Erythrophobia

I write this article with the hope of creating awareness and to also convey the message that you are not alone.

Imagine being a heavy blusher with social anxiety. It’s like walking around with a neon sign when you’d rather, fade into the background. Experiencing it feels like being betrayed by some disloyal part of your body when you blush. The worst part, it comes right when you desperately pray for it to not.

I know some of you might be wondering like “what’s the big deal with blushing? In fact, isn’t it quite cute?” I don’t blame you, for I’ve been there too. In fact, I didn’t know you could be scared of blushing. But now I know, it could truly be a nightmare to live with for extreme blushers.

What is Erythrophobia?

It is the extreme fear/anxiety about blushing. It is often accompanied by the fear of the color red/blood. 

Those with Erythrophobia may be fixated on whether or not they are blushing and may even conclude that they are when in fact they may not be blushing. This constant fixation only adds fuel to the fire by making them blush even more intensely. This leads to an endless self-perpetuating cycle.

When you fear something, you try and avoid it as much as you can. In this case, in an attempt to avoid blushing, you’d start avoiding people altogether and become withdrawn.

Let’s take an example scenario:

You are in an office meeting with the company stakeholders and in the middle of presenting your speech.

Being the center of such attention has left you feeling quite anxious.

As if conforming to your thoughts, you feel your face getting prickly, ringing alarm bells in your head.

You imagine yourself turning red and start wondering how it must look like to others.

As if you weren’t already bogged down with enough worrisome thoughts, adding this to the list makes you fully self-conscious.

It’d now be a wonder if you made it to the end of your speech but, somehow you do.

Right when you start thinking you can relax, you feel yourself being stared at.

Apparently, it’s because people are concerned or quite honestly freaked out due to how red you’ve gotten.

This is the case with adults. Imagine the same scenario with kids.

Suffice it to say, it may not only leave you with nightmares and Erythrophobia but you may also end up with Scopophobia (fear of being stared at).

The point we have to observe here is that, what you convince yourself to be all in your head is proven true with the way people react around you. Seeing one turn red, people start freaking out or get concerned and that’s when you become all the more conscious of it.

Why do you blush?

In medical terms, it is a side effect caused by vasodilation of certain veins in the face. It means that as the blood vessels in the face grow wider, there is an improved circulation of blood which in turn causes our cheek to redden.

Now, why do our blood vessels grow wider?

Unlike during our fight/flight response where the blood flows away from the skin, the blood flow increases to the skin when we blush.

Along with the increased heart rate and pain inhibition, adrenaline also serves as a vasodilator on certain blood vessels. This makes blood vessels grow wider.

The ways through which one may have Erythrophobia?

Similar to every other phobia, Erythrophobia can either develop from experiential or non-experiential.

Experiential Cause

Phobia caused due to traumatizing social event that involves/causes blushing. This may often lead to PTSD, persistent anxiety and mental stress. This is like having a constant reminder of a bad memory.

Non-Experiential Cause

Even without experiencing a traumatizing event, people may still develop Erythrophobia just by association or hearing it.

Symptoms

• A churning feeling or butterflies within the stomach
• restlessness
• sweating
• panic attacks
• fast breathing
• fast heartbeat

Known Treatments 

• Cognitive behavior therapy  – by rewiring the negative thought process associated with blushing, it paves the way for healthier behavior patterns.
• Exposure therapy– This is akin to virtual reality therapy where the client gets exposed to fear in a safe environment.
• Medication – These may include anti-anxiety/anti-depressants that target the anxiety that accompanies erythrophobia. Anti-anxiety medications though pose a risk of long-term dependence.
• Surgery – Endoscopic thoracic sympathectomy (ETS) is a surgery through which the sympathetic nerves liable for blushing is removed. In doing so on the other hand may result in serious side effects like disturbing compensatory sweating.
• Task concentration training – As illustrated by the example scenario before, it becomes strenuous to concentrate on a task when you have high SFA (Self-focused attention).

Those with Erythrophobia experience high SFA. So, to combat that TCT consists of

1. Focusing your attention outward than inward. How do you know the way people react if you don’t look at them? See for yourself and then be the judge of that.
2. Comprehend the effects of your SFA and where your attention lies during social interactions.

• Mindfulness – helps with being in the present and turning the attention away from blushing.

Some tips on how to manage the problem:

• Pretend that it doesn’t bother you because it really shouldn’t. You might be thinking it makes people look down on you, but on the contrary, people react positively.
• Think of yourself in third person perspective – If your friend is in your shoes, what would you say to them – Would you look down on them or think badly of them or would you actually be understanding? Just remember how you are when you’re reading literature full of blushing characters.
• It actually isn’t as bad as you are imagining  – When your mind perceives something as threatening, it keeps sending those red flags. So, by believing it isn’t so bad is one way you can move forward.
• Smile – When you smile, it’s like you’re tricking your body into seeing it as non-threatening situation.
• Focus your attention outward when you feel yourself becoming self-conscious. If you feel yourself drifting off in the middle of the conversation, start by focusing on the person before you. Not saying it’s easy but, this is where TCT helps.
• Acknowledge that it’s something you can’t control – Rather than thinking to stop blushing, work on ridding yourself off the anxiety that accompanies. You can do something about those self-deprecating thoughts.

 In Conclusion

At the end of the day, we all just want to fit in. To do so, we end up sacrificing a huge part of what makes us ourselves. And in this, you cannot even change that part of you. So, what you can do is to be kind to yourself.

It’s okay, so keep your head held up high!

References

https://www.healthline.com/health/how-to-stop-blushing#10-tips

https://www.alustforlife.com/tools/mental-health/social-anxiety-and-blushing-how-to-manage-the-problem

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/01/style/self-care/how-to-stop-blushing.html

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/erythrophobia

https://www.verywellmind.com/erythrophobia-2671740

https://www.health.com/mind-body/how-to-stop-blushing