I have many symptoms that I have too long ignored.  The most normal of them is nail biting. I also pull out my eyelashes, prick myself with pins, and take too hot showers and scratch my skin.  I have never fully realized that I do these things regularly until recently.  They all feel somewhat the same way.  It begins with me feeling uncomfortable and I bite my nails, or pull at my lashes, or I prick myself.  If I feel especially uncomfortable, I will shower and scratch it out.  It feels good to me.  The pin pricking is the newest habit.  I discovered it on accident when something sharp in my purse poked me and it felt like a warm tingling all over.  So now I do it when I am feeling really uncomfortable and it calms me down.  I know it isn't normal, I would't tell anyone about it.


I came to an alarming correlation I have never thought of before. The idea of going to a gynecologist or any doctor that would look at me "down there" scares me.  I am 28 and I haven't been to one since I was 17.  I hate them, just thinking about going makes me want to cry and scream.  I think about all the doctors from my youth who poked at me, pushed things in me, touched me and I can't even really remember all of it because I would just zone out.  Why couldn't I handle going to a doctor?  And then I realized: just before I learned about my abnormality, I had been molested, several times.  Going to the doctor directly brings up those memories.  I felt molested by the doctors because of the abuse was so close together.  Now that I know this, I think I can talk myself down from the ledge when I go to the doctor in 2012.  


I have long wanted to talk to my husband about this stuff but I feel guilty talking to him about things that are bound to upset him.  I also worry that he will not believe me or think I am insane.