This is Jonathan Berent and I want to welcome the listeners and most importantly I want to welcome the participants in this discussion. And to begin I’d like to talk about two words. The first one is courage because anybody who is listening to this discussion who can relate to social anxiety and blushing problems certainly knows that it would take a lot of courage to talk about the problems given that the problem is driven by emotions of embarrassment, shame, humiliation. The second word that I’d like to talk about is integrity. What I’m going to be communicating is with a lot of integrity and the same for the participants in this discussion. And guys I want you to know very clearly that if I say something that you disagree with, I want you to feel free to open that up in discussion.
Now in May of 2012 a college student, Brandon Thomas, committed suicide due to depression caused by his blushing. And there’s a lot of information on the internet about this. Shortly after this tragedy MSNBC quoted Dr. Enrique Jadrazek, I don’t know if I pronounced that right, a Chilean psychiatrist whom they designated as the world’s expert in blushing as saying that, and I quote, pathological blushing is an uncontrollable reaction triggered by an overactive nervous system. It can wear down self-esteem and even the will to live. I certainly agree with the doctor that it can wear down self-esteem and the will to live, but I strongly disagree with his statement that it’s an uncontrollable response.
In fact, I believe that his general diagnostic and use of the word uncontrollable characterizes the medical communities and the mental health communities misunderstanding of social anxiety in general and erythrophobia, that’s the fear of blushing, specifically. And hopefully after this discussion, the listeners will understand that if someone is willing to do hard work, this is a controllable phenomenon. So I’d like to start with Roger, if you don’t mind. Roger, you’re at the beginning of treatment. And I know that in the first few sessions, I think you’ve developed a lot of insight, but where you’re at right now, again, correct me if I’m wrong, is that with the blushing problem and its accompanying anxiety, you’re pretty stuck. Is that accurate? Yeah, right now I’m pretty to the point where I don’t think I’m going to get to a point where I can function like I want to in society. So could you elaborate with what’s going on with your anxiety and the blushing specifically? Well, right now this is, I have extreme anxiety right now. You can probably hear it in my voice, but the anxiety and the blushing kind of go hand in hand with each other. So if I tend to get anxious or nervous, I tend to blush. How long have you been experiencing this?
Probably since I was about 21, I’d say the anxiety got to the point where the blushing started to come to the surface. And then it kind of snowballed from there. How old are you now? 30. And how does the blushing impact your life? Well, it doesn’t let me do the things I want to do. Despite that I still have this blushing problem, I’m still, am I successful? So if I didn’t have this blushing problem, I think I would be a lot more successful, I guess you could say. Well, elaborate a little bit. Well, there’s things I want to do and achieve, and I’m not really able to do those things due to the blushing. So, you know, I kind of live around my blushing. So it’s kind of hard to function in society when you have this problem.
And I imagine that the blushing controls or impacts your mood a lot. I wouldn’t say that you’re a happy camper because of this problem. Would you say that you are depressed? Yeah, I go through times where I’m depressed. Then I have times where I just kind of ignore my problem. But I get in those moods. You know, I have good days and bad days. Most of the time, I’ll try to just put it in the back of my mind that I have this issue, and I’ll try to, you know, there’s no problem. It’s kind of a silly issue to me to have. And then other days, I’ll be really focused on it, and it’ll get to me if I, you know, I miss a function because of it. It tends to eat at me, you know. We’ve had a handful of treatment sessions so far. And two sessions ago, I believe I called you out, and I said, I think that you’re two seconds away from telling me that you want to take a break from treatment because things were not going smoothly and easily. And at that point, you said to me, well, something like I’m reading your mind, and now you know there’s no magic for resolution to the problem. Is that fairly accurate?
