my experience

Hi guys I am new here but wanted to share my experience of a life time of picking. Any shared similarities or answers to my own questions would be a great help. I am from the uk and I am 32. I have never had depression or any mental health problems. I manage my anxiety fairly well I tend to get anxious about protecting others (strange my job is in the health care profession- god I hope this does not make me sound more strange), I still make the mistake of thinking because I feel like something bad is going to happen it means something will go wrong, but i know this is a common thinking error. Over the years I have got less anxious about everything. I am not sure if i was abused as a child my grandfather abused my mother and my cousin (I was vaguely aware from when I was 11, but knew for definate when I was 17). I often get this feeling of being dangled waiting for something bad to happen to me as a child, not a flashback not a dream I can't really describe it. When I experience this feeling/memory I feel like I want to scream someone to hear me, I feel like I was crying - maybe it was in a pre verbal stage of my life which would make sense as why it is a feeling not a memory and why I can't verbalise well the distress who knows. I have picked my fingers forever, of which i am most ashamed when it gets real bad and i have to bandage them. i have used my teeth nails or nail clippers to pick. I stopped biting my nails long ago which somehow i believe makes my fingers look nicer?!?! althugh if my nails do break i am ok to trim the nail down with my teeth and allow it to heal without continuous picking. my thumbs usually get the worst treatment. i do think there is somnething in my hands though. when i look at them especially as i get older and get looser skin on the backs of my hands i see my grandads old mans hands and hate them - tbh i feel the same when i look at my moms hands ewww i could wretch. I just remembered I picked scabs as a child too. Mainly I pick because I think if I just pick that little bit it will feel smoother and look bett?!?. I do not do it to hurt myself or to self harm. my wounds do bleed which usually leads me to stop and cover them with plasters. I have had periods of not picking the longest was during pregnancy. I try to stop in the lead up to special occassions, I hide my hands in photographs or when talking to others who do not know what I do. I am ashamed if people ask me about it. I used to get asked a lot if I had excema on my fingers?!? I do pick my feet but this is my nails to the point I don't really have a little toe nail. Sometimes I limp as they hurt when the nails have been picked really low and have bled I often paint the skin with nail polish so that from a distance my feet would appear normal. I can let my toe nails grow a little if I wear socks. I never wear open toe shoes. tbh I hate to feel my toe nails if I can feel a slight ridge when I am checking them - in order to pick then I will pick. I guess I have learnt I can restrain myself if I really want to. This makes me ask why would I want to? What does picking give me??? I think if I could stop checking i would be ok - why do i check??? Thanks for letting me talk it has made me realise I know more about what i can control and what csp is to me than I thought. It is nice to have somewhere to talk and hopefully belong.