Things have been getting out of hand. What used to be a mildly annoying bad habit has escalated to a new level. There is blood, there is torn flesh, there is pain.
I cannot stop biting my nails.
And all the skin around the nails, too. I have always struggled with this tendency and started biting them when I was a mere two years old. I’ll have a good stint where I stop chewing them for a couple months, but then one of them breaks and, like a junkie, I am back on the skids, ripping my digits to shreds.
This last fall off the wagon started when I was reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
That book was so intense and suspenseful that I started gnawing my nails while reading to help me deal with all the drama. And then I read the second book, and now I’m half-way through the final book and my hands look like they’re the ones who kicked the hornet’s nest: all mashed up and bleeding and super gross.
I need an intervention.
Do you have any bad habits that you can’t seem to break for good?
Amanda…I’m right along with you….I don’t bite but I pick and tear and bleed – the skin on my thumbs is so badly damaged that my nail beds are all screwed up ….ARGH!
How do we stop!!! (right now I’m in a good spot – which is a miracle because I drove about 24 hours over the weekend and driving is a bad time for me)…
my daughter is doing it sooooo badly! i want her to stop so much. i’ll be reading these posts for sure. i think i’ll start bribing….
Lifelong nailbiter here too. And I bite when I read, which is…uh, not ideal when reading is my job. :/