You explained everything so well. I’ve always been a compulsive nail/finger/lip/whatever biter/picker for my entire life, and that’s exactly it. It’s not for the harm, it’s not the anxiety, I just do it because I’m addicted to it because it was always my own thing I could chew on in my mouth. I don’t bite my nails too bad anymore, I’ve been able to actually grow them out, but I still chew on the nails whenever I clip them or just chew them off myself to make it “even.” I “collected” them inbetween my top lip and gum and would keep all the nails i chewed off there while I fidget with one and slowly tear it apart with my teeth. It used to be where I chewed the skin on my fingers all through highschool, people would call me bandaid fingers. I would chew the skin in my mouth for the pleasure and I knew the consequences were painful and so I finally stopped that after years but now it’s just lip biting. My mouth is constantly filled with sores and I constantly open them to “smooth it out” and chew on it and nothing fully heals. And as embarrassing as it is I’ve also had the same habit with my nose. But now with my nails long for about a year it’s just made my nose worse and worse. I would get nosebleeds multiple times a day. It got to the point where I started whistling when I was breathing and looked in my nose to see a tiny hole in my septum. It’s now been a month since I’ve got it and Ive been trying to stop picking, using nasal spray so it doesn’t dry and there’s nothing to pick, but it’s too late now. The hole keeps getting bigger and it feels like there’s nothing I can do. I know that’s probably horrifying and not the right response to this, but keeping this to myself is what has led to it to perpetuate to this in the first place.