I'm 14 years old!

Hello, I'm Marcus and I'm 14 years old and a freshman in high school. I an SO GLAD that there are others who have the same problem as I do. I have been biting my fingers (actually the skin around the nails) and I am really pissed because I can't stop. I have been doing this since I was 8 or 9 I think. I am embarassed even to expose my hands and fingers to other people. Although I try to be very social, when other people see my fingers, esp(ecially) girls, they go "ick, gross, ew!" and this makes me SO SAD. My fingers, esp(ecially) my thumbs and index fingers, look like they've been through a meat grinder. It looks even worse after they've been soaked in water, like after I shower or swim. Also, I bite it unconsiously while reading a book or watching a movie. Even worse, I enjoy playing the piano, working with art, and doing other things involving my fingers, and my fingers are very annoying because they hurt sometimes because the skin layers are too thin. The reason I can't stop is probably because everytime my skin starts growing back, there are extra bumps and layers of skin that stick out, and because I want my fingers to look normal, I bite those protrusions but I end up biting too much, and then this process repeats, repeats, REPEATS!

About genes and heredity and that stuff, actually, my mom bites her fingers every once in a while, and my younger brother bit his fingers and toes (I can't do that), but he completely stopped almost a year ago.

I'm a cool person, I'm funny and smart, and I work hard, but my finger biting makes me look like a stupid ugly idiot and not the great person I really am! I'm sure the severeness of my biting is not the worst it can be, butI don't want it to get worse! I really want to STOP IT NOW! THANK YOU for making me feel better now that I know many people have this problem too.