Last night, I met a hero (I wish I could tell you who, how and why). Not a hero in the archetypal-mythological sense, not a hero as defined by the inflationary use of the term, e.g. sports hero (although, if you googled him you’d unfailingly find the word hero in the first five articles you came across and no doubt beyond; I didn’t read further), but: an ordinary man who has known great personal tragedy and shown great courage in the service of others.

He shook my hand, didn’t let go and thanked me - me! - for playing my part. He wasn’t as tall as I'd expected; his palms were warm and his smile infectious. He was generous, unobtrusively charismatic and called me “ma’am”. He asked me which part of Britain I came from (I managed to stutter a reply). He jocularly referred to himself as a colonist and I smiled and replied that I didn’t hold it against him, which just goes to show what rubbish you spout in the face of greatness. We talked while he clasped my hand in both of his and then he pulled me over the room in full view of everyone to introduce me to his wife and friends.

I’m still choked up. I’ve never felt such awe, and my faith in humanity has been reasserted.

I didn’t want to go to this function although my name was on the guest list. It doesn’t take much to dissuade a mild-to-moderate agoraphobic from leaving her comfort zone; a stubbed toe, minuscule change in temperature or the wind blowing from the wrong direction will suffice. And the day hadn’t got off to a promising start; I was feeling irritable, overwhelmed and beset with minor woes. In short; my “lady function”, as a correspondent so endearingly referred to it, was acting up, as the lady function tends to when it’s been overruled, suppressed, ignored and eschewed in favour of “getting things done” for a length of time.

Mountain Man was having none of it, and when I say that, I don’t mean he was being particularly assertive. Assertiveness has a 100% failure rate. He was being sly by addressing desire rather than fear. (We agoraphobics are a selfish bunch; dangle a juicy carrot in front of our inner hedonist and attention whore and we’re out of there like a shot.) Also: I can go almost anywhere as long as it’s with him or another "safe" person. That’s the way it works. (Other things work too, such as a daily 5mg dose of Cipralex, an antidepressant that is prescribed off-label for agoraphobia. I am proof of its efficacy.) If you’d like to know more, she describes it brilliantly. (Especially this: "I can't bear being the centre of attention. So obviously I'm looking forward to my wedding day! If I run away from the altar it'll look quite bad. I'll have to get pissed, or take loads of Valium." I know the feeling so well, if not pertaining to the same event. Sedation is infinitely preferable to getting plastered and it goes without saying that one NEVER implements both methods simultaneously.) All I can add to her observations is that agoraphobia is something only other people get until it happens to you.

“People say I come across as quite confident, which is weird. It's the one thing I'd like to be.”