves money rather than costs more, as most of the good stuff to eat is just veg, meats, some grains... Simple whole foods.
My grandmother bought me that stuff when I was around 14. Lets just say, I got over the bitterness quickly and kept on biting. She soon stopped putting it on because I was simply not turned off by the taste. I might try it again though.
I don't eat very much at all. I was never taught how to cook because my grandmother cooked for me my whole life. I lived with her for 23 years until the day she died. Then I packed my shit up and left because of family issues hours after her death. I probably don't consume verymuch on a daily routine. I'd like to know what you cut out though. What was your nutrition like before and after? I was thinking that maybe the nail biting is due to hunger? That or a low iron level (due to the fact that I suck the blood that comes from biting my nails too far back). I've been to a nutritionist when I was 17ish. SHe told me I need to eat more, a lot more. She suggested smoothies, peanutbutter sandwhiches, anything to put food in my stomach. I did it for a few weeks/months and then went back to my low food intake. I just don't feel hunger anymore honestly. I can go all day with just a cup of coffee and a few french fries that I grab at work (I mean like less than 20 fries a day) My eating situation is TERRIBLE. I admit, but I don't see any negative results. Other than my pants don't fit anymore (30x32). I'm tall and skinny. 6'0 130lbs. On a side story, my first time trying wax/hash oil/whatever the hell it was I sat in a state of panic for 3 hours thinking I was going to die because of the fact that I know that I don't eat much. I was thinking my organs were shutting down and I was going to slip into some coma or something. I begged my friend I was with for food and water, ate a single pretzel which I couldn't get down because my mouth was so dry. Took some sips of water and kept having weird thoughts about my grandmother (I think I predicted her death during this time). I remember looking up at my friends bathroom ceiling and thinking "shit, I just died and this is the back cover of my biography book). It was really an intense and interesting trip to say the least.
I'm thinking the fingernails is due to being bored/not spending my time doing something and the feathers may be due to stress/anxiousness. I just bit 6 different nails after I got off work waiting to pickup my girl from work.
Damn...i remember when I made this thread lol. Still pick feathers but not biting my nails as much. Still not eating a ton but probably more than I was. Sent from my LM-Q610(FGN) using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Glad you arent biting your nails as much. I guess the feather thing is just doing something with your hands. I had to comment because your OP gave me a flashback to when I was little, I used to always stroke the corners of my duvet cover because they were so soft and mine would also get all worn. Maybe it's like that developmental stage thing, I dunno which one it would be, where if you dont get over it when you're a toddler you end up with weird things. Anal retentive clean freaks. Oral retentive people that have forever got pens etc in their mouths.