That is. I originally thought when I contacted you, there was going to be some kind of trick or something that was automatically going to, you know, make me stop blushing and get rid of this issue. Once I’d seen that it was going to take a lot of work and effort, I tended to kind of back off of treatment. It was almost just like, you know, what the hell’s the point, you know? I’m just going to be this way. I’m just going to have to live with this issue. You know, why am I going to continue on with therapy? And you nailed it when we spoke. You said, you know, you’re about to back off of therapy, and that’s exactly what I was thinking. And then, you know, after we spoke, I was like, you know what? I’m just going to go ahead and keep on fighting and keep on trying, you know? Okay. Thank you for sharing. Now, what I want to do is I want to introduce the other people in this discussion, and I’m going to give a description of where I think you’re at.
If I say anything wrong, please correct me, and then I would like you to give a description of where you were when you started treatment, where you believe you’re at now, and how you got there. So let’s start with Tripp. The way I would describe Tripp is that he’s a wonderful role model for the resolution of obsessive-compulsive disorder without the use of medication and blushing specifically. I think that if Tripp started treatment, everything I like to grade on a scale of 1 to 10, if he started at a 1, 10 being perfect, which maybe isn’t possible, I would say that Tripp is pretty much at a 9. Would you say that’s true, Tripp? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I would agree with you.
Okay. So could you not only give Roger some feedback, but give the brief story of where you were at at the beginning of treatment, where you’re at now, and how you got there? Yeah, absolutely. Here’s the thing. Roger, the first thing he said was, you could probably hear anxiety in my voice, but the reality is that he presented his story in an awesome way, man. I mean, you sounded intelligent, and you did a great job. People with anxiety, including myself, we have a tendency to beat ourselves up. When in reality, you’re way more intelligent than you give yourself credit for. One of the biggest issues is that people don’t believe in themselves, and you really have to believe in yourself and trust that you can overcome this, although it takes real work. It’s just like anything in life. I mean, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, those guys didn’t get there without working. We all have to work on ourselves.
But I thought that, again, Roger, that was a good job in presenting. As far as my story, my story in a nutshell is a very typical, stereotypical blushing story. Around the age of 15, 16, it surfaced when I was dating. Externally, it was very difficult. I was a very open, unpopular, whatever you want to call it, person. When this blushing issue hit me, and I had to present in high school, get up in front of people, and do all the things that can give you adrenaline and make you nervous, that’s when things really started to intensify with my blush. 16, 17, 18, and it just snowballed, like Roger said. It really turned into an OCD issue. I was obsessing daily about it. A lot of internal confusion. What’s going on? I was depressed. Why is this happening to me? I had no answers. Freaked out. So I got into college, and I was dealing with the issue, hiding it the best I could, avoiding everything that I could. So then, like I said, long story short, I came across, right when I was in college, Google was just now kind of
coming around. I searched and found this place out in Texas that would cut your nerves to magically fix this issue. The crazy thing is, and this is kind of where the psychological process comes into play with me, where I realized, once I realized that there was help out there, I felt like I was already better. Something told me when I went to the surgeon out there, I went as far as having a consultation. I don’t know if you guys have watched my video on the Kukes program, but I talk about some of this there. Anyway, when I was there, I didn’t go through with the procedure, and I realized that there had to be another way out. That’s when I got into the real work, and here I am today. Okay, we’re going to come back to some of the specifics of the real work soon. Let’s go now to Sherry. Okay, now Sherry. The way I’m going to introduce Sherry is, Sherry represents, I mean, anybody who comes to therapy, in order for it to be productive, has to do some real hard work.
