stop biting the dead skin around my fingernails

I’m 52 and have little hope – but it is too much for me to continue. I want to make it for two weeks without doing this.

i never knew other people did this! as stupid and naive as that sounds, this actually makes me so happy!! i’ve been to 4 dermatologists & used endless creams & medications to try & stop biting but i can’t! i’ve been doing it since i was 8, now 19… 11 years of biting skin… grosses me out so much but every ten minutes or so i find myself sitting there looking at my fingers deciding which one isn’t in too bad of shape so i can get at it… at this point i’m feeling like i need therapy… will it everrrr stop

I will never stop…ive tried, but nothing works…

It’s been bite-less week, though I almost gave into temptation last night. I found a good way to deal with this is by keeping my nails short at all times (to prevent ‘picking’). I cut them last week, and didn’t realise how fast they’d grow.

W00t w00t!

No biting anywhere.

I never realised how fast they start to heal (because I never gave them the chance). The skin’s already stopped being red, and little dry bits of skin are starting to cover the surface (which would normally drive me insane, but I’m sustaining).

Yeah, not only have my hands not approached my mouth in the last 24 hours, but my fingernails look snazzy thanks to the varnish.

Alright!

This is certainly helping. Haven’t had a go at my fingers all morning.

It’s scary, because I just realised how often I’d been doing this. Literally, there has not been an hour in the last 12 years (with the exception of when I’m asleep), that I’ve not had my fingers in my mouth. My fingers never have time to heal because I’m always going at them.

It’s also a shame that whenever someone takes a good look at my hand, I am suddenly frozen with panic, realising that my hand looks like a chew toy.

Gotta figure out a way to alert my brain. I got a bleeder here…

displays blood-clotting middle finger

Just sitting here, reading over my ‘things’ (14 in total at the moment), when I come across this one and realise I HAVE MY FINGERS IN MY MOUTH.

Uh.

It’s almost midnight, maybe I should start with that?

It never sees to amaze me how many people admit to having the same problem as me. I don’t bite my fingernails (never have), I bite the dry-ish skin around them.

At times, this makes the skin around my fingernails buff up, or even bleed.

I will consider myself ‘stopped’ after a full 30 days of no skin biting. Which means a minimum of one month until I can confirm if this goal has been accomplished or not.

The real problem lies in the fact that most of the time, I don’t even notice that I’m doing it. Will I be able to keep my mind on such a petty thing once and for all, and kick the habit?