Previous installments of The Toast’s newly-renamed (thanks, Adrienne!) advice column from two disparate and imperfect persons can be found here. Last time: Job Dilemmas.
Okay, so I know we’re all disgusting meat bags, and that’s cool, but I am hoping for some advice on being slightly less disgusting. In the past few years, since I graduated college, I’ve developed the gross habit of basically gnawing on my cuticles/the whole area around my nails. I’ve never been a nail biter, but I guess this is similar. Even if there isn’t anything loose to bite, I pick at it til there is. At this point I barely even realize I’m doing it. My fingers look awful, it can’t possibly be sanitary, everything is unpleasant about it. How do I stop??? Painting my nails doesn’t work; they’re usually painted anyway and it doesn’t deter me. Help!
Nicole: I do this too. I cannot help you. (strokes your face with ragged cuticles)
Mallory: Oh! This is actually something I can be vaguely helpful with. My dad (hi, dad!) used to do the exact same thing for years, and he’s not a disgusting meatbag at all. It’s definitely not good for you (have you ever had an infected cuticle? It’s pretty rough, my friend), but the good news is that the answer to your problem is not just “buy that stuff that makes your nails taste bad” or “I don’t know, try harder.” There’s a whole field of psychological study around how to effectively and permanently change unconscious habits (habit reversal training), and there are some nifty tricks you can learn to break the unconscious cue-and-response system.
Basically the idea is that every habit starts off with a sometimes-unconscious cue (emotional, external, whatever), followed by whatever behavior you’re looking to break, then the emotional or physical reward (Goddd, yesss, I ripped off that long strip of skin by my thumb, it feels so good, let’s do it again forever). You’re not gross, you just have an effectively trained brain. You don’t have to try to change or get rid of the cue or the reward; you just have to become consciously aware of them and then find ways to change the routine.
Here’s an example:
The psychologist knew that changing Mandy’s nail biting habit required inserting a new routine into her life. “What do you feel right before you bring your hand up to your mouth to bite your nails?” he asked her.
“There’s a little bit of tension in my fingers,” Mandy said. “It hurts a little bit here, at the edge of the nail. Sometimes I’ll run my thumb along, looking for hangnails, and when I feel something catch, I’ll bring it up to my mouth then. I’ll go finger by finger, biting all the rough edges. Once I start, it feels like I have to do all of them.”
Asking patients to describe what triggers their habitual behavior is called awareness training, and it’s the first step in habit reversal training. The tension that Mandy felt in her nails cued her nail biting habit.
“Most people’s habits have occurred for so long they don’t pay attention to what causes it anymore,” said Brad Dufrene, who treated Mandy. “I’ve had stutterers come in, and I’ll ask them which words or situations trigger their stuttering, and they won’t know because they stopped noticing so long ago.”
Next, the therapist asked Mandy to describe why she bit her nails. At first, she had trouble coming up with reasons. As they talked, though, it became clearer that she bit when she was bored. The therapist put her in some typical situations, such as watching television and doing homework, and she started nibbling. When she had worked through all of the nails, she felt a brief sense of completeness, she said. That was the habit’s reward: a physical stimulation she had come to crave.
At the end of their first session, the therapist sent Mandy home with an assignment: Carry around an index card, and each time you feel the cue — a tension in your fingertips — make a checkmark on the card.
She came back a week later with 28 checks. She was, by that point, acutely aware of the sensations that preceded her habit. She knew how many times it occurred during class or while watching television.
This might not be the exact case for you, obviously. You might bite your nails when you feel nervous or scared or upset or ____. The key is to start paying close attention to what feels like an automatic, knee-jerk response, until you can start figuring out whatever circumstance or feeling sets the need to chew off in your brain. Then comes the next step:
Then the therapist taught Mandy what is known as a “competing response.” Whenever she felt that tension in her fingertips, he told her, she should immediately put her hands in her pockets or under her legs, or grip a pencil or something else that made it impossible to put her fingers in her mouth. Then Mandy was to search for something that would provide a quick physical stimulation — such as rubbing her arm or rapping her knuckles on a desk — anything that would produce a physical response. It was the Golden Rule: The cues and rewards stayed the same. Only the routine changed.
They practiced in the therapist’s office for about half and hour and Mandy was sent home with a new assignment: Continue with the index card, but make a check when you feel the tension in your fingertips and a hash mark when you successfully override the habit.
A week later, Mandy had bitten her nails only three times and had used the competing response seven times. She rewarded herself with a manicure, but kept using the note cards.
