biting my nails

I used to believe that if you bit your fingernails and swallowed them that they would poke holes in your stomach and you would die. Thanks for this belief to those Catholic school nuns!

Ann Y.

If you bite your nails, a hand will grow in your stomach.

Miss Laura

For as long as I can remember, I've been a nervous chewer. I would chew 'till my fingers bled, then I would just keep chewing anyway. One day, when I was 8 or 9, my father told me that the only things that we couldn't digest were bubble gum and nail clippings, and that my appendix would burst if I kept chewing. I think I stopped for a week... maybe. :-O

Govrache

When I was younger I used to believe that when you bit your nails they would stay in this part of your stomach forever and eventually you would have to have surgery to remove them! I still haven't stopped doing it though!

Chazsnape

When I was really really little I bit my nails and swallowed 'em. One day in first grade my teacher noticed and started yelling things like "SARA SWALLOWING YOUR NAILS WILL GIVE YOU A TUMOR. STOP THAT." And for the longest time I thought the nails would stick to my stomache lining. Just like gum (which, my sixth grade teacher told us the whole truth...).

Also my brother told me that if I continued to bite my nails the evil demons of Satan would devour my soul and stuff. He's five years older so I guess he was about nine. I'm twelve and he's eighteen and nobody's eaten my soul yet.

Sara

When I was 6, I caught a mild dose of scarlet fever. So, as was usual in those days (1930), I spent the next three weeks in the local isolation hospital, a range of tin sheds on the outskirts of Winchester.

Once a week the Nurse put the small group of children there into an enormous bath, where we were scrubbed and had our hair washed. Then, wrapped in towels, we had our finger and toe nails trimmed. As she did so, she warned us not to bite our nails - as one poor girl had done - or the chewed-off bits could turn into worms in our tums. Of course, we only knew about earth worms...

Much later, I realised the truth of her warning. Tapeworm eggs can lurk under dirty fingernails, but the frightful thought that bits of nails could turn into worms stayed with me for years...

Howard

my cousin had to go to the hospital because she had a sick stomach, she was there for a while and lost 10 lbs. to get me to stop biting my nails my parents told me that she got sick from biting her nails and she was lucky she didnt die but since i was littler i would definatly die, i forgot a few days later and bit a nail then remembered what they said and cried until the assured me i wouldnt die.

a

I beleived that if i bit my fingers then the nails in my stomach would soon form a hand and rip up my insides!

Amanda T.

When I was young my grandfather told me that when I met someone that I really cared for, I would stop biting my nails. Five years ago, I met a wonderful woman, and I finally stopped. I am 60 now.

Anon

When I was about 4, I used to bite my nails- CONSTANTLY. My uncle tried the "scare" tactic to get me to stop, so he told me that when I bit my nails, evil germs would fly inside my now "open" fingers and they would eat my organs. In the middle of the night a few weeks later, I bit my nails while sleeping. When I woke up, my fingers were covered in dirt. I was SO scared, until my mom told me that my cat rubbed against me while I slept.

King Kevo

I used to believe that biting my nails would cause my hair to turn the color that they happened to be painted. This helped me to stop biting my nails.

Mandi

My older sister taught me that if I swallowed gum and chewed my fingernails, the bits of fingernails would get embeded in the gum. the gumnail ball would travel about inside my body and slice up my heart and other vital organs.

Did it anyway!

When my mother was younger, she went to a hypnotist. While under hypnotism, she was told that biting your nails was basically a form of cannibalism. She hasn't biten her nails since.

Anon

My mother told me...oh when I was about 4 or 5 that if I bite my nails, the little nail bits would swim up to your brain and make you mental for the rest of your life....That didnt stop me...about a year later she told me if I bite my nails then an evil nail bititng monster would come from under the bed and eat me.....I was petrified and couldt sleep for weeks.

Ragamuffin

I was told if I bit my nails, I would get worms.not just ordinary worms, but big buggers, like the ones found in the garden. Needless to say I stopped biting my nails, and grew them long, when I was in my early teens, it was then that my Father, said for God sake cut those nails, they are far too long, and look disgusting!!!!!!!!!! who wins????
Anne

Anne Kenyon

Til' I was about 10 i bit my nails. My mom and my doctor told me that because of my bad habit I must have parasites in my stomach. Tell me how I associated this with worms crawling around in there! I was cured forever.

CC

My parents said "stop chewing your nails or when you stop when you're older, you'll get ingrown nails." I thought that meant that when the nails got long enough, they would turn around and start growing back towards my fingertips and eventually go into the skin, so I was scared to stop. To this day, I chew my nails.

Tania

When I was about 5 I used to believe that if I bit and swallowed a whole nail it would then grow in my stomach till the size of a reaping-hook and finally pierce my belly. I was convinced that navel was formed in that way. Luckily, after checking my body each day after bath I didn't find any other holes.

FalconEye

For some reason, when I bit my nails, I always imagined them making a neat pile in my stomach. The more I chewed, the more the pile would grow and one day I wouldn't be able to swallow any more.

Anon

When I was little, I had one of those mini Ken dolls from McDonalds, you all know the ones..and i had chewed on his hand for some strange reason...anyways they turned green, so my grandma used to tell me that if i kept biting my nails they would eventually turn green too! well...they never did, but i did evenutally stop biting my nails! GO ME!

green nailed