Sorry if this sounds silly/stupid, but it's been a huge problem in my life for the past few years now. It started around 2013 and has been on and off since then, but it's affected my social life big time, stopped me from eating out/getting takeaways with friends, and even eating meals with the family, and I'd like to finally sort it out. Basically my problem is when I eat, I find it hard to swallow it and just end up chewing the food for long periods of time and not getting very far. Because of this, it's made me very nervous when eating in public recently, because I'm afraid of what others will think, or that I won't even be able to eat a full meal, since it often leaves me just chewing the food, and so I've been on meals out where I've barely eaten anything. I'm better eating on my own in a private room, but it still takes me a while sometimes. It's gotten me down because I've had to make excuses about not wanting to go out and eat with friends (I've got too much work, not hungry, this that and the other). It's starting to take over my life and I don't want it to get to how it used to be. It feels like every time I eat I'm manually doing it and thinking about rather than instinctively; It's become a habit, and I know it's in my head, but I just can't kick it
It started a few years back; I went to a pub with my dad, and we were having a nice birthday meal out to celebrate it when he started choking on a piece of steak. He was fine in the end, but at the time my grandad had to help him (I think he did the Heimlich manoever but I didn't see because they went outside), and that evening he still felt there was something 'stuck' in his throat so he went to hospital on his own accord and they just gave him something to take to 'ease it', and since then he's been fine, and it hasn't affected him at all. It shook me a bit, not too much, but subconsioucly it's affected me hugely. This is around the time my problem started. Since then, I becamemore aware of how I was eating, chewing my food more and startingg to think about it more, since I was scared of choking myself. It got pretty bad, my all time low was where I couldn't eat any solids and had to eat mushed up baby rusk with milk, and have a blended smoothie. I felt pretty ill because I wasn't eating properly and wasn't getting the right minerals or nutrients at all. Now, I'm better than that and can eat solids, but it takes me a while, and I'm scared of this happening again. Often my food goes cold before I finish it. It feels now that it's become a phobia of a phobia though. I went on a day out recently and barely ate in public, not because I wasn't hungry, but because I was scared of eating by myself, and that I wouldn't be able to eat, so I went a whole day of eating barely anything (I had to get a 2 hour train ride there and back and didn't eat much on the train either).
I'm going back to uni soon, and I want to fix this before I go back. I have about 2 months (end of September) before I return. I feel like a broken person right now, since it's always getting me down and affecting me socially (I feel not eating properly also makes me moodier too), and I want to experience being full again, something I haven't felt in ages, since I usually stop eating because I'm just chewing and not swallowing anymore, not because I'm full. It's also made me very skinny because I'm simply not eating a lot, and so slightly affecting my self confidence about how I look. If I can fix this, then I feel like I'll be so much happier, this is the only problem right now that I face. I just want to go back to how I used to be before all this and feel normal again, enjoy eating out, and not worry or even think about it.
I've decided that I probably need councelling again, something which I've been reluctant to do since it's sort of like 'admitting defeat', since I used to have a counsellor for it a few years ago, but got discharged when I felt I was a bit better (I wasn't back to how I was when normal though). It also brings up the problem again, something which I'm trying desperately hard to forget about, but finding it near impossible since I think about it every time I eat. Is it worth getting another appointment? I felt it was nice to talk about it and get it off my chest, but it didn't help all that much, since I was just going over the problem and how it was related to anxiety, and how I could relax using breathing exercises and stuff, none of which seem to help really
Also, would hypnotherapy be a good thing to try? Is it available on the NHS and can it be successful, or even work in my case? I sometimes get stupid thoughts, like how I'd like to be in a coma so I could wake up and forget about my issue, and I wouldn't remember it ever happened
Sorry there's a lot to read, but I think this just about barely touches the surface of a problem which has been affecting my life for around 3/4 years now, and I've probably missed out a lot of stuff, but thanks for taking the time to read it all. I think it's probably an uncommon/weird problem, and a lot of people may not know what to say, but any advice would be much appreciated