New to the Site

I am a toe skin, foot and toenail picker. I think I have been doing this for quite a few years now. I didn't even realize I had started it. I do it unconsiously. I will be sitting there watching t.v. and will begin to pick at the skin around my toe nails. Mostly my right foot which is weird. I sit crosslegged on the couch and use my left hand to pick while my right hand is flipping channels or doing stuff on my iphone. I will pick and pick and pick until they are raw and bloody and I can't even put shoes on. Not to long ago I ripped off both my pinky toe nails. All the other toe nails were ripped down until they bled. I stopped that. I have the strong urge to pick my pinky toe nails because they grow funny. I also pick the skin around my fingernails but not nearly as bad as my toe nails. Mostly I pick the skin on my finger nails when I get a torn cuticle or something. I've ripped my fingernails down to rawness before too. My husband hates it. I gave him permission to slap my hands everytime he catches me doing it. It helps. But now I just don't do it in front of him. When we got married almost a year ago, we were getting married on the beach. Well, I stopped picking my toes for 3 months so they would look pretty. I was able to do it. But once that pedicure wore off I was pack to picking again. My fingernails finally grew back. I started taking the vitamin Biotin. It's for hair, skin and nails. Very cheap. Well my fingernails are beautiful. Except for the skin around my thumbs. I've been trying very hard to resist picking the nails on my toes and I painted them with toe nail polish and they are starting to grow back. The skin around my toes however is frightful. If I find one loose piece of skin or a torn cuticle I have to keep picking and picking and picking. I have a whole arsenal of tools to use for picking. I have a cuticle cutter, a cuticle shaver and I use a pointed nail file to get at skin under my toe nails to dig out or get under a tough piece of skin my nails can't get too. I have been able to stop for periods of time but I always get right back into it. My family has noticed as well as my friends. I can't wear closed toed shoes sometimes so I have to wear flip flops and my friends see the redness or the bandaid covered toes. I also pick at the bottom of my feet. Mostly on the heels. If there is one piece of skin that is flaking off I go to town on it. It gets so raw sometimes that I can't even walk without a limp. For some reason this morning, I totally picked my right heel raw. It was fine and now it's not. My skin, I've been noticing, is really dry on my feet. I may try to give myself a pedicure treatment and continually put lotion so I don't end up doing the other foot. I am glad I found this website. Now I know I am not weird or crazy. What's ironic is that I'm in grad school to become a freakin psychologist! I know what's wrong with me but I guess I can never admit to myself that this is a form of OCD. Thanks for reading. I've never written or said any of this before.