Erratic Fingernails

I keep my fingernails short.  When they start to have any length to them they irritate me, I am constantly aware of them, touching the keyboard, brushing against my skin, getting dirty in the yard.  For the past several weeks I have been cutting one or two nails at a time - whichever ones are bothering me the most.  This is the first time in my life that I have ever not systematically cut all the nails on my left hand and then my right.  When I realized I had been doing it, I felt out of control--like I was making decisions without my knowledge.  It's such a small thing, fingernails, but it feels like everything.  Like the pattern that can be seen in this one series of events is the mirror for everything else in life.  Things are pretty hard today.  Irritation and heartbreak are everywhere.