In the past few months I’ve developed a habit of chewing on my lower lip. And I don’t mean in the cute, outer-lip biting way. I’m talking about nibbling away at the skin on the inside of my lower lip. The area’s now full of little cuts.

I think it’s part of a larger oral fixation issue. I’ve battled nail-biting on and off since childhood, but it’s pretty easy to stop by painting your nails. Then, my teeth get bored and they start looking for other things to bite. My lower lip is convenient because it’s right there, and no one really seems to notice you’re chewing on it. (No one’s said anything to me about it, not even the guy I was dating for part of the lip-biting period, and spent more time in close proximity to my mouth than anyone else in my life.)

Trouble is, it’s really easy to break yourself of nail-biting: just put bad tasting stuff on your nails until you develop a Pavlovian biting nails/bad taste association. I can’t simply put bad-tasting stuff on the inside of my lower lip because it’s, well, inside my mouth. So I’ve let it slide.

Today, however, was my breaking point. I ordered curry chicken for my take out dinner, from a not especially spicy restaurtant. As I ate it, I started thinking, “Why does my mouth hurt so much from this spicy food? Oh yeah, full of tiny open wounds.” It took me over half an hour and two glasses of water to suffer through what normallly would’ve been a delicious dinner. This is no way to live.

But how to break the cycle? In the past, even when I’ve refrained for a time, I start up again worse than ever when the wounds start to heal.

Clearly, I need something new to orally fixate on. But what can I chew on or have in my mouth all the time that isn’t unhealthy or otherwise disgusting? I should surrender and take up smoking. It would quell my oral fixation and give me something to do with my hands. I’m like a smoker trapped in a non-smoker’s body. Except that I like smelling good and flesh-coloured fingers and breathing easily and having money and not having cancer.