The song of Hiawatha marked my first encounter with shame and the accompanying hot blush that would plague me for 20+ years. It’s strange how such a mundane situation can embed itself so deeply. Only as a medical student years later, did I realise that first seed had grown into a phobic condition called erythrophobia, or extreme anxiety of blushing.
Lucky for me, I was able to cure myself after years of struggling, achieving goals and then losing them, only to achieve a greater goal. I’ve come to believe the cycle of achievement and loss is a necessary part of healing shame, and I hope my story might resonate with others on their healing journeys.
Here’s my story:
I was the new girl in ‘big school’ when Teacher asked me to stand up and read Hiawatha’s Song to the class. Back then, I didn’t know I had dyslexia – I only knew I couldn’t read, much to the raucous glee of my classmates. There I stood staring down at my new lace-up shoes, my face throbbing with what would become the all-to-familiar hot blush of shame.
My next memorable encounter was the day after my mum decided to end her life. That’s when the hot blush of shame moved in to stay.
Me, my sisters and my brother had all gone to school the next day in an effort to maintain normalcy in our world that had just imploded. There I was again, staring at my scruffy lace-ups. But this time no-one was laughing as Teacher shared the news. My face was burning, my temples were throbbing, I felt sick to my stomach, and I froze. That frozen, blushing state became my ‘normal’ anytime I felt the focus of attention. It kept me invisible. It kept me silent. It kept me stuck.
You know that moment when you want to put your hand up to ask (or answer) a question – but you decide not to? I read somewhere that moment is a sliding-door moment, like the 1990’s movie with Gweneth Paltrow. In one reality, the character she plays slips through the sliding doors and catches the train. In the other, she misses the train and stays on the platform.
I’ve come to think about Shame as a sliding-door moment: you can either slip in and speak your shame – admit your mistake, your lack of knowledge, your lack of confidence -– or you can stay quiet and remain on the platform.
I can count two big sliding-door moments in my life: the first when I was determined to get through those doors into medical school, even though I’d flunked school. And the second when I decided to remain on the platform once I qualified instead of catching the train to my medical career.
When you struggle with chronic blushing or erythrophobia, you miss the train every day, several times a day. You don’t raise your hand to ask (or answer) a question. You don’t go to that meeting or speak up and say what you think. You skip that party or that interview. You miss opportunities because you avoid any social situation that might make you blush. Fear of blushing might seem silly or unimportant to some, but anyone who suffers from it knows the deep shame that forces you into avoidance strategies to keep you stuck, despite your hopes, goals and dreams.
Since my Hiawatha episode, I accepted the label that I was stupid, and never raised my hand for fear of blushing. So, I flunked school and got a series of jobs as a temp. This served me well because every time I started blushing too much at work, I could just quit and get another job and so on until my mid 20’s. But after quitting my “nth” job, I decided enough was enough! I went back to school and got the grades for Medical School made it through the interview to get my place.
Medical School was transformative for me. Not only did I realise I wasn’t stupid – I was just dyslexic – but I also discovered my dyslexia was a gift! Because it was so hard for me to read and write, I turned everything I learned into visuals, and simple frameworks – making it easy to remember. My confidence grew and I began to research everything I could about blushing. If I could understand it, I could cure it.
And that’s what I did.
But in my final year, there was another sliding-door moment: a homeless man we’ll call Steve. Steve came into A&E when his toes had turned black after walking too long in the snow. We had to amputate his toes, and then his leg and Steve taught me more about courage and kindness than I knew possible. As I’d done his in-take in A&E, I was responsible for checking up on him every day and taking his bloods. One day when I was making my way to his bed, Steve had gone. Asking around, I understood – though it was all hush-hush – that there’d been a human medication error, and Steve had died. In that sliding-door moment I knew I could never become a doctor.
I knew that in just a few months it could be me prescribing the medication, and with my dyslexia, I might very easily get my numbers muddled and make a fatal mistake. So, I let the doors slide shut. I passed my final exams and went onto a long and happy career in the life-science industry, forgot about my blushing and got on with life.
Although I was un-aware of it, at the same time as my sliding-door moment in the UK, the USA released a report called “To Err Is Human” revealing that nearly 100,000 people died each year from preventable medical errors. Where we’d been hush-hush, they were being open. That took courage and it paved the way for massive improvements in patient care. It also gave birth to the concept of Psychological Safety.
In follow-up to the ‘To Err Is Human’ report, Dr Amy Edmonson was tasked with researching medical teams to find out which ones had the least human medical errors, aiming to establish best practices for a safer healthcare system. She categorised teams into ‘good’ (fewer reported mistakes) and ‘bad’ (more reported mistakes), hypothesising that the teams with more mistakes would have more human medical errors.
Surprisingly, she found the opposite: the teams with the most reported mistakes had fewer human medical errors. Dr Edmonson discovered that actually, the ‘best’ teams weren’t making more mistakes – they were just more open about discussing and learning from them. In contrast, teams with fewer reported mistakes didn’t feel safe to admit them, leading to cover-ups and unaddressed issues, and ultimately more human medical errors.
This ground-breaking insight led to the birth of the concept of Psychological Safety. As Dr Edmonson put it: “Psychological Safety is a shared belief that it’s absolutely okay – in fact it’s expected – to speak up with concerns, questions, ideas or mistakes.”
Perhaps, if back then we’d been open about what had happened to Steve, I might have caught the train to a career in medicine. That’s what I meant about achieving and then losing our goals as sometimes being a necessary path to healing.
And that’s why I find the work of the Shame in Medicine Project so inspiring and so necessary. The conversations it opens up; the training and research it’s spearheading; all these things are breaking the taboos and silence around Shame, so we no longer avoid these crucial conversations.
The Shame in Medicine Project is holding those sliding doors open, making it easy for everyone to catch the train to healing and progress. And that’s also my goal in my work today: after 20+ years in the life-sciences industry across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, I founded a leadership development consultancy that coaches leaders and teams to create psychologically safe environments that foster innovation, collaboration, occupational safety and growth. In my Blush2Bloom program, I offer group coaching for people suffering from chronic blushing so they can release the chains of shame in a supportive and safe space to cure their blushing and achieve the life, career, and relationships they deserve.
Bio
Madeleine de Hauke is founder of Business4Good, the conscious leadership consultancy offering leadership and team development, training, and coaching. She’s also creator of Blush2Bloom, the only on-line group coaching program dedicated to helping people struggling with chronic blushing / erythrophobia to heal their blushing and break the chains of shame so they can get the life, career and relationships they deserve.
19th August 2024