Adult’s Finger Sucking Habit

Reader’s Question

I am a 40-year-old woman who is married with 3 kids. I was adopted at 6 months and am the youngest of 4 (all of whom were adopted). My childhood included emotional and sexual abuse. I’ve never been able to speak about the sexual abuse, but am in therapy for depression, anxiety, and OCD. My problem is that I still suck my fingers every night. I do it even when just watching TV. What does this mean? I know I have issues, but why was I never able to stop this habit? It’s shameful and embarrassing. I’ve tried putting on the terrible tasting stuff, and sleeping with a sock on my hand. Nothing seems to work. The urge is so strong, and I find it very calming. I can feel my teeth are shifting. What should I do?

Our Clinical Psychologist’s Reply

Thumbsucking and fingersucking are childhood habits that often persist into adulthood. Other habits include nailbiting, hair twisting, lip chewing, rocking, favorite pillows/blankets, stuffed animals, etc. These childhood habits are self-soothing and for that reason, increase when we experience stress in our lives. As you suggest, some are more socially acceptable or tolerated than others.

What does this mean? As a child experiencing emotional and sexual abuse, the intense anxiety you experienced produced self-soothing habits, such as fingersucking. These behaviors were helpful to you and served as a way to calm yourself in the face of an abusive environment. Children don’t have the self-soothing options that adults have such as cigarettes, alcohol, drugs/medications, driving, etc.

Now, as an adult, you have maintained those self-soothing behaviors you developed as a child. As an adult, you have also found them self-soothing — just socially uncomfortable. You have adult options now, such as:

1. accepting the behavior in the same way that many adults accept their nailbiting,
2. trying to reduce the behavior when possible,
3. using methods I’ve outlined in my Emotional Memory article on this website you can gradually decrease the intensity of the behavior by watering it down emotionally,
4. using substitutes for your fingers as many suck toothpicks when trying to quit smoking,
5. considering hypnotherapy or behavioral therapy,
6. discussing it with your dentist as he/she has seen this before, or
7. focusing on anxiety reduction to decrease the need for self-soothing behavior. Learning new anxiety-reduction strategies is often helpful.

The presence of fingersucking doesn’t suggest a serious, deep psychiatric disorder. It does suggest that you needed it at a time in your past. You have survived your abusive childhood and have a leftover habit to deal with — not bad when you consider the abusive background. Discuss the issue with your therapist and you’ll find you can slowly reduce the behavior, although you’ll still visit it under times of stress.