Posted by tinydancer on September 5, 2004, at 4:26:17
I would really like to hear from anyone who has had a serious habit for many, many years and managed to quit. Right now I'm in a major struggle to quit biting my nails. I have been biting them for 20 years, maybe even longer. I don't just bite them, I practically rip off the nail itself, as well as picking and tearing the cuticles off and more or less destroying the nail bed completely. Needless to say this has over time, deformed the nail.
About a month ago I felt like quitting. I haven't really had any desire to before, except for my wedding and I didn't manage. I quit by stopping biting one nail at a time, while biting the others, until I reached the point I am now and have been for about a month: I do not bite the nails at all.
I wanted to stop because:
1)People obviously could make a lot of judgements about my personality just by looking at my nails
2)It was painful to go around with swollen, bleeding hands all the time
3)It diminished my self esteemWe've been talking in therapy about it a lot, and dealing with the biting urge, because it is still there and its horrible! The other problem is that the amount of energy I use fighting the urge has caused my psychotic symptoms to go in overdrive, so I'm having a lot of hallucinations and hearing a lot more voices (difficult voices, like ones that won't stop)
Right now I feel like quitting this whole thing because it seems pointless, but I feel like I can't because no one believes in me, and I want to prove I can do this.
What are some of the techniques you have used to combat quitting a long habit?
poster:tinydancer
thread:386588
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20040905/msgs/386588.html