I have this terrible habit. I’ve never actually gotten the courage to take a knife and slash my skin so that is not it. Instead I bite at my fingers until they bleed. My fingers ache right now because I’m typing. They really hurt after I wash my hands or am in the shower because they prune up and are useless to use. Since the layers vary depending on where I bite, the flesh underneath my first layers is exposed. This exposure makes them more sensitive so I can barely touch anything. My parents think I have a common nail biting habit but I rarely bite my nails. Biting the skin around it, though, affects the shape of my nails somehow. So my nails end up being really short. They bleed as well and all I feel for days on is excruciating pain until the nail grows back. I used to play basketball and whenever someone passed me the ball my nail would rip open and start gushing blood. Once, someone passed me the ball and I heard this really loud pop noise. I looked down at my finger and blood had spurred all over it. The ball was starting to get marks of blood so I threw it on the ground. I shake my fingers to soften the amount of pain but still my fingers ache and never stop.
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I cut yesterday and I think I will in the future I used to bang my head bite so I understand I’m not going to ask you to stop because its a habit that’s hard to get rid of we can talk
I actually have a question for you. I don’t understand how you get the courage to cut. I honestly wonder what it is like to cut oneself. What is your thought process? What are you thinking right before, during and after you cut yourself? I could never get myself to do it. That’s why I bite instead.
Actually my ex does that exact same thing. Right around the fingernail to eat side until they get all rough and bloody on the sides, though I’ve never known her to bite her nails. Same thing too – it affects the growth of the nail. she had been doing it since she was really young and her nails never really developed past the child size, though they don’t look unusually small or nothing. She used to say I had nicer nails than she did.
She types most of the day at her job so it has to hurt her…
She thought of it as more of a nervous habit than self-harm and I suppose one could make a case that that is true, but it seems like it is.
So, if it’s any comfort, you aren’t the only person who does this.
To “each” side…stupid phone…
It’s interesting, actually. It started off as a nervous habit but turned into what people refer to as ‘self-harm’. I’d be biting at my skin and then my tooth would prick it too deep into the flesh and I would bleed. After a while of this I realized I enjoyed the pain and the sight of uncovering blood. My fingers look so gross, especially after a shower, but I don’t care. It relieves my stress and anger.
Yeah, when I talked about how I used to cut, she didn’t understand that even though she bit her fingers like that. It didn’t quite make sense to me why she couldn’t she it in the same light because the impulse is similar in a way, but maybe it’s just my perception.
And I don’t know if it really takes courage to cut as much as a state of mind. When you are subjected to constant emotional pain, sometimes physical pain is preferable because it diverts one’s focus away from what is going on internally to an external pain. Aside from seeing the blood to remember I was alive, it was a way to bring what going on inside out into the world so I felt a more part of my surroundings – if that makes any sense.
I’m not advocating it. Just explaining it.
That must really hurt, i mean, you have to use your fingers for mostly everything… sounds worse than cutting, lol. I tried cutting a couple of times and i can see why people do it, but i ended up pinching my skin instead (as in grabbing my skin between my fingernails and pressing hard)… it isn’t the same but it kinda helps me. Either that or slapping myself the hardest i can.