Interlude:
Started thinking about this after reading a tumblr post on body focused repetitive behaviors. I'm not gonna self-diagnose and be like OH MAN I TOTALLY HAVE THIS, but I will talk about why I'm so obsessed with my nails.
For pretty much as far back as I can remember, I've been a habitual nail-picker. I'd pick at them and peel them and search for any little snag or imperfection and try to rip it out, all the way down to the quick, sometimes (often) until they bled. My cuticles were all fucked up, and I had (and subsequently ripped out) hangnails all the time. Sometimes I did this on purpose because it felt good, and sometimes I did it without realizing what I was doing.
For a long time, I didn't care about it beyond the fact that it was sometimes painful. INB was always trying to get me to stop, but I didn't really listen. After my mom died, I even told him, "I need you to stop bringing this up because taking care of my nails is the LAST thing I care about right now," and he respected that. But then somewhere along the line I started feeling really embarrassed about it. My nails were hideous, and I gesture and write a lot when I'm tutoring so of course every single student saw them. I remember one student writing about how her own nails were really important to her and how she judged people who had poorly manicured cuticles. That was a fucking trip. I got really stressed out and embarrassed about it, and ever since then I've thought of them as my Anxiety Nails. I make them ugly because I'm anxious, and then I'm anxious about how ugly they are, and it just continues on forever.
Then, maybe about five or six years ago, I started getting serious about taking better care of them (and myself in general). I tried to grow them out, but it would only ever last a few weeks at a time before I fucked them up again. Something stressful would happen and I'd tell myself, "Fuck it, it's going to feel so good, it's not a big deal," and then regret it later. Or one of them would chip or snag on something, and I'd obsessively pick at it before totally fucking it up, feel ashamed, and then fuck up all the other ones to punish myself or because I thought they all had to "match." That was really hard for me -- trying to make them all "match," because if one was fucked up, the others had to be fucked up too, or if one had to be cut short, well then the others had to be short too except that I would pick and tear at them to make them short instead of cutting them cleanly.
One time, I got really far and was starting to feel really proud, and then something made me really anxious and, as always, I fucked them up. I felt so gross and ashamed that I started buying press-on acrylics because I no longer felt like I could deal with students seeing my ugly nails. The thing about the acrylics was that while they were on, I didn't have access to my real nails, so I would just wear those for however many weeks it took my real nails to grow back to whatever I thought was acceptable. I was doing really well for a while before the wedding and I was getting so excited about the idea of being able to show off my own beautiful long nails ... but of course wedding anxiety led me to fuck them up yet again, so I ended up getting some professional acrylics instead.
And then last year, when we moved and I was so upset, I just went into full-on CONTROL FREAK mode, thinking, "I can't control what's going on around me so instead I'm going to control every little thing about my own body." I made my own hygiene products, dieted really strictly, and also reached, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE, a point where my nails were really long. Even longer than I would cut my acrylics down to. After that I got to the point where I would have to cut them regularly to keep them down to a length I liked. For the first time in my life, I was regularly trimming my nails.
I was pretty intensely depressed last winter, and somewhere in there I fucked them up, I don't even remember when. Since then it's been that same on-again/off-again kind of thing where I'll try to grow them out for a while, be marginally successful, and then find myself back at square one.
But I've been pretty successful lately, and yesterday I finally reached that point once again where I spent all day thinking, "Damn, my nails are getting hella long," so I trimmed them.
What I think is especially impressive about this time is that one of them (my right ring finger; somehow it's always my ring fingers that get fucked up first, I don't know why that is) is still pretty short, and the skin around my right thumbnail is pretty ugly because it still hasn't healed from the last time it got messed up, but I'm not stressing out about making all of them "match."
So that's where I am right now. I currently am maintaining them well enough that I can trim them if I want to, and I feel okay enough to let one of them be shorter and not stress about it. They look pretty. They look healthy. I get compliments on them fairly often. I still touch them a lot, looking for snags and stuff, but I carry a little nail kit in my purse at all times so that if I DO find a snag or a hangnail or whatever, I can pull out a clipper or a filer and take care of it properly right away. By my bed, I have a shoebox filled with nailpolish and other things so that I can make them look pretty no matter what length they are. When they're long I like to just put one clear coat, but when they're short I'll paint them something dark, nude, or pastel. If I'm feeling particularly anxious or if there's some sort of imperfection I'm trying to ignore, I'll paint them a really pretty color to lessen the temptation of fucking with them. And every now and then I use fancy hand cream to keep my cuticles healthy, again minimizing the chances that I'll find something to pick at or fuck with. And for the little wounds on my thumb, I know it's not healing properly because I'm STILL FUCKING WITH IT, so today I finally put some Neosporin on it (to promote healing) and wrapped it with a bandage (so that I won't see it / can't touch it).
Sooo anyway, now you know: when I say something like "I have Anxiety Nails right now" or "Anxiety Nails are back," that's what I mean. And it's also why I'm so in love with my nails when I do manage to keep them long -- I stare at them a lot because I can barely believe they're real -- and it's why, when people compliment me on them, I say, "Thank you! I've worked really hard on them." And people laugh at that like they think I'm being sarcastic, but it's the absolute truth.
