yeah, so i’m a nail biter. like chronic. for as long as i can remember, and prolly longer. my nails are usually bitten off very very short, like into the nail bed short. (i know, it sounds like it hurts, but only rarely does. i guess pain tolerance is built up over the years.) but i’m making an effort to give up the habit. i now have four nails with some growth to them (baby steps, right? plus i so just can’t leave an uneven nail alone.) in fact i have two nails now long enough that they’ll need trimming, with scissors! within the next few days. i’m so excited!
and i’m using nothing more than willpower. i remember when i was young, my mom would put this icky tasting clear nail polish stuff on my nails, but that never worked. i just bit and bit and bit anyway. (that’s prolly also how i learned to spit, come to think of it…)
i can’t wait till the day when i can make squealy chalkboard noises. it will be so, i must continue to remind meself, one day it will be so.
You don’t say how old you are, bob, but if you’re under thirty I’d have to say there’s still hope you can break the habit. That’s how long it took me (I’m now 62). I used to bite my nails to the quick, sometimes even getting infections in my fingers. I also chewed pencils, ballpint pens, and even the sleeves off my leather jacket when I was a kid. My parents tried to get me to stop by putting Tabasco sauce on my fingertips. They tried telling me what filth might be under my nails. It didn’t work. I guess I just decided that thirty was too old to be doing that, so I quit. Nervous habits are tough to break, but it can be done. It took longer, but I even quit smoking cold turkey more than twenty years ago. ::wrenches arm trying to pat self on back::
I’ve bit on and off all my life. The only way that I can stop is by wearing false nails (which I then bite) and if they survive for a week or so, then my real nails are long enough that I notice something is different and don’t bite them automatically.
I can grow them really long then but once even one of them chips then that’s it, cause I bite it (just so as it doesn’t chip even further) and then I’m back off the wagon.
Also I can never wear nail varnish 'cause I bite that off and chip my nails.
24, sometimes nail-biter. I bit them enough to make them bleed until I was about 12 or so, the stopped once I started to get into painting my nails and all that. I still do it once in awhile, because I can’t stand to have jagged nails, though biting them doesn’t help. I keep them relatively short now, because I type a lot at work, and it’s hard for me with longer nails.
I used to, until about a year ago. I just decided, one day, to not bite 'em anymore… and somehow it worked. Didn’t even really have a tough time at it.
One thing I’m having to get used to is trimming the damn things- right now they’re longer than they should be.
I bite my nails. I stopped for a while, but it just felt weird when they grew back. I was obsessed with how they pressed down on the tips of my fingers (my nails are back to the quick when I bite). I hope to stop again soon. I also hope to quit drinking and smoking and that nasty smack habit just HAS to stop, but quitting biting my nails is the top priority. I think I can only handle one 12 step group at a time, thank you very much.