I have a really, really bad nervous habit that I picked up when I was a pre-teen. I have managed to break it once for period of time (a year or two, perhaps) which I am once again trying to break for perhaps the billionth time. What is this bad (and mildly disturbing) bad habit you ask?

I pick and chew at the skin around my nails.

I mean, seriously, what the hell? The skin around the nails? That isn’t exactly normal by any stretch of the imagination. Than again, I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of being “normal” in my life. Usually the worse periods of high stress my hands look like they lost a fight with a potato peeler. Naturally. I don’t know why it has is such a bad habit to break since, truth be told, I used to be a nail biter. I managed to break that habit at a fairly young age due in part to my Mom painting my nails and haranguing on me about it (my Grammie was ten times worse to my Mom about it, or so I’ve been told). Sometimes in my moments of high amusement in reflection on it I wonder if I’m secretly from a cannibal tribe and this is my way of “feasting on flesh”. The amusement immediately vanished and I tend to get sick to my stomach at that morbidly disgusting thought.

I’ve tried everything. From bribery (“if I stop this habit I’ll buy something I really want and NOT feel guilty about indulging myself!” which, yeah right. I have buyers remorse about buying food), putting lotion on my hands when the urge overcomes me (which is irritating since I hate lotion on my hands), to painting my nails (which just makes me pick more carefully since it’s the nails that get painted). I’ve tried bandaids on the fingers which make me look weird and, as you know, washing your hands with bandaids on them you’re stuck with a soggy bandaid that the thought alone is making me want to gag.

The thing is, also, I do it when I’m bored. I’ve caught myself on long drives idly just picking at the skin since some of it is just sticking out and begging to be taken care of. I’ve tried replacing one nervous habit with another, aka chewing gum, which worked only until I run out of the pack of gum and probably helped contribute to my nine cavities I had worked on in the past few months. Go me.

So, readers, any suggestions as to how to break this nervous habit? I hate lotion on the hands and am kind of a freak about washing my hands. If you had a nervous habit like this you too would want to keep your hands as clean as possible. I’ve considered putting other nasty tasting/feeling stuff on my hands but again? I’d just wash them since I don’t like the feeling of the hands being dirty. How have you managed to break any nervous or bad habits of your own?

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