My initial thinking process led me to my first conclusion and that ironically enough turned out to be a most important one. I came to the conclusion that I was suffering from a phobia. It may seem a straight forward and logical thing to determine but to go from thinking that you are perfectly normal to self diagnosing a mental illness id in itself a massive emotional step. I still believe to this day that this self diagnosis was the most important step in the whole process of healing. It was really where the road to recovery began.
Once I had determined this I identified what type of phobia it was and discovered that it was a peculiar type of social phobia. Knowing this was really of interest only and didn't contribute a great deal to recovery.
Once I had my head around this and became adjusted to the concept I tried to work out where it had come from. In other words, what had caused it? Looking back I can see that this process was very important as it removed the mystique from the illness and brought it out into the open for viewing and scrutiny which altogether weakened the phobia. Also knowing what caused it helped me decide how to eliminate it.
I then thought back over my early upbringing and childhood days to determine what may have been happening around me to cause the problem. One piece of knowledge helped me work this out and it was the simple fact that I only suffered from anxiety attacks when I was invited to private venues for dining not public places. I never had a problem when I went to a hotel, restaurant or function centre for meals. This was a major turn of fortune as I cannot begin to imagine the consequences on my life if I didn't have the public forums freely available to me.
However noting this fact I was able to think back to my early childhood for answers. It came to me that my mother used to suffer from a form of epilepsy which when occurring at family friends homes caused much embarrassment. This meant that when our family was invited to attend a meal the pre dinner atmosphere in our house before leaving was, as I remember, very tense. As I was only young this tension and embarrassing vibes settled into my subconscious and became the breeding ground for a phobia.
Linking all this together in my mind had a large impact. Now being able to identify what the problem was and where it had come from meant that I knew what I was dealing with. Now I knew for sure that it wouldn't just go away at some undisclosed time in the future.
However this final thought didn't cause me any alarm because the next piece in the puzzle made me realise for the first time since the first anxiety attack at my relative's home, over a decade prior, that the problem in my head could be fixed once and for all.