stop eating my fingers

how I can go for months without doing this, start again when under certain kinds of stress and then have trouble stopping. It just feels so familiar and somehow comforting. Not very surprising. It’s part of who I am, in a way, because I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember.

I have yet to get to the bottom of this habit. I’ve managed to stay clear of boredom-induced picking fairly easily. The relapses come in stressful times. I suspect it’s not only the stress… I think it has to do with being able to concentrate better. I notice that it can actually help me to calm down when under pressure. That means I’m self-destructing to release tension. I wonder why such a thing would work… Might be a barely conscious strategy for coping with anxiety. And it might have to do with aggression directed towards myself for not dealing with things in a manner that would have kept anxiety at a minimum. Yes, that’s pretty much it, I think.

^{I’ll stop again now :) These relapses make me all the happier for knowing that I can and will stop again and that I now have healthy-looking fingers for the majority of time.}

I remember someone on here asked about shared character traits a while ago and it made me rather curious about this. I think it could actually be related to our MBTI type. I’m INFP and know three other people who also pick at their cuticles or used to do that and all of them are INFP as well. So I think that this type might be more prone to finger biting. Would be interesting to get a bigger sample to see if it’s really related.

^{By the way, I’m once again in the process of stopping. And though I’m under pressure because of upcoming exams and procrastination, it’s still going well. Nail polish works wonders for me.}

This is becoming a little exasperating. I had hoped to be able to mark this goal as done by the time of my birthday and it was looking quite good. Until 2 weeks before my brithday, when procrastination-induced stress (notice a pattern there?) ruined my 1 1/2 finger-picking-free months.

Time to start again. I’m not sure whether I will ever beat this for good. (However, I certainly hope so!) For the time being, I’ll try to make the intervals of success as long as possible and the intervals of failure as short as possible.

I really want to celebrate my birthday this year, so this has to stop now. (Personal Challenge. I wouldn’t be too ashamed of how my fingers look to celebrate my birthday)

It’s been a bit over a week now without any major setbacks. Wish me luck (or rather determination. Lots of it.)

of starting again. And I did.
I’d been able to refrain from it for three whole months – excepting the occasional hangnail – which is my record so far. I even no longer felt the urge of habit to bite at my skin and was able to go for a few days without moisturiser.
Three days of stress completely undid my progress. My fingers now look horrible and really sore. Insufficient amounts of sleep, pressure from procrastination and not having applied any care to my fingers for a while were enough to make me throw my resolves overboard almost unconsciously.
I just hope that I haven’t gotten too used to it again. Maybe if I stop again right now it won’t be so very hard this time. Also, I have the 3 months of success to look back upon, which is going to be a huge motivation. It was so wonderful to have healthy fingers and not feel like a freak. I don’t blame myself for the relapse (guilt would be counterproductive anyway). I’m allowing myself a relapse once in a while, as long as it doesn’t last long. I just don’t want this state to become permanent again.

I applied the nail polish yesterday and still haven’t got used to the sight. My fingers now look very offputting and alien to me, so I’m optimistic that it’ll fulfil its purpose.
It’s quite funny to observe the reactions to this… black looks sort of goth/emo and it’s very unlike me to wear any kid of nailpolish, much less a colour like that.

I’ve had quite a few minor relapses. As soon as I don’t make a conscious effort the whole time, I’m starting to bite again. A good thing is that I no longer do this at home. It’s only when I’m at university and have nothing to write or say. I’m not letting thse relapses discourage me though. It’s natural that it’ll take some time until I lose the urge or at least am able to control it perfectly.
Luckily, my fingers still look pretty decent. There’s only one small wound now. I’ll have to pay more attention to moisturising again, so my hands don’t dry out andthe skin aound my fingers doesn’t become brittle.

Something that might help in the process of stopping is to build an elaborate ritual around stopping. I read somewhere that people who eat their fingers have a high impulse for grooming that has somehow gone wrong. If that’s really so, it should help immensely to focus that impulse on some more constructive action. Also, it would be a good idea to put up some sort of warning sign. I think that I’ll try a system of colourful nail polish.
Week 1: Black
Week 2: Green
Week 3: Red
Week 4: Orange
Week 5: Brown
Week 6: Beige
Week 7: Transparent
Whenever I relapse, I won’t allow myself to move on to the next colour and have to stay with the current for another week. I’m quite certain that I’ll hate every colour until week 6. It should be annoying enough to have to wear a horrible colour of nail polish for one week to keep me from tearing at the skin.

I’ve nearly left them alone for the past month. My record is 2 months… I hope that this time I’ll be able to cast off this nasty habit forever.

I think it helps to frequently meet people whom I don’t want to see my fingers in a bad state.
Also, being straightforward might help. Right now, I express my opinions very openly and avoid doing things I don’t want to do.

Nevertheless, I find it hard to resist the urge to bite now that the skin around the fingers has grown back and feels callous when I forget to moisturise it.

I’ve been doing this since I can remember and almost as long I have tried to stop. I think by now I would’ve lost all hope of stopping this if I hadn’t managed to do so for 2 months,a few years ago. I was on a long vacation, there was no stress, so that’s probably why it worked out. I tried to keep it up when the stres hit again, but one day it just started again and I couldn’t help it.
I have a new strategy now. It has to have consequences that really impact me. I’m setting aside 1 euro whenever I catch myself biting. Over the last month, I have accumulated 107 euro (and I wasn’t counting all the time). It’s horrbile! I’m going to get that money back in 2 years, if I’ve stopped by then. If I haven’t, I’ll donate the money. Even if it doesn’t work, I will have to at least keep it from being too constant, because it would make me poor…. ;)
Anyone want to join?