After a month, the nail biting habit was gone. The competing routines had become automatic. One habit had replaced another.
For what it’s worth, this is exactly the technique that my dad used and it’s worked for the last year. As long as I can remember, my dad has always had chewed-up nails and fraying cuticles, and now they look like anybody else’s. Normal hands! I have no idea how long it took him or how much time he spends thinking about it now, but I do know that it’s been a long-term and effective change for him, so take heart. Keep us posted if this is something you decide to do, by the way! I want to hear if it works out.
If my adored grandad is still alive, I kinda want him to walk me down the aisle. But I love my dad and also he might get pissed at being passed over? And my mom will get pissed if I don’t include my stepdad, whom I love too (though I don’t imagine he personally would care either way.) So, what to do? Have three men walk me down the aisle, relay-race style? Or walk my own damn self down the aisle, because Patriarchy and I don’t need to be passed like a hot potato from the control of one man to another? ADVISE PLEASE.
Mallory: What I really want is for the three of them to crowd-surf you down the aisle until your husband can reach out for you and hoist you above his head for the duration of the vows, but I realize that might be difficult to choreograph this late in the wedding-planning game, particularly if your grandfather is elderly.
It sounds to me like the “walk my own damn self down the aisle” isn’t really an option you want to take, just a criticism you know could hypothetically be lobbed at you and that you’d prefer to anticipate. But if you would prefer to walk down the aisle alone, and you’re only worrying about which man to choose to walk with you because you feel like you have to, just saunter down by your lonesome. It’s, what, a twenty-second walk? You’ll be swell; you’ll be great.
That said, if you would find it meaningful to have a member of your immediate family join you for the toddle to the altar, invite as many gentlemen you like. If all three of them linked arms and walked with you, it would be like the Wizard of Oz, which is a gay classic, and that’s sort of like subverting the patriarchy if you close your eyes almost all the way and tilt your head a little.
Nicole: OH, I’ve got this one! I have this bizarre, bizarre aversion to any kind of ritualistic daddy-daughter stuff, which, happily, my dad shares, so we have always eaten burgers and talked about books and life and stuff and enjoyed each other’s company in perfect contentment without paranoia that aisle-walking or first-dancing would ever come to pass. But this is a real issue* for wedding-havers that is only more of an issue every year, and my personal suggestion would be to just embrace the zoo. Let the whole horde walk down the aisle/beach/botanical garden path with you together, if they aren’t in the habit of getting into fights. Or have your future spouse walk with you. I’ve always liked the Jewish tradition of both the bride and the other bride walking in with each of their parents, which might distract from THIS LADY HAS SO MANY PARENTAL FIGURES. And, obviously, just do exactly what you want to do, because “your wedding is really about your family” is a crock of shit, they had their fucking chance. Your dad is not giving out favours to Luca Brasi. Not making waves may be the thing that will ultimately make you happiest, but that’s for you to figure out. I bless your union.
*Obviously there are realer issues, like overthrowing the patriarchy, but you might as well do something that works and is satisfying and meaningful to you.
Tags: advice, advice from two disparate persons, nails, weddings
I got my mum and aunt to walk me down the aisle. Dunno if that helps, but it is a thing I did. My aunt wore a special tweed suit. http://offbeatbride.com/2010/07/uk-purple-goth-we… I am generally in favour of multiple special people if you ahve multiple special people and it won’t be awkward. Like my husband had two best men.
Would it be possible to be walked down with one or two of them and have the others do readings? My dad did a reading.
I TOTALLY LOVE your purple dress! And the hat/veil (fascinator…?) is also fantastic. You and your husband seem like a lovely couple!
Thanks! We have consistently failed to murder each other or anyone else, so I guess we’re doing alright.
YOUR SHOES, your shoes, they are perfect and I love them so much!
I was totally the ghost at your wedding! My husband has groped my butt at that very same embankment! But 20 years earlier, when we were at UEA, before we were married. Still, Norwich is where we met and decided life wasn’t worth living if we weren’t on the same continent, so if I wasn’t already delighted by your purple dress and whole lovely wedding, my sentimentality would compel me to tell you that you and your husband are the best.
… but what if they are in the habit of getting into fights? Then what?
The answer may just have to be elopement.
🙁
Then you tell the various fight-starting people that anyone who fails to act like an adult at your wedding will be kicked out, have their house burned down and the ashes sown with salt.
Or, yeah, elopement.