Okay, it’s not easy, and I’m going to be really upfront about that, but if you do hard work, it can be productive. Sherry represents, in terms of my work, and I’ve been doing this since 1978 with about 10,000 people, Sherry has fixed her problem with blushing the fastest that I’ve ever seen, and I have a little bit of anxiety saying the number of sessions that had occurred, because then people who are listening to this are going to call, and they’re going to think that they can do it the same way. The reality is that everybody has their own learning curve, but Sherry, can you talk about where you are at, where you’re at now, and whatever else comes to mind that’s important? Sure, I also want to first kind of reiterate what Tripp said to Roger is, you know, a lot of the times we think we sound nervous, we think we’re blushing and sweating, and sometimes we really aren’t, and that was actually one of the biggest kind of turning points for me, is to understand that even though, you know, I felt that I was nervous all the time, and that everybody knew it a lot of the time, it just wasn’t true, and Roger, listening to you, I would have never known that you, you know, had social anxiety, aside from the content of what you were saying. It really sounded like you’re very comfortable, so that was something that was very helpful to me to understand, so, you know, I just want to commend you. Yeah, I get that a lot. A lot of people tell me that I come off too confident, and they get a little intimidated by that, and I’m kind of like, really? You know, because inside I’m kind of, you know, I’m real nervous and tense, but, you know, I’m
projecting something different than what I’m thinking I’m projecting. Well, you need to start believing everybody else. That was a problem that I had as well, so my story, I guess, is a little bit different, because I’ve had this my entire life. I remember being six or seven, and avoiding, you know, public speaking, little things that you had to do in first grade or second grade. I was blushing and nervous and sweating, even at that age, so my whole family seems to kind of have it. I come from a very critical family, so I would always just think it’s genetic. I can’t really change it. This is just who I am, but then recently I had moved from the city to the suburb, and I found myself just getting worse every day, just avoiding a lot of things at work, avoiding a lot of social situations, where now I really needed to make new friends and be out there. I’m sort of alone in my house with my kids, so I really sort of hit a place where I would see all these other people that were so confident and comfortable, and they could talk for hours at a time about things, and I was, you know, it just started to hit me that it couldn’t just be genetic, and it had to be something that I could work on or get a little bit better, because it wasn’t kind of staying the same. I was getting a lot worse, so that’s, you know, why I kind of did some some Google searches and found Jonathan’s program, and it really has helped me enormously. I know it’s hard to believe that I am only nine or ten sessions in, but I’ve done a lot of really hard work and really given
it my all. I’ve kind of put my blushing on blast. I’ve been talking to everybody about it. Everyone knows I’m kind of in therapy and I’m working on it. Okay, wait, wait, let me hold you. You’ve been talking to everybody about it. That is unbelievably huge. Yeah. Just go with that a little bit. Talk about that. Sure. So there’s a lot of times when I’ll be in a situation and I feel myself start to sweat and my heart is racing, and you feel that, the hot, my face starts to get really hot, and I’ll sort of stop and turn to someone who’s with me, my friend or my husband or my co-worker, and ask them, am I blushing right now? And a lot of the time they tell me I’m not, and in that moment I’ve started to learn that I can sort of turn it around from happening by someone telling me I’m really not blushing, or I’ll check a mirror and I’m really, it’s coming out, and I’m sure it would, my face would turn red the longer it can, the moment continued, but by myself understanding that I’m not blushing in that moment, I can kind of turn it off a little bit, and my mind becomes really clear. Go ahead. Can I make a point here, Jonathan? Yes, sure.
You know, one of the things I think I hear Sherry talking about is that accepting bodily sensations, you know, and accepting that, you know, one of the things that I’ve dealt with is, you know, and regardless of the blush, that, you know, anytime when you become obsessed with this blush thing, you obsess over facial sensations, whether it’s sunburn or after you shave, or and you really, one of the techniques or things that I’ve done is, you know, feeling after you shower, that’s another example, is just accepting those sensations, doesn’t mean you’re blushing just because you feel something, but just accepting your sensations in your body. Thank you. Okay, listen, we’re going to go to Jenny now, and then it’s going to be halftime, and then I’m going to bust your chops, because listen, I don’t believe, I say this with integrity, let’s go back to this concept for a minute. I have not, in my research, ever come across a group discussion with blushers, because the people who suffer from this are so driven by embarrassment, humiliation, shame, as is the case with social anxiety in general. I really want to be able to help the listeners. So I’m going to be coming back after Jenny speaks, I’m going to be coming back, and I’m going to be going over specific concepts, and I want you guys to respond to that.
