Preparing anonymous manuscript but a citation makes clear I'm the author of the paper?!

[Pandy7]

Can anyone help please

In the paper I am submitting, I cite my preliminary study, which is unpublished. So I think this, and the reference, makes it very clear that Pandy is the author of the current research. Is there a way to hide/blind this?

(Can you tell I haven't done this before )

If you are going for blind review you can’t put in any references and make clear it is you - so you can’t say ‘we have previously shown’

You have to say ‘pandy7 and colleagues showed ‘

If it is a linked paper to a registered report or something - there’s no way to blind that, I don’t think

Is it possible to not refer to the survey? Or ask the editor to have the fn deleted. I have received submissions for peer review with blank fns sometimes. I just take it to mean that there is supporting evidence but to provide details of it will compromise the anonymity of peer review.

"Author names suppressed 2020" is how I'd cite the prelim study.
With full title in the bibliography
Lots journals won't let you cite unpublished research nowadays, though.
Can you stick it on a preprint server? Then it would be allowed to cite it.