speedster

Then I started again, about 6 months ago. Gave up for another month, then went back to it. Want to give up for good. Been about 48 hours now without a cigarette, just had a first big craving. Not smoked but need to stay away from it.

I’ve been doing this since I was three years old, and thirty years later, I’ve still not kicked the habit.

I can’t seem to find any resources online about it! I don’t consider it a form of self harm because my mood doesn’t influence my lip biting, as far as I can monitor.

If I run, I get a build up of pressure in the center of my bottom lip, and have to bite it. That is the only time I bite bottom center.

When I was younger, I tended to bite either the top left part of my lip, or bottom right. I used to bite the inside of my cheek, too.

Now I am purely on bottom right.

I had one incident where I’d bitten so much of my lip, I had to go on antibiotics, because I’d bitten through to the nerve. The doctor laughed when I said I’d been concious of my lip biting but unable to stop it, and he said I must have done it in my sleep. Actually, I’d done it over the course of five hours, unable to stop biting, but not minding the pain. He didn’t believe anyone would do that.

I didn’t think it was a big problem, I maybe bit myself once every couple of months, nothing serious – but tonight I started biting again, and I still haven’t stopped, 4 hours later.

I have this ritual that involves drying the wound and washing alcohol over it to try and stop myself biting. That actually feels great. I can even explain what’s going on in my mind. If the area I’m biting doesn’t feel ‘even’ I have to carry on biting it, til it feels perfect against my tongue.

Speaking of my tongue, I sometimes bite that too – probably as often as I bite my lip. I start off at the tip, and gradually start biting chunks out the back of my tongue.

The biting phase is great – and the initial healing phase is ok. Biting the tops off the ulcers as they form is all part of the ‘cycle’. Ulcers are one of those wounds that gradually get more painful as they get smaller, though… day 3 or 4 really hurts.

I’m going to try and stop biting this wound now (it’s actually two separate ulcers at the moment, but if I can’t stop, I know I’ll bite it into one.) I am pretty worried this time, hence me coming here… I’ve bitten the lower ulcer about 4mm deep, and I can see nerve… again, almost automatically since I was a kid as in that experiment I’ve always ‘blotted’ my lip against tissue paper (preparation for the alcohol / Ambesol / mouthwash). This wound has, so far, produced 7 sheets of kitchen roll with about 30 dots of blood on each. I’ve never thought of using it as a measurement before, but there you go.

I’m 32 years old, after 30 years of this, I WANT to stop. Any help from anyone, particularly medical resources of interest, I’d love to hear about….

Official day I can have a drink again: April 14th. But I’m meant to be going out with Phil on Tuesday. 4 days early isn’t too bad. If I fancy one I’ll have one on Tuesday.