You know, I kind of really love the idea of a relay-race style walk down the aisle. Like, one of them walks you to a certain point where the next guy takes over and the last guy brings you up to the altar. It’s a nice way to let everyone be involved without a lot of crowding.
Re nails: I recommend Bee Nuts! cuticle oil, which has an applicator similar to those for nail polishes. My cuticles tend to be really dry/cracked, so moisturizing with this stuff makes the skin less likely to split and bedraggle. (That’s a verb, right?)
I’m glad you can’t see my hands as I type this because my nails and cuticles look pretty bad BUT they’re better than they were before? Still working on this one.
lemony flutter, y’all.
I’m never getting married, but if something ever happens and a man like, traps me in a net and manages to marry me, I am so doing the crowdsurfing thing.
My husband categorically refused to accept me from my father at our wedding, because he hated the idea of me even looking like his “chattel.” We’d already lived together on and off for the 5 years we’d been dating, so we decided we’d walk up the aisle together. My mom and dad walked up together as part of the whole processional shebang, so they were part of the ceremony without any sense of “giving me away” which, eww.
My sister and her husband dated for 13 years, and had 7 (!) parents to deal with by the time they got hitched. They walked in separately and met under the huppah. The parents stayed at their seats.
All this to say, there are many ways of including your granddad and dad and stepdad without making it a competition about who’s “special” enough to walk you down the aisle. Congrats on the wedding!
Ooh, I love this idea of parents walking in together as part of the wedding party but separate from the couple. Takes a lot of the gender weirdness out of it.
Same here, that sounds like a great idea.
Like Nicole, I’m generally in favor of doing whatever you want. This is YOUR wedding, not your family’s wedding. Do what YOU want. If your awesome grandfather is who you want to walk you down the aisle, then ask him! Sure, people will probably be pissy about it and moan and complain, but when are people not pissy about something? If it’s not this, it will be something else. Do what YOU want and enjoy YOUR day.
Man, thank you so much for the cuticle advice: ON IT.
My friend had her dad and granddad walk her down the aisle and I sobbed, you should do that
My now-husband and I walked down the aisle together. It was the bee’s knees.
My fella and I did this too and it was exactly the right thing for us. Because he’s a weirdo, he wouldn’t look at me until we got to the front, so I was side-eyeing him the whole way.
I have a similar habit to the nail/cuticle biting thing, and I’ve done it since I can remember. It’s weird, it’s pretty gross (according to my parents/grandparents/partner), and it’s completely subconscious. I’ve tried everything (or so I thought), and I’ve never been able to kick it. Thanks for this – I’m going to try figuring out what my triggers are and being more conscious of them.
The giving away the bride wedding thing is basically why we’re not even having an aisle. We’ll just play a song and everyone has to get situated by the end of it, and we’ll be at the front with the officiant.
As with all wedding things, YMMV.
I feel you lady who is getting married! I have several father figures (multiple marriages, etc etc) and my wholly unsolicited/not-yet-married advice is that if people are important to you and you want to acknowledge it but worry about picking one person over another, assign them each some sort of role within the wedding (officiant, reader, idk). Or have your gramps walk you and do one father daughter dance each with both your dads. I’m getting married next fall and planning on walking alone and totally skipping right past the father/daughter dance minefield. Good luck!
That is exactly what I did! For further unsolicited advice, I will tell you my story, which is that my mom and dad hate each other, and I love my dad and my stepdad both a lot, but I didn’t want to risk any kind of juvenile shenanigans during the ceremony, so they all processed in and sat quietly in the front row, and then I walked my own damn self down the aisle and it was beautiful and lovely and there appear to have been no hard feelings. YMMV of course but there are always going to be people telling you how to get married (including me!), but just ignore all those fools. You do you and it will be wonderful.
On a practical level, having well moisturized cuticles helps with not picking them. You don’t need to go out and buy fancy cuticle products (unless you want to, in which case, go for it) — I moisturize mine with chapstick. Any clear, solid lip product will work; rub all over the nail and surrounding area. Moisturizing your actual nails will also help them to break/peel less, which for me was a precursor to cuticle picking.
This psychological stuff also sounds legit, though.
My husband and I both walked in with our parents. I didn’t know that was a Jewish thing! However, I also kissed my husband right when I walked into the ceremony, in full violation of the whole you-may-now-kiss-the-bride business. So, maybe don’t take my advice because I clearly don’t know how to wedding.
