Having the Nail Biters’ Curse or other Oral Fixations torments me (and others) incessantly in our day to day. Some people’s vices may be alcohol, smoking, soda, coffee, gum… not me. Mine is all of them.
Read more: The Nail Biters’ Curse and Oral Fixations: My Quarter-Life Crisis
Sigmund Freud on Oral Fixation
You all know who he is, and he would’ve marked me as the classic example of an orally fixated adult as a result of sensual arousal during oral-oriented stages of my childhood development. Can I confidently tell you that that was the case when my mother breastfed me as an infant? No! Absolutely not. But it’s a funny thought.
Perhaps he’d have asserted that another stage of my upbringing was the traumatizing moment. According to Freud, it is when during an oral-oriented stage, the child does not receive enough of that stimulation, and develops the fixation as a result.
Until I was five, I had a string of pacifiers that I wore around my neck. This was due to the fact that I wanted to twirl a pacifier in my hair at the same time as having one in my mouth, and wanted to share them with my dog. My mother’s solution was to give me enough pacifiers for each category of stimulation: 1) my mouth, 2) my hair, 3) my dog, 4) my nose and 5) everything else – the floor, paints, sand, dirt, etc.
Round the Christmas ere my fifth birthday, however, my father informed me that Santa Claus would not give me presents this year unless I surrendered my pacifier necklace. So I got my sparkly, purple, polly pocket tray that was my designated nighttime storage container for my pacifiers and set the offering on the side table next to my dad’s favorite TV-watching recliner.
Ten minutes later I returned in a panic, claiming that I forgo the gifts this year if it meant I could retain my treasured comfort objects until the next Christmas. The tray was gone, and so were my pacifiers. My father, still in his recliner, holding back a smirk, informed me Santa had already passed by to retrieve the offering. I recall glaring through the open window next to the side table, resenting Santa’s efficiency and due diligence, and stomped away, feeling betrayed.
Further Fatherly Trauma
My father smoked cigarettes for fifty years. Two packs a day, Lucky Strikes, Pall Mall Reds no filter, and Pall Mall Golds for 25, 20, and 5 years respectively. As I approached my second birthday, my mother provided him with an ultimatum: quit, or leave. (For the sake of the child! See: Reproductive Futurism.)
So on the eve of the turn of the century, 11:58 PM on December 31st of ’99 so he claims, my father smoked his last cigarette on the now-international island beach of Jurerê, Florianopolis, Santa Catarina, where I grew up.
I’ve always been a nail biter. And my father has always been the most aggressive deterrer of that habit of mine. One day, however, when I was fifteen, he laughingly told me – “I used to bite my nails. I stopped when I was fifteen. You wanna know how? I started smoking cigarettes.”
I remember thinking of myself, “Dad. What the F**K. Only a Jewish, Bronx-born, granddad age father would say such a thing.” I adore my crazy ol’ man.
Constant Anxiety, Casual Alcohol, Caffeine Affinity
My brain is always a mile a minute, my Brazilian family’s casual culture around drinking was confusing for my American-culture-raised self, and I absolutely love drinking hot, caffeinated drinks.
Nowadays I don’t believe anyone who says they are not constantly stimulating themselves in some way. Be it social media, chewing gum, talking on the phone, drinking seltzers, listening to music, even reading a book… I have yet to meet a person whose meditative state – pure contemplation and mere existence – is ingrained and incorporated into many moments of their day.
I am no exception. But that isn’t even the true problem because I am pretty disciplined in controlling my impulses. The true problem is the pressure and guilt that I place on myself for those moments that I do allow myself a drink, a latte, a mint, a smoke, a moment of nail-biting.
Quarter-Life Crisis
Don’t despair, readers for I am not nearly as fallen apart as this blog post may imply. I’m as put together as your toothless dog’s chew toy. Beat up, stretched thin, but lucky enough not to have my cotton stuck in some canines.
My twenty-fifth birthday is neither the end nor the beginning of something beautiful (such as no longer biting my nails or drinking), because the beauty has been ongoing! I am proud of myself for the improvements I’ve made on myself, and you should be proud of your own. Adulting is hard, and it’s never as simple as no longer being a nail-biter, or stop smoking cigarettes, or only drinking on the weekends. And some parental trauma can be humorous when you’ve forgiven them for their mistakes and forgive yourself for your own.
This is not to say that all parental-induced trauma is as silly as the examples I’ve given here. This is meant to be a humorous post. Your traumas, big or small, are valid and you should take the steps you feel are best for you to take to develop coping mechanisms that work for you!
I think that’s what all this quarter-life crisis crap is all about thinking you’re going in the right direction and being wrong, or thinking you don’t know what you’re doing and realizing you’re a lot more put together you thought. It’s always a balance between being grounded and flying, and balance is not synonymous with stability. Your existential foundations are a mix of both.
And in case you need to hear it, you’re doing great. Quit bitin’ your nails.
absgeller 
Loved reading your blog. Happy Birthday. Enjoy your day and eat lots of cake and ice cream also Eggs!!!
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Actually, I did start smoking at 15 but did not stop biting my nails until my early 20’s; sorry, no excuse! Dad
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HOW DO YOU SYNTHESIZE PIECES OF YOUR LIFE INTO SUCH A COHESIVE SET OF MUSINGS?!!
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