Full disclosure, I don't bite my nails - I pick them. Seems to be the same kind of compulsion though.

I've picked my nails my whole life without giving it a second thought, I'm a man and I never cared about my nails so I never considered it a problem.

2 things happened that changed that recently though, the first being that I picked up the guitar again after a long time and am trying to learn some hybrid/fingerpicking techniques that are a lot easier and sound better with nails. The other is that my girlfriend mentioned off-hand (ha) that my hands were sexy. That was quite a motivator to take care of them and make them look nice.

Now that I'm trying not to do it, I'm realizing how brutal a compulsion it is. They annoy me, constantly. Every second of the day I'm viscerally aware of my nails, I'm always rubbing my fingers over them or mimicking picking, typing feels awful - if I have a bad day, it just tips me over the edge and I feel like I just have to get rid of them or they'll drive me insane.

I have ADHD and ASD, and I've learned there might be a relation there as some sensory issue. I started painting them as my girlfriend suggested that I could pick the nail polish off as a substitute. So now I'm painting my nails 2-3 times a week, I'm constantly filing them and digging dirt out of them with a tooth pick. I just can't leave them alone. They look good, they're at a use able length for playing guitar now, and I'm proud of that. But they still annoy me so much.

Does that ever go away? I just want to go back to not being consciously aware of them every second of every day. Am I making it worse by obsessively cleaning, filing and painting them, or has that been a good coping mechanism for other people?