But if you really want a man to give you away to your husband (and no judgment if that’s what you want), maybe portion out the traditional father functions among your dad-figures? You could have grandpa walk you down the aisle, have a father-daughter dance with your dad, have stepdad give a toast.
I am in the middle of major deadlines at work, which means my eyebrow-plucking habit is surging back. You can always tell when I’m stressed because my left brow gets really sparse around the edges. I’m going to try the index card and competing response stuff- thanks! I am always happy to see things like this mentioned; it’s so reassuring to realize that, contrary to what I believed as a teenager, I am not a terrible gross beast-woman with subhuman habits. Or rather if I am, then a lot of other people (maybe most other people) are that way too, and we can all hang out and discuss our weird neuroses together.
Yay, an eyebrow person! I don’t really have a nail problem but I do mess with my eyebrows. Also my hair. AND I bite my lips when I’m stressed, and they get REALLY chapped which causes me to bite/wet them more, which makes them even MORE chapped, and on and on.
ARE WE LOST SISTERS. I used to lick my lips so constantly in elementary school that I was once taken to the side and told to wash the Kool-Aid off from around my mouth. It wasn’t Kool-Aid, it, was red chapped skin. I have carried a tube of lip balm on my person at all times from fourth grade on- it’s part of the morning pocket dance (‘phone, keys, lip balm, ok I can go now”).
Oh man, I have to carry chapstick at all times too or I get really antsy and uncomfortable!
Yes yes yes. Gotta have it. What do you use? I was all about cherry Chapstick for years, but I switched to Burt’s Bees pomegranate lip balm and it’s rockin’. (I usually get my lips nice and balmy and then put some of their lip shimmer on top, that seems to satisfy my soft-lips compulsion while still putting a little color on.)
I used to used cherry Chapstick too! Nowadays I just use plain ol’ regular – I’ve seen the Burt’s Bees stuff though and it looks nice! I gave up lip tint after an ill-fated wrong colour choice but maybe I should try again.
I got over my Chapstick at all times thing by slathering my lips with Mentholatum every night, so now the Burt’s Bees shimmer (which is the BEST) is all I need during the day.
(I also have to slather my hands with lotion every night. Benefit: very smooth cuticles. Hardship: when I run out of lotion and my hands feel tingly with wrongness for days afterwards.)
SHUT UP BRAIN. I LISTENED TO YOU FOR YEARS AND IT BROUGHT ME NOTHING BUT TROUBLE.
The psychological reasoning behind it is a BIG relief to me too! I kind of knew before this – well, in that I knew that there had to be reasons besides just compulsiveness – but I’d never heard it explained so clearly. Thanks, Mallory, for making us feel less gross!
And oh, I am always so happy to discuss weird neuroses! I nail-bite like crazy, but I eyebrow (and hair and eyelash) pick too. I’ve gotten way better about it (mostly only hair and nails now), but mostly because I was such an anxious kid that in middle school I had no eyelashes/eyebrows, and everyone thought I had somehow burned them off in a freak accident. Fun fact: my professional hypnotist uncle tried to long-distance hypnotize me out of it! Well, really do behavioral modification similar to what Mallory talked about, but pretending there was hypnosis involved kept me way more interested. Mostly I just learned to be less anxious and focus on more socially-acceptable habits like nail biting.
Oh man, it’s such a relief. I remember first reading the word “trichitillomania” in an advice column somewhere and just staring at it in amazement and relief. Other people do this! There’s a name for it!! My trich’s improved since I was treated for depression and anxiety (shocking, I know); when I switched last year from my old high-stress job to this one I’m in now, it’s improved even more. Not gone, for sure, but it looks less like my left brow was shaved off at the middle. <3 u, SSRIs and days that don’t last 10 hours.
That was a big day for me too! Just knowing I wasn’t alone was such a huge help, since it pulled me out of the stress/shame spiral of being uniquely weird and so embarrassed about it. So happy that your treatment/job situation is working for you! I just… grew out of the worst of it, which was really great for my eyebrows and lashes, and less great for my motivation to deal with my anxiety (but hey, I’m working on it now!). And who knows, maybe now we can fully train ourselves out of it!
I have always been a gross nail/cuticle biter. It is disgusting, and I hate that I do it. I am 9/10 of the way to being better though, I hope! What has worked for me is “quitting” each finger. Like, I stopped bugging my pinkies, but allowed myself to go at the other eight. Eventually I worked all the way into my thumbs, and now I am down to only bothering my right one. As the other fingers healed, I would use nice cuticle oil, and get manicures and shape the nails, and I was so please with how lovely they looked that I usually leave them alone. I find drinking is a bit of a trigger, so I wrap any tempting looking fingers in bandaids before I go out. Go look, luck writer!
