Coping Methods: Nail Biting

One of my first identifiable coping methods is nail biting. I’ve been biting my nails for almost as long as I can remember.

I have very, very vague memories of mum cutting my nails, because they were too long, when I was very, very young. very young indeed.

Much more clearly do I remember the multitudinous attempts by mostly my father to get me to stop biting my nails, because it makes them ugly. I’m not even going to get into the beauty-demands that underlie that fucked-up reason to not bite one’s nails.

By now, I have healthier reasons to not want to bite my nails – unfortunately, they don’t make it any easier to not do it.

My nails and finger tips are constantly painful, because I bite not only the nails, but also the cuticles and the skin around my nails. They do look awful, but the thing that’s actually bad is that they feel pretty much the way they look: Really, really painful.

On any given day I will have at least one finger with which I cannot hold anything, because any sort of pressure on the finger will cause tremendous pain. Right now it’s my left index finger. I’m typing anyway, and it hurts like a mofo. THIS is a bloody good reason to stop biting my nails.

It goes without saying that a nail that has been chewed up is not exactly even, and uneven nails get caught on clothes, tissues, paper, etc. and that sensation makes my entire body twitch with a sensory discomfort so intense that it’s actually painful. THIS is a bloody good reason to stop biting.

I have trouble doing anything that requires the handling of wet rags or immersing one’s hands in water, eg. doing dishes, mopping the floor, cleaning the bathroom, showering. Because when my skin gets all soaked and raisin-esque it quadruples the pain in my nail-areas/fingertips. THIS is a bloody good reason to get rid oft he problem.

Unfortunately I have tried getting rid of the problem for 20+ years, and lo and behold! No luck.

Having observed my own reactions over the years I have noticed that I bite when:

A) I’m stressed out
B) I’m upset
C) I’m calmly engrossed in an activity that leaves my hands passive, eg. reading.

I have known this for a long time and the contradictory traits of point C vs. points A & B had me very confused. But then I was dx’ed and combining the autism diagnosis, which explains such things as stimming and being chronically stressed-out, with my chronic depression diagnosis, which basically means that I’m permanently upset and even more stressed out, it suddenly made complete sense that not even calmly reading a book could remove my biting.

In essence: my biting is not a bad habit. It is stimming. It is my pressure valve. It is my steam vent. I know I have had brief periods during which I managed to not bite my nails. I do not remember them at all – possibly because I’ve used all my energy on existing without biting rather than actually living life and experiencing anything. I don’t know for sure. What I do know is that all it takes to get back on the biting is one upsetting episode. Doesn’t even have to be something serious.

So my nail biting is stimming. But it hurts, and I’d rather prefer it if I could find a stim to replace it that didn’t hurt so goddamn much. I have a high pain tolerance, but pain is still a fucking nuisance, and if I can eliminate some of it then yay.

I just don’t know how.

Earlier today I posted that I’ve ordered a pair of ultra-thin gloves to see if they might get me rid of some sensory stimuli, because really… the sensation of pretty much anything on my hands and fingers make me want to place said fingers right between my teeth and start chewing. Every fucking time.

Biting my nails is therapeutically calming, and it places my hands in a place where they get no unfamiliar sensory stimuli, because hey, my mouth = familiar territory. Unfortunately, it also causes the internal sensory stimuli in my fingers to increase through the unevenness and the pain, so it’s kind of a self-perpetuating problem.

I hope the gloves might help a little.

However! That means I’ll need an alternative stim. Because I can’t do without stimming. It is exactly the same situation as when you ask that a person stop clicking their pen, they merely start vibrating a leg instead. Or something like that.

I stim for a reason. And to get rid of one stim, I need to replace it with another. Preferably one that does not cause me any fucking pain. That would be good, thanks. I can do this with most of my stims.

In some locations the floors are such that a vibrating legs annoys everyone in the room, in some locations a lot of people will be greatly annoyed by little odd sounds, in some locations there isn’t room to march back and forth on the floor. In all of these situations I can exchange one stim for another. But there are two stims I have never been able to replace and one of them is nail biting. I have, through sheer strength of will, been able to leave one single nail (the one on my left thumb) intact. I need it to play the recorder. But all the others: so chewed up it’s not even funny, and if something really bad happens, that one left-over nail will quickly disappear.

Perhaps not being able to bite through the gloves will just make me even more stressed out, perhaps my mutilated fingers will be immensely irritated by the cloth, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps… Perhaps they’ll actually help. Now I’m going to try, because I’m sick of not being able to do anything with my hands without being in pain. (and it’s also very practical to have the nails one needs to get splinters out of one’s skin, which I need to very often, because I’m clumsy as hell).

And I’m just hoping, hoping, hoping that my brain will automatically use my other stims so I won’t get all stressed out from not being able to use this particular stim. Gods, I’m hoping. Because one thing is certain: nail biting, while causing me a lot of beauty-ideal-insecurity (thanks, dad), is a tremendously efficient way to calm myself down. And that’s one thing that needs to be found elsewhere for this to even have a chance at working.

The gloves are in the mail – we’ll see how it goes when they arrive.