Hello everyone.

Just wondered if anybody else suffers from excessive blushing and the anxiety that goes with it?

My problem started about 7 or 8 years ago, I had never suffered with any anxiety issues before this. One day I was in a meeting at work, in fact I was chairing the meeting. As the meeting came to an end I was talking and my mind just went blank, I couldn't think of anything and was lost for words, I then realised people were looking at me and waiting for what I was going to say next and I felt myself go bright red and panic. That was the day the seed was planted in my mind. I put it down to a one off experience at the time but later that day I had another meeting in the same room and the same thing happened as soon as the attention was on me.

Since then I have suffered with anxiety and the fear of blushing in social situations, and it can be anywhere, in a meeting at work or just paying for something in a shop if the shop assistant starts being friendly and asking questions.

In my mind I know there is nothing to be afraid of and it doesn't make any logical sense to me, but I know as soon as I am in a situtaion where I feel it would be embarrassing to go red, sure enough I will.

I think the worse scenario for me is in meetings at work, as I am aware that I can't just make an excuse and walk away, I am stuck there sat around a table with people just across from me. There is nowhere to hide and this adds to the fear as I know if I go red everyone can see. I have tried to distract myself or tell myself it doesn't matter and nobody will think any less of me, but the reality is nothing seems to work it just keeps happening.

It really is a horrible thing to live with and is constantly on my mind which just makes it worse. I used to be quite a confident person but this has destroyed that and I feel like I am so fragile now, it is also effecting my career as I just haven't got the confidence to go for promotions at work as they involve more meetings and presentations and I know I just couldn't handle it.

Does anybody suffer with similar symtoms? Any advice or tips on how to help the situation? I don't expect there to be some magic answer out there but anything that would help improve it would be great.