Lasting stress can be caused by all kinds of trauma, including, it seems having a bad night on Jeopardy!
On Friday, more than a dozen former contestants from the game show joined in on a discussion of their continued anxiety over appearing on the show and revealed just how much they continued to carry the weight of the experience, sometimes even years after their episodes aired.
The topic was introduced on Reddit, by a former Jeopardy! contestant who asked others of their ilk, “Is Post-Jeopardy Syndrome a thing?” and elaborated, “I was recently on the show and I’m still reeling. I can’t stop going over some boneheaded mistakes I made, even though I did OK and the whole experience was incredible. It seems to be a known phenomenon. How did you deal with it? How long will it last? And how did you avoid reading about yourself on social media?”
One person who responded was Scott Tcheng, who appeared on Wednesday’s (October 2) episode and very nearly unseated the returning champ but lost by $1 after a costly mistake.
The ER doctor wrote of his experience, “For me, the pain of losing by $1 had just started to fade in the months after taping, but my episode aired this week. Watching it again and seeing how I shot myself in the foot by not finding the last DD did kind of reopen that wound, but what did help a lot was all the love and support that I got from my family and friends who watched the episode.”
Another former contestant, David Maybury, wrote that after his experience on the show, he started a blog where he “emotionally bled out on everyone within splash distance for a long time” with other contestants to get over his feelings of being “broken” after the show.
Greg Munda, who appeared on the show in 2013, revealed, “It was years before I could even start watching Jeopardy with others again… I would joke (to myself and people who knew) that I couldn’t beat myself up over not winning because ‘beat’ was the correct response to the Final Jeopardy I blew.”
A more recent contestant who remained anonymous, wrote, “Coming down off the adrenaline high took several sleepless nights, and even then it’s still there somewhat. The process to get on to Jeopardy is not a short one – from the anytime test to being on stage can take 2-3 years for some people. Plus there’s prep and study work, even if minimal, that most every contestant does in order not to look ‘foolish’ on national TV. It’s a lot to deal with.”
And Susan Robbins, who appeared on the show back in 2002, answered the original question by saying it’d take “20 plus years” to get past “Post-Jeopardy! Syndrome.”
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