The Dilemmas Of Donny

As a child star, teen idol, and host of a weekly variety series, Donny Osmond grew up in a large successful family with a lot of emotional and spiritual support.

Yet, not too long ago, in the early '90s, when he was starring in the stage production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, there was a time when he could not bring himself to face an audience, reports CBS This Morning Co-Anchor Mark McEwen.

That's only part of Osmond's autobiography, Life Is Just What You Make It: My Story So Far, which has just hit the bookstores.

"I was having what I thought was a nervous breakdown," Osmond recalls. "I froze one night before I was to go on stage. I was shaking, I was nervous, I thought the walls were caving in on me."

Osmond, 41, describes anxiety attacks by saying, "You feel like you're in a burning building, and you can't get out. And, if someone were to ask you at that point if they could help you, you'd rather actually be in that burning building and die. It's that bad."

What caused him to have those attacks?

"Perfectionism," says Osmond. "You try to be perfect all the time. You can never attain that."

A psychologist diagnosed his condition as social phobia, a common social anxiety disorder that results from a fear of being ridiculed. While anyone can develop such a disorder, innate perfectionism and the need to please others made Osmond vulnerable.

"But there is only so much a doctor can do. Healing must come from within," he says.

What was the transition like, going from child star to an adult?

"I'm not going to lie. It was difficult," he says. "I say, 'Hang in there, if you can. Time will fix things.' It might not seem like it at the time, but timewill fix things."

Unlike many other former child stars, Osmond seems to be free of bitterness.

"You have to know who you are," he explains. "I've been through a lot, I mean, I've been raked over the coals. But you have to realize, you've done the best you can do, and you can't control what others think of you."

He says he did identify with Michael Jackson of the Jackson Five.

"I remember sitting down with him until, like, 2 in the morning, talking about our early years," Osmond recalls. "It was such a parallel type of life. We're both the seventh child and the same age and all the demands that teen stardom made on us, and how you survive - it is a whole different issue.

"I think my values played a large role - my family and the support there, my wife I married at 20, was quite young."

In 1979, he married Debbie Glen and by the age of 21, he had a child. They now have five sons.

From 1976 to 1979, he and his sister starred in the popular TV variety series The Donny and Marie Show. Now, they are co-hosting a syndicated TV talk show.

"You know, it is a blast to work with Marie again," he says. "I tell you, it asn't, for the first three or four months when we started. It was a learning process to get that chemistry back together again."

Writing the book, he says, "was a therapeutic experience." But he had other reasons, which were just as important.

"I want the public to know who I really am," he says. "My father read the book and said he had no idea about what I was going through. I wanted to make it as positive and accurate as possible. I don't air dirty laundry, and I'm not complaining."