A Real Nail Biter

So I just saw this article on yahoo:

http://health.yahoo.com/news/179174

It's an article about nail-biting and this guy who has allegedly found a cure.

Alright guys, I have to fess up and admit I am an avid nail biter. If nail-biting were a recreational sport...I would win the gold medal. I know it's gross, I know it's disgusting, but I can't help it. This article mentions people who bite their toenails. Um, I draw the line there. No offense if you do chew your toenails...and I know I can't really talk since I do bite my nails but...uh...that's just wrong. The whole process of biting a toenail...you have to stick your foot close to your mouth and then...um...I'm going to stop there.

But, yes. I do bite my finger nails. I have pretty much been biting my nails for as long as I can remember. I don't really know why. According to Freud, I have an oral fixation. According to me when I was old enough to have teeth to bite my nails, I didn't want my finger nails to be long like a witch's. I don't know why I thought long finger nails = witch, but I can remember having that thought in my head as a kid. Maybe I started to bite my nails in rebellion against femininity, because I never wanted to be feminine or girl-y and nails got in the way of my everyday activities like hunting for frogs and digging up cool rocks. (Yup, I totally had a rock collection when I was a kid. I still have some of the ultra cool ones I found. This is a tangent...but I totally used to categorize them and organize them. I would put them on display in my room. I would take plastic tubs and put them on display in there too, in a "natural habitat" sort of setting. I would throw some dirt in there...a couple of plants I tore out of the ground...then I would carefully arrange the rocks, and...Viola! Natural habitat for my rocks. It may not surprise you that I, for a period, wanted to be an archaeologist. I have the fossils to prove it. My Dad is the coolest Dad ever and one time he went to the store and bought a bunch of "fossils." He buried them in the yard, and while he was working one day "unearthed" one and said, "Amy! Come here you have to see this look what I found! I wonder what else is over here..." And so I ran over and dug up all the cool rocks and fossils he put there for me to find. I was so excited and impressed. It wasn't until later that I learned that finding such a plethora of different sorts of rocks and fossils within two feet of each other was probably geologically impossible.)
Wow. What a diversion. Maybe that long-winded story is because I'm ashamed of my nail-biting and don't really want to talk about it. Well, at any rate that long winded story was just to show...you can't have long nails and dig up rocks.

And yes, like the article says my fingers are a little deformed and gross looking, and yes if there is a time were they are particularly bad or gross looking I do put my hands in my pockets or under the table or sometimes I just ball my hand into a light fist to hid my nails in social situations. Especially if I'm in a situation where people don't know me well or have never met me...I don't want people's first impression me me to be my deformed, gross looking fingers.
And yes, as any addict will say...I have tried to quit. I've tried those polishes, but I just pick the polish off first and then bite my nails. I've tried will power and failed. When I was younger my Dad would sometimes make me wear socks on my hands if I was watching TV or something. My Dad is also a nail-biter (or was...he has periods where he's "off" the nail-biting and periods of relapse) we've tried to quit together a couple of times. We've tried to make a game out of it, see who could last the longest. Didn't work. I once had an uncle offer to PAY me to stop biting my nails. Like, if by the next time he saw me, my nails were acceptable, he would give me a certain sum of money. That didn't work either.
Nail-biting is just something I do.
I do it when I'm obsessively when I'm nervous.
I do it idly when I'm not nervous.
I do it when I'm thinking.
I do it when I'm driving.
I do it when I'm watching TV.
I do it when I'm reading.
I do it when I blog (I'm doing it right now, in between typing sentences).
I do it all the time.

I don't do it as a form of self-mutilation as the article suggests some do. I do believe it could be some sort of OCD, like it says in the article though. Not to say I am OCD, or to be a hypochondriac and say "Oh my god this article says if you bite your nails you're OCD! I bite my nails, I must be OCD!!" But I do have some tendencies that I wonder about sometimes. I think everyone is a little bit OCD though about certain things.
So I bite my nails?
So I have to check and double check to make sure I've really locked doors?
So I have to leave for places much earlier than I need to assure that I'll be on time?
It doesn't make me OCD. Right? And if it does make me OCD, so what? I mean...I should be cool as long as I don't start, say, locking doors 4 times, turning lights on and off 4 times, and washing my hands 4 times right? I think the proper term for this sort of behavior is "ritualizing" and I don't think I ritualize. Ritualizing implies some sort of structure, some sort of standard that must be met. I really have no standard for chewing my nails. I just know that I must bite them, so I do.
Whatever.
I just found this article very interesting. I found it interesting that a large amount of kids bite their nails, but that they hit some point where it clicks that nail biting is bad and gross (or that there are alternate ways to deal with stress as the article says) and they stop. That never clicked for me. Hm. I wonder why. The article says only 20% of adults bite their nails. The article chalks it off to OCD type behavior, stress, and the like. But for me at least...nail-biting is something that is ingrained in me. I don't think that simply wearing a mouth guard (as is the proposed solution in the article) would stop me from biting my nails. The mouth guard would be off a week and I would be like, "oh man this nail is getting kinda out of control. I better bite it." You would probably have to zap my brain and kill the area of my brain that sends the impulse, "AMY,BITE YOUR NAILS NOW!!"

Hm.

Nail-biting.

Anyway...

QUOTE OF THE DAY
Audra (Re her cat, Mr. Bocephus): So I got him some catnip because he's been driving me nuts lately. So I just need him to have some catnip and work it out and then pass out for a few days.