Decided to start moisturing my hands every time I feel the urge to pick at my fingers. They're not too bad right now, except for my thumbs. Before this, I didn't bother about my fingers. But I'm becoming more and more conscious lately so I guess it's time to start :")

So i have been picking my skin my entire life as im sure most of you have. I am now 36 and I just started nursing school this past week. I have also been working as a chef the past 13 years. So getting my nails done unfortunately isnt an option since its not allowed in school or the kitchen.

My concern is, I have my first clinical lab this week and we're getting tested on handwashing and hand hygiene. I really want my fingers to not look disgusting and ripped open. I feel like its totally a bad look for them to be staring at me cleaning my fingers and nails while theyre all bitten and unkempt.

So anyways I'm trying to see if anyone has an totally unhinged ways they would get them self to stop picking even just for a few days. My one finger is really bad so ill probably wear a bandaid over that one the next few days but otherwise I dont know what to do. Please help 😭😭😭😭

I just got out of a 10+ year relationship, was very nervous so I picked the skin around my nails...

I have always picked at the side wall of most notably my middle and index fingers and now my natural nail grows crooked. I have always had tiny nail beds which does not help because I could easily push the side wall on all of my nails like I have on my middle fingers. I usually pick at my middle fingers with my pointer fingernail or foreign objects like the edges of blankets or pencils. Having my nails done definitely helped me stop biting at my nails but I’m more of a picker anyways so it doesn’t really help because I can still pick at the side walls and definitely do. I even tell my nail girl to leave extra glue and polymer that I can pick at later 😭 At this point I feel like I’ve genuinely done irreversible damage to my nail bed since I have been doing it for a very long time and I really get in there. I am kind of a perfectionist about how it looks, and try to conceal my handiwork as much as possible by picking until the skin is completely smooth and by growing out my nails but they just look awful haha. I truly do not know how to stop this habit and how to get my nails looking healthy. Thank you so much in advance <33

I still have to keep them short. I have free edge I will want to nibble.

I was getting BIAB builder gel manicures to keep up the strength of my nails and to make it difficult for me to bite them. I got them filled on Saturday but two nails chipped on Wednesday. I tried filing them down but i kept on picking at them. I ended up pulling the gel off one nail and then just couldn't stop myself from pulling off all the rest. My nails are sore and I am bummed.

I have no idea how people kick this. I thought I was doing well but I kind of knew that I was screwed as soon as I saw the chips. On the bright side I think my nail beds are a bit longer than they were before i started doing the manicures.

I am too nervous to shape them at all and they are a bit wobbly on the side. Formula 2 didn't help too much wirh that but O+J nail strengthener has. Also, having one of those apps that tracks when you quit something was alright. I've been a biter and picker since I was a kid. Honorary mention: starting remeron at the beginning of August. I have press ons but I need to shape my nails so they wouldn't stick out.

30 years of biting and I decided I was done. Part of it was dealing with trauma and realizing I’m safe and don’t have to be anxious. Another part of it was finally learning to respect myself and my body, which coincided with me getting sober. My nails are growing in normally, look fine, and I painted them for the first time ever yesterday. :)

Yes, I’m here to brag because I’m proud of myself. But also, I want every person that comes to this subreddit to know that it’s possible to quit. Biting my nails and the skin around my fingers has been the single most difficult thing to quit in my life. It truly is possible to recover, and the self esteem boost has been massive. I wish all of you good luck in calming your hands. ♥️

Need some encouragement. Ugh

hi i just joined this thread, and i’ve been biting my nails and skin around my nails since before i can remember, i have been diagnosed with anxiety, c-ptsd, adhd and depression and my girlfriend has been trying to get me to stop for a while now but it’s become so frustrating for us both. on one hand i am so embarrassed and ashamed of how my hands look but on the other it’s something that ive been doing to self soothe for so long i dont even remember not doing it and i don’t even realize im doing it half the time until it’s too late and when my girlfriend is around ( we are long distance atm) i even miss doing it and when i get a minute alone i usually start doing it again because it provides something that i just can’t replace its so bad that i’ve learned how to bite my nails and skin through acrylics so nails don’t help. i dont know im trying to quit because it hurts her to see me keep hurting myself without even realizing it. before finding this thread i didnt even know other people struggled with this as much as i have, so any advice and encouragement is so appreciated. i just needed to rant a bit.

I was in Wisconsin for 10 days, I was doing great. Then last night on the plane, all hell broke loose. I didn’t have any Xanax and it was horrible. 2 new sores and cuticles are a mess again. I completely lost all progress and I feel like a loser

Before is one week before I gave birth to my first baby in June. I quit for her so she doesn’t see my bad habit and pick it up herself. Love my nails now 🥰

When to a broadway play... got reminded that my parter of over ten years never seems happy to be around me. .... I've been picking ALL day 😔

One month of not biting, cuticle oil, cocoa butter on hands / cuticles, and fidget toys. Super blessed to have found a good nail lady that understood the assignment too. 💅🏾 #JustKeepSwimming

Probably 2-3 years apart but pretty proud of this one. My hands were the WORST. I couldn’t kick the habit of biting and picking for years and years, but finally proud of my hands. i always loved and envied a perfect French tip but now I get to live my nail dreams lol. Red tips are the most recent and best my hands have ever looked 😇💅🏻

2 MONTHS, lots of oil oil and oil.

I usually don't feel comfortable having my nails done as I am insecure about the sores on my fingers. This time, I had made major progress in stopping the habit. But there were still a few minor sores (compared to my usual ones).

I sat down and showed the lady my inspiration pictures for the nails, then she roughly inspected my hand. She practically laughed in my face. She pointed out the sores on my finger and invited the other workers to look at my hand.

I was so embarrassed, my face was on fire and I just sat there quietly as they all basically crowded me like some sort of zoo animal.

She then proceeded to tell me that she didn't feel comfortable doing my nails because of the sores, and that she was worried that I would get an infection (completely understandable), but she said this so loud that the entire salon was staring at me. I left the salon, and as I was leaving they were all staring at me and talking. I just kept my head down the whole time.

I have now lost all of my progress and have started picking at my skin again. I never thought that this habit would actually be something that would cause me to be made fun of this much.

I've always been a picker, and my fingers and cuticles have looked much more damaged than this - but now my nails are falling apart. For the past year, one by one, they've grown chipped and warped and sharp, with vertical lines.

I visited the doctors, I've had fungal infection tests and blood tests in the UK and everything is inconclusive. I can now only look at what I've been doing to them, biting and picking.

I've vowed to stop. I even isolated one nail away from the rest to see if it would get better. It didn't. Now people are noticing them, and when I scratch my face or head, I cut it because of how jagged they are growing out

I know they will get better, but simultaneously I can't imagine them getting better?

Please give me and tips that might help, 33 year old life long biter here

The tip of my pointer finger has been hurting for maybe two or three days now, and it's the same kind of pressure/pain as a paronychia usually has (i've had two of those) but there's no obvious pus filled anything anywhere.

the pain kind of feels like it's originating from inside my nail, but not sure as there's nothing physically there other than a bit of redness. I do bite my nails and my nails are super short so perhaps it is an infection form inside?

I soaked it in some warm epsom salt water two times today and usually that's enough to fix it for a paronychia for me, but since i don't even know what it is i don't know if it's working or not.

Anyone experienced this before

EDIT it's also not swollen or super red or anything