Well done, GuvNa. (Emote: smileyellow)

I don't normally get to read this part of the forum but i'm glad i did today. Like yourself, i also used to be a dreadfully bad blusher, right up to the age of around 40.
So i can certainly relate to your story and how you must have been feeling.

I did pretty much the same as you did in order to combat this problem. Although in 2002 it was so bad that i was about to have the ETS operation to rid myself of blushing once and for all. In the end i decided to give it one more try at beating it with psychological methods as opposed to surgery.

I did what you have done and also learned to see my blushing as a tiny issue of no real importance rather than the earth shattering issue it actually was for me. In the end the blushes happened less and less, and when they did happen i told myself i didn't care anyway. This meant the blushes were rarer and faded quicker even when they did appear.

I still blush now and again, but it doesn't rule my life like it used to do. For most of my life my blushing was so bad i couldn't bear to go to school to get educated, but now i've even managed to get into college, do presentations, answer questions in class and generally particupate and learn stuff.
Because i know from experience just how hard it is to get where you are today i think your achievement is fantastic.

A lot of people don't understand just how devastating blushing can be to certain individuals. Even some people with SA but who are not blushers themselves have failed to grasp just how crippling it can be to some, judging by some things i've read on SA sites. As a fellow ex-blusher i fully understand just how difficult blushing can be to beat. If you ignore it it never goes away, but if you concentrate on it it only gets worse. Sometimes it feels like a no-win situation, but it can be beaten, as you have proved.

Well done. Hopefully you can now get on with your life and excel. (Emote: beerchug)