Perpetually red-faced

People!  I recently had a breakthrough after happening upon an article online about chronic blushing and I realized that I AM A CHRONIC BLUSHER!!! In a nut shell, I probably have a heightened sympathetic nervous system (my extremely fair skin doesn't help either) that simply causes me to blush involuntarily at just about ANYTHING! (Ok, it has gotten a lot better in the last few years, in fact when I first read the article I thought "oh yeah, I use to do that all the time") If any of you high school friends are reading this, I'm sure you remember me going bright red ALL THE TIME, right? In case you've forgotten, let me remind you about an 8th grade english class and our poetry unit.  We wrote poems as groups, and I specifically remember that two of the five or so poems mentioned something about my face going red, I was that cool.  :)  Actually, I do remember getting teased about it, but it was always by my friends and it was always good natured.  In all honesty, getting teased about it was probably one of the best things for me.  Let me explain.  I've always been one completely willing to laugh at myself about an abundance of things, it makes life much more bearable not to mention enjoyable.  Had my friends not pointed it out and caused me to simply laugh at myself and deal with it, I probably would've tried to hide it, which would have been impossible and kind of consuming and depressing.  You might be thinking, oh come on, it's just blushing.  But think about it for a minute.  What if you blushed every time you met someone new and had to wonder if they thought it was weird that you were blushing.  What if you blushed every time you talked to a cute boy, or even an ugly boy, or blushed when you answered a question in class (even if you knew you were 100% right), or if you blushed when someone even mentioned the word "blush." I could go on, but you get the picture, right?  The more I think about it the more I remember, holy crap that was annoying.  I specifically remember feeling my face going red and thinking, "it's probably not that bad", and shortly thereafter having someone blurt out, "Wow! You look like a tomato!"  Had I not just laughed about it (most of the time) it seriously would've been overwhelming because it would've constantly been a worry and an embarrassment.  In the articles I've read online, chronic blushing can actually lead to erythrophobia, which is the fear of blushing.  And that obviously would just get you into a bad cycle.  Ok, so my point...  I consider myself lucky.  In the articles online I've heard stories of people who basically have their lives consumed by the blushing.  The first article that caught my attention and led to my research was about a college kid who committed suicide because he just couldn't take it, which is just terrible.  (I promise I was never anywhere even remotely near that point.  My dealings with it just hovered around annoyance) So thanks friends, for making me laugh about it.  And my other point... I AM NORMAL!   :)  (haha friends, the truth comes out!) Seriously it was kind of a relief just to hear that other people deal or dealt with it too.  Yay for normalcy! Really though, it just feels good to have an explanation.  And even though I mentioned that it's not near as bad as it was, it's definitely still there.  And because it most frequently comes around when I'm meeting new people I've considered using this as an introduction..."Hello, my name is Michelle, and I'm a chronic blusher!"  What do you think?  (And just remember, in past situations or in future ones, going red doesn't mean I'm embarrassed about what's going on, it just means I'm me!)