Crossposted here on Dreamwidth. You can comment there anonymously or using OpenID. ♥
For pretty much as far back as I can remember, I've been a habitual nail-picker. I'd pick at them and peel them and search for any little snag or imperfection and try to rip it out, all the way down to the quick, sometimes (often) until they bled. My cuticles were all fucked up, and I had (and subsequently ripped out) hangnails all the time. Sometimes I did this on purpose because it felt good, and sometimes I did it without realizing what I was doing.
For a long time, I didn't care about it beyond the fact that it was sometimes painful. INB was always trying to get me to stop, but I didn't really listen. After my mom died, I even told him, "I need you to stop bringing this up because taking care of my nails is the LAST thing I care about right now," and he respected that. But then somewhere along the line I started feeling really embarrassed about it. My nails were hideous, and I gesture and write a lot when I'm tutoring so of course every single student saw them. I remember one student writing about how her own nails were really important to her and how she judged people who had poorly manicured cuticles. That was a fucking trip. I got really stressed out and embarrassed about it, and ever since then I've thought of them as my Anxiety Nails. I make them ugly because I'm anxious, and then I'm anxious about how ugly they are, and it just continues on forever.
Then, maybe about five or six years ago, I started getting serious about taking better care of them (and myself in general). I tried to grow them out, but it would only ever last a few weeks at a time before I fucked them up again. Something stressful would happen and I'd tell myself, "Fuck it, it's going to feel so good, it's not a big deal," and then regret it later. Or one of them would chip or snag on something, and I'd obsessively pick at it before totally fucking it up, feel ashamed, and then fuck up all the other ones to punish myself or because I thought they all had to "match." That was really hard for me -- trying to make them all "match," because if one was fucked up, the others had to be fucked up too, or if one had to be cut short, well then the others had to be short too except that I would pick and tear at them to make them short instead of cutting them cleanly.
One time, I got really far and was starting to feel really proud, and then something made me really anxious and, as always, I fucked them up. I felt so gross and ashamed that I started buying press-on acrylics because I no longer felt like I could deal with students seeing my ugly nails. The thing about the acrylics was that while they were on, I didn't have access to my real nails, so I would just wear those for however many weeks it took my real nails to grow back to whatever I thought was acceptable. I was doing really well for a while before the wedding and I was getting so excited about the idea of being able to show off my own beautiful long nails ... but of course wedding anxiety led me to fuck them up yet again, so I ended up getting some professional acrylics instead.
And then last year, when we moved and I was so upset, I just went into full-on CONTROL FREAK mode, thinking, "I can't control what's going on around me so instead I'm going to control every little thing about my own body." I made my own hygiene products, dieted really strictly, and also reached, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE, a point where my nails were really long. Even longer than I would cut my acrylics down to. After that I got to the point where I would have to cut them regularly to keep them down to a length I liked. For the first time in my life, I was regularly trimming my nails.
I was pretty intensely depressed last winter, and somewhere in there I fucked them up, I don't even remember when. Since then it's been that same on-again/off-again kind of thing where I'll try to grow them out for a while, be marginally successful, and then find myself back at square one.
But I've been pretty successful lately, and yesterday I finally reached that point once again where I spent all day thinking, "Damn, my nails are getting hella long," so I trimmed them.
What I think is especially impressive about this time is that one of them (my right ring finger; somehow it's always my ring fingers that get fucked up first, I don't know why that is) is still pretty short, and the skin around my right thumbnail is pretty ugly because it still hasn't healed from the last time it got messed up, but I'm not stressing out about making all of them "match."
So that's where I am right now. I currently am maintaining them well enough that I can trim them if I want to, and I feel okay enough to let one of them be shorter and not stress about it. They look pretty. They look healthy. I get compliments on them fairly often. I still touch them a lot, looking for snags and stuff, but I carry a little nail kit in my purse at all times so that if I DO find a snag or a hangnail or whatever, I can pull out a clipper or a filer and take care of it properly right away. By my bed, I have a shoebox filled with nailpolish and other things so that I can make them look pretty no matter what length they are. When they're long I like to just put one clear coat, but when they're short I'll paint them something dark, nude, or pastel. If I'm feeling particularly anxious or if there's some sort of imperfection I'm trying to ignore, I'll paint them a really pretty color to lessen the temptation of fucking with them. And every now and then I use fancy hand cream to keep my cuticles healthy, again minimizing the chances that I'll find something to pick at or fuck with. And for the little wounds on my thumb, I know it's not healing properly because I'm STILL FUCKING WITH IT, so today I finally put some Neosporin on it (to promote healing) and wrapped it with a bandage (so that I won't see it / can't touch it).
Sooo anyway, now you know: when I say something like "I have Anxiety Nails right now" or "Anxiety Nails are back," that's what I mean. And it's also why I'm so in love with my nails when I do manage to keep them long -- I stare at them a lot because I can barely believe they're real -- and it's why, when people compliment me on them, I say, "Thank you! I've worked really hard on them." And people laugh at that like they think I'm being sarcastic, but it's the absolute truth.
Crossposted here on Dreamwidth. You can comment there anonymously or using OpenID. ♥