Me & my dude walked down the aisle together, because Patriarchy, and I am constutionally opposed to sentimentality. We also had what im pretty sure was the most fuck-off, feminazi hetero wedding of all time, so it fit. Highly recommended.
I have no mileage on this issue, but I do know that a popular method when you are telling someone (other two dudes) that they are not getting something that they want, or that others want for them, is to tell them at the same time what you _are_ giving them. Like, “He’s going to walk me down the aisle, but please say you’ll have the first dance.” Or, “They’re going to walk me down the aisle one on either side, but I’d be so grateful if you’d command the grill at the picnic reception and not let anyone else touch it.”
LW 2: Could your father and grandfather walk you down the aisle (on either side of you), with your mother and father following behind together? When my stepmother was upset that my brother wasn’t involved in the ceremony (and I didn’t want her to walk me down the aisle as would have been traditional), that’s what we did: me and my father, then my stepmother and brother.
Thank you for the cuticle advice; I’m going to try to apply it to KNUCKLE-CRACKING, which is my horrible compulsive habit that drives me and other people crazy. Ugh. I just can’t stop! It feels so satisfying! I literally just stopped typing this comment to crack one of my knuckles! 🙁
I had to crack my knuckles while reading your comment… and reading about nail biting has made me bite mine oh man
All-male chorus line high-kicking down the aisle, and then they jazz hand and spin out of the way to reveal the bride. It’s the only way.
I’m not sure if the bride-to-be is already engaged from her letter? But if not – or even if so, but it’s less effective – start throwing in comments now whenever the topic of Granddad comes up, like “I used to dream about Granddad walking me down the aisle, I remember he just seemed like such a charming and gentlemanly presence in my life – hey, maybe I’ll get to do that for real some day!” or “I’m so lucky to still have Granddad in my life; I hope he always knows how much I honor him.” Basically make Granddad-worship A Thing in the family, so when Dad & Step-Dad get the job of throwing open the vestry doors to allow the wedding party to start processing, then walk themselves down the aisle to make room for the bridesmaids (or whatev), it seems to be So Right Given Bride’s Grandpa Thing.
Though the high-kicking idea rocks, too.
My fella and I did this too and it was exactly the right thing for us. Because he's a weirdo, he wouldn't look at me until we got to the front, so I was side-eyeing him the whole way.
If I ever get married I'm just going to, like, materialize at the front or hide behind a plant and jump out when it's time or like get married from inside a box and then just come out and hug people when it's all over. UGH. Ceremonies.
I had both of my parents walk me down the aisle. I spoke to my dad first and told him I really, really wanted him to walk me down the aisle, but I really wanted my mom to, too, because my mom and I are very close, and I felt like BOTH my parents brought me to the point where I was ready to be a married lady, but if it was important to my dad to do it alone, that was cool and I didn’t want to upset him. He was totally in favor of a two-parent aisle-walk! But really the key point was that I *asked* him what he wanted for his “traditional” role in the wedding, and he was delighted to share “his” role because he knew how much he meant to me … at least partly because I asked.
You could maybe have your two dads walk you halfway down the aisle and then have grandpa walk you the rest of the way, with the dads following behind (or going ahead of you)? Usually there’s a lot of kissing and crying at the front of the aisle anyway and it devolves into lots of family hugging and not much chattel-giving. Or have all the pairs of parents and grandparents precede the bride down the aisle as awesome examples of married couples and as the people who love you. I think it’s important to give parents (and grandparents!) a role in the wedding that recognizes them and their importance in your life, but (as someone who’s done wedding planning for others) they’re more flexible than you might think, as long as you’re doing something that recognizes them.
One woman I wedding-planned for had the surviving grandparents (there were three) waiting at the top of the aisle and give a short blessing at the beginning of the ceremony. That was nice too.
I suffer from this as well, it’s called dermatillomania (although it seems the more common / more severe form is the type where people pick chunks of skin off of their arms, etc.). I do find it funny, in a way, that the LW said she doesn’t bite her nails but a lot of the advice is about nail-biting. I have never bitten my nails, or felt the need to, but I have bitten and picked at my cuticles for 30 years. Anyway, yes, cognitive behaviorial therapy has been shown to work where physical barriers / bad-tasting substances don’t necessarily. And one of these days I may actually try these tactics….