It is so bad I don't like to admit I do it. I'm embarrassed and ashamed and I try not to let anyone know. I work really hard not to do it but I think I need that hypnosis therapy or something to help me stop.
It's really, really bad. Way too bad to share.
However, I do have several other bad habits that I don't mind sharing. In fact, I'm full of bad habits. Perfect, I am not. Not in any way. And habits are just so...comforting at times. They are habit-forming. HA! Get it?
Okay...moving on.
So two other big bad habits I have is biting my nails and picking/plucking my face. I have always bitten my nails. When I was younger, my mother would put that bitter nail polish on to stop me from biting. It didn't work. I actually grew to like the taste of it! I have bitten my nails for so long that now if I do manage to grow them out at all they are all warped and misshapen. I will never have nice nails. Sometimes I can go for awhile and have them appear presentable. I even have gotten manicures and made them look human at times. But some stressful situation, like watching one of my favorite TV shows or thinking about laundry I have to do, will bring me back to biting and soon all I have are ragged nails and torn cuticles. The one and only time I kept all of my nails in pristine condition was for our wedding. I had managed to not bite my nails for over four months. They were long and pretty and ready for my french manicure on the Big Day. Then I played basketball with my Dad and Charming four days before the wedding and snapped off my left thumbnail. Of course it had to be the LEFT hand, the one that would sport my new wedding ring. So even that didn't work out.
I also pick/pluck my face a lot. And other people's faces, namely my husband's. Which drives him insane. I had a lot of acne growing up and still battle it today so I am constantly squeezing and pinching even though I know I shouldn't. There is something about popping a zit or pushing out a blackhead that soothes me. I don't mind pus and even marvel at it at times. I love to work out splinters too, getting satisfaction out of extracting the foreign object from my skin. One time I discovered a small lump behind my knee. I had an huge ingrown hair from shaving. I pushed and prodded and popped until I managed to pull out a pencil eraser sized bundle of hair from my skin, leaving a hole in the back of my leg for a few weeks. I was so proud of myself I showed my family. It helped that we were all locked in a hotel room in Gettysburg while on vacation and trapped while it poured outside. They had watched me work on this issue for about an hour in abject horror. Yeah, that makes me sound a bit compulsive, but I enjoy the idea of fixing the imperfection, so to speak.
Good times.
I also love to pluck hairs. Ugly dark hairs from my chin. Stray eyebrow hairs. Hair off Charming's ears. I often wonder if I would have so many hairs to pluck if I didn't start plucking them in the first place. It seems every time I pluck, three more come up in it's place. I have tweezers in my purse, my desk, my nightstand, my bathroom drawer, my car. Always on hand if I feel anything that shouldn't be there. It drives me crazy when I feel a hair and I can't pluck it. I also forget that I shouldn't do it to other people and it's hard to resist. Charming has run screaming from me and my tweezers one too many times. I think this obsession with plucking/picking stems from my Dad letting me peel his sunburned skin off and allowing me to pluck his gray hairs when on long road trips. I loved getting big full pieces of skin off in one piece and I would rejoice over the tidy pile of little gray hairs I would collect over the miles.
Wow, I just realized how weird that sounds. We were really a normal family.
At least in public.
6 Deposits in the Crazy Bin:
Somehow, the fact that you were trapped in a hotel in Gettysburg with your family and managed to pull a wad of ingrown hair out of your skin just cracks me up! One time I had a piercing halfway up my ear that was constantly infected (I ended up letting it close). One time I took my earring out and saw a little piece of hair sticking out of the hole, which was all red. So I pulled... and it was a piece of my hair, that had been twisted around and around my earring every time I was turning it in an attempt to relieve the pain. The hair was super-spirally and...kind of awesome!! I will never forget that twisted hair that came from my infected piercing. It was one to tell the grandkids about, for sure!
And I loooove peeling skin after a sunburn. Mine, someone else's, it doesn't matter. I love the weird sound it makes, too!
WHY is this stuff so weirdly fun, anyway?!?!
I find it kind of odd and amusing that you have these habits, while married to a germophobe. I mean, biting your nails alone is just inviting all kinds of germs and diseases that your hands have come into contact with into your body, not to mention the bacteria and infections your fingers come in contact with when picking at your face and others.
...though I'm pretty sure we all do that, and I blame our mothers, who first exposed us to the "Oooh! You have a pimple! Let me get that for you!" concept. I do pick at my face when I'm stressed. Not always by spending hours leaning on the counter with tissue wrapped around my fingertips. Mostly by sitting down and running my fingers all over my face, looking for any raised areas to "smooth out".
the nurse in me wants to shout.. DONT POP ZITS!!! I always think of MRSA and it is ugly. LOL
you could never work in the ER, can you believe that some women have hair on their boobs?? the first time I saw it, I was appalled! LOL
Ew! Not that I don't totally go after Shane's face and get ingrown hairs and whatnot for him. I'm in here grooming him like a damn monkey or something. And my legs are so jacked up from me picking at them. Removing the hair at the root is supposed to inhibit growth, but it doesn't seem to be working for me either. I had to FORCE myself to stop messing with my legs. There's something so satisfying about working an ingrown hair free.
I bit my nails when I was a kid, until my OCD got too bad and I got grossed out by how filthy it was. I can't bring myself to do it now, even if I break a nail and it's all jagged.
I am a major hair plucker too. I have really fair skin and really dark hair, so that leads to a lot of ugly disgusting hairs. gross.
So I feel you! :)
it's creepy-but again--we have so many things in common. I actually get a sense of accomplishment when I manage to pop a really big zit--or work out a really bad ingrown hair--on myself or my boyfriend. But I can stop at any time...right?
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