Yesterday, I opened up a few new perspectives to what's going on behind my nail biting habit. Today, I'm going to explore the major components as memories in my past that supported the nail biting character.
Going back to my past there are a few moments that stand out in relation to my decision to chew my nails. The most prominent memory was seeing my brother's fingernail get ripped off in a screen door accident.
- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to shape who I am through a fear of pain from having my fingernail ripped off.
- I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to continue to bite my nails even since I've realized that I repeatedly manifesting the nail pain that I fear through biting/clipping my fingernails too short.
The second memory that stands out is a vague remembrance of the thought that long fingernails are are feminine/girly and that was a risk to my social status. Striving to be cool and accepted back in elementary school was a challenge point that has largely shaped my socialization process throughout my life thus far.
- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself according to how others might judge me if I were to have long fingernails, not realizing that I am actually judging myself within this.
- I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being perceived as feminine, and in this compromising my reputation and ability to be accepted and liked by others, particularly females.
- I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear and create a relationship of dislike toward the image of having long fingernails as a male.
- I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself by the picture representation of myself.
- I realize that I've constructed an archive of pictures connected to meanings within my mind for the purpose of comparison and positioning myself as ego.
- I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to compare my physical image to others, not realizing that the only purpose herein is to serve my ego by relative self-definition.
- I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that my ego-self-definition is
The third significant component to my nail biting was a personality I created through backchat of comparative spite toward my brother. In our younger years, one of his key defenses against me was scratching me. I absolutely hated when he did it. Exactly why, I do not know, but definitely in part because I couldn't make it fair by scratching him back. Within this, a need for things to be fair between us was an internal reality that I enforced to the extent of my ability. Back then, I didn't care to be honest with myself about how unfairly I was treating him. I would throw a fit when he would get the best of me, I digress. I would also ridicule him in the context of the above (2nd memory) point to attempt to control him, to validate my fear/perspective. So, this was just a point I would think about that contributed to justification of biting my nails. It served primarily to increase the separation between my brother and I so I could build my ego up. Shucks.
- I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to put myself before my brother in such a way that I would construct a false confidence within me by putting him down and separating myself from him.
- I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to lie to myself and not consider the consequences of my words and actions from his shoes.
- I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that the way I treated him was okay because "I only wanted the best for him" and would try to induce behavior change in him with derogatory insults.
- I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to bite my nails through a belief/backchat that it would make me superior to my brother.
- I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define long fingernails as negative and worthy of ridicule within myself and with-out into my world.
- I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fuel my nail biting habit to achieve a mental superiority complex, not realizing how I am compromising myself, my brother, and our relationship.
The fourth and final point that comes up when I think back to why I originally started this habit is convenience. It was more convenient to just bite my nails, rather than go through the process of manicuring myself.
- I forgive myself that I have allowed myself to define my relationship to self-maintenance and hygiene within difficulty.
- I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to bite my nails as a shortcut to practical hygiene, not realizing in self-honesty that this form of substitution is actually rather unhygienic.
- I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to prefer shortcuts and compromise to being thorough and honest with myself.
This post is an excavation of the historical justifications that I used while implementing the nail biting behavior. There is still more to be investigated within this point. As I walk this process of stopping my fingernail snacking through writing, I am strengthening my awareness of when I start to bite. I'm not going to make the same miss-take as I had before by imposing an expectation of myself of which I can fail and go into a depressive state of giving up on myself. I breathe, I walk. I develop self-honesty and stability as I sort myself out and apply myself to change myself.
I realize that there is nothing inherently wrong with biting fingernails. I have automated this behavior and infused anxiety such that it had become an unconscious outlet of my anxious state. I commit myself to persist in uprooting this nail biting habit to reveal to myself the nature of my mental programming. With this information, I commit myself to apply it practically through self-forgiveness and the process of thorough self-change.
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| Average appearance for over a decade |
P.S. Yesterday, I also mentioned the relationship to nail biting as a potential alternate form of the thumb sucking habit that I "stopped"earlier on. Re-investigate this point later on.
Thanks reader!
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