Okay, so Jenny, the way that I would characterize your profile is that you came into therapy with a lot of emotional pain, and you’ve been working very diligently and very hard, and doing the one to ten thing. I might be a little off here, so you’re going to have to give me feedback. I would say that if you started at a one, you are currently at a 6.86, something like that. I like that. I would say a seven, so I like that. I think that’s good. Okay, so why don’t you share your story? Well, my story starts way back, probably when I was in the sixth grade, and I remember being scared to death that I was going to be called on to read out loud in class, and I would do everything to make sure that that didn’t happen. I would fake I was sick, I would leave the room, I would say I had to go to the bathroom or get a drink, and I felt like everyone was laughing at me, and that really started this speaking performance anxiety that I had, and I still have in some ways. When I was in the sixth grade, that’s really when it started, and then over time, you know, I took Toastmasters, and I felt like I got better at public speaking, but what happened was for me then, you know, I knew I had this blushing happening when I was in stressful or difficult situations, and I didn’t like it,
and a lot of times it happened when I would be caught off guard or working professionally. It would be when someone unexpected would show up at my office door or if I was called on at a meeting to answer a question in front of a group of people. I was worried about the blush, that they would notice the blush. I was worried what I sounded like. Was I saying something stupid? And then that really grew into this social phobia. I did not want to be in those situations, and I also, what happened was I would be out shopping, grocery shopping at the store, and I was scared to death that I was going to run into somebody that I knew, and that would bring on this intense, blush shaking panic attack, and I knew that I was starting a pattern of avoiding those situations, and I knew it wasn’t right, and probably when it was at the worst, what I can tell you is I walked into a store once, and I would always scan the parking lot, number one, to see if I knew, recognized anyone’s cars, and then I would go in, and one time my mom and my own brother were in the store, and I avoided them, and you know, it’s those moments where you know, oh my gosh, I have a serious problem, and finally I got very anxious
just about a year and a half ago. I quit my work. I was in a bad environment at work, and I just knew that I was going to be 40 years old, and I wanted to change my life, and I wanted something better, and I wanted something better for my family, my kids, and that’s when I went online, and I found Jonathan, and I’ve been working with him now for about a year and a half, and what I would say to Roger probably today is that you are in the right place, and good for you. Good for you for saying, you know what, I want to fix this, and I want to make it better for myself, and as Jonathan said, that takes a lot of guts and a lot of courage, so I commend you for that. Okay, thank you. Roger, do you want to ask any of these guys any questions?
Yeah, I do actually have a question for Tripp, being that he’s a man too. You know, I am married. I do have children, and my wife doesn’t know about, you know, my issue. She thinks I’m actually better with talking to people than she is, so she pushes me out front a lot, but in coming out to your wife as a man, how did that affect you, and is your wife supportive of your condition? Does she look down on it and think of that nature? Oh, well, if she wasn’t, man, I’d kick her to the curb. No, I’m kidding. I’m joking. I’m kidding. Literally, you know, that’s one of those things I think we kind of tell ourselves. I went through some of that in the beginning when I was, you know, still real freaked out about this blushing problem, but oh, man, I’m as open as I can be about it with my wife, and you know, a lot of people don’t want to hear this, but the more open you are about it, just the more free you feel, and you know, anytime I want to talk about it, I mean, I’ll talk about it with her, you know, whether whatever it is that gives me anxiety, whether it’s, you know, blushing or work stuff or you name it, but the more you can communicate, you know, you don’t have to just dump all this stuff on her at once. You can ease yourself into it, but my recommendation would be to just have a conversation, and then, you know, I just really think you would benefit from that.
Right, but what, Roger, what you’re saying, I think, is that the hypervigilance in your case, that’s a key word, you know, in treatment. The radar is working over time. It’s profound in terms of your concern about how your wife is going to respond, right? That’s correct, yeah. You know, you run through all those fears of, you know, what if she thinks I’m weak? You know, is she going to think less of me? Things of that nature. Look, this is, I mean, you know, you’re not weak, and this is the way that I like to present it, is that, I mean, I have high cholesterol. I mean, I’m very in shape, run a lot, but I just have high cholesterol. I mean, it’s in my blood, and, you know, I guess the same applies to, you know, I’m a blusher. Yeah, but listen, Tripp, okay, no, wait, hold on here, because now we’re getting into some core things. Okay, so the typical person who blushes, who has a problem, there are some people who blush who don’t care, but when we’re talking about erythrophobia, social anxiety-driven blushing, when the person blushes, their internal critical script, that is an important dynamic. That’s a mind state. The critical script works over time and says, I’m not okay as a human being. People are going to see who I really am.
They’re going to see I’m a fraud. They can tell I’m nervous. Am I right, guys, or wrong? You’re absolutely right. This is Jenny talking. You’re absolutely right, and I think that’s probably, for me, the biggest reason why I’m at a 7 and not at a 9 1⁄2 or 10 is because you have to get in this place where you accept it, and you don’t, you have to get in a place where, quite frankly, you don’t care what your wife thinks. You know, I needed to get in a place where I didn’t care what my husband thinks, and other people that I said, you know, I’m talking, working with Jonathan, working on this. You have to get in that place where it doesn’t matter anymore what people think. What matters is you think. Yeah, that’s a really good point. It’s a really good point. And just for the record, too, on the whole spouse thing, because I did the same thing, and I’m amazed at how my husband actually thinks I’m so strong, having dealt with this for so long, and finally stepping out and saying, you know what?
I want to make this right. So just keep that in mind, too. Okay. Now, we’re lucky here because most of the people on this call, the women included, understand football, and they’re into football. Okay, so using my, okay, right, Nebraska, Cornhusker territory. I’m not a Husker fan. My brother’s a football coach, and my dad is a football coach. Okay, so let’s talk football for a second. The metaphor that I use is when a person has social anxiety, or any anxiety disorder for that matter, they are playing defense. You cannot beat an anxiety, you cannot resolve cure, or whatever, an anxiety disorder by playing defense. This is what a lot of people don’t want to hear. So we use the metaphor of the quarterback, my team being the Patriots, I got a pretty good quarterback. Now, Tom Brady may throw an interception, but he takes responsibility for creating motion.
Okay, so I want you guys to talk a little bit, starting with Sherry, if you don’t mind. How did you go from defense to offense? And you’re a football fan, so you should be comfortable with this. Well, one of the biggest things for me was really kind of putting myself in the game. So I was a big avoider. So I really needed to, and avoiding gives you that sort of instant gratification, the nervousness sort of goes away, you don’t have to deal with it. So I was sort of constantly putting myself in situations that I couldn’t get out of and, you know, forcing myself to sort of face it. So, you know, unscripting myself, a lot of the times I would kind of handicap myself by writing things down, this is what I’m going to say, I’m going to get in and out, it’s going to be very quick. And so I was really starting to kind of trust myself, give myself sort of the nurturing parent, increasing my self-esteem, I was giving myself these pep talks, really trying to make myself feel better about myself and believing what other people were saying about me and just really trying to get more comfortable with my blushing, accepting the blushing. Okay, Jenny, can you give an example of when you were playing defense and you caught yourself and you were aware of the moment, obviously, either in present tense or after the fact and how you connected, we’re getting a little
deeper here, but how you connected frustration or anger to that dynamic? Yes, so for me, if I avoided a situation and I would get depressed, I would leave that situation and feel like I completely failed because I avoided the situation and I allowed this blushing and anxiety to take control. So in working through this, what I realized in order to quarterback it is if I’m out and about at a store, for example, and I see someone from afar that I know, rather than avoiding that person, I’m going to go right in for the kill. You know, I’m going to go right in and engage in conversation in the middle of the store with that person so that I am forced to be in an uncomfortable situation. And now what I do is whenever my brain starts to go, oh, no, no, no, you can’t do that. That scares you. That is my trigger. I have to do it. I have to do that. You know, you guys all sound so eloquent and confident here.
