Ditto Swifty. I really don't do well above four feet above ground level, and so I thought the answer was 'confront your fears' - Ha!...utter balderdash.
My supposed answer was to do a static line jump from nine thousand feet - did I mention utter balderdash?
It was an amazing sensation. Went up to ceiling height with the aid of a small cesna, with about eight others, and knew that If I didn't jump first, I'd suffer the ignoble experience of returning to the airfield with my 'chute virgo intactus. I hyperventilated all the way up so that by the time we reached the required height I could've charged a bull elephant.
Climbing out of the cabin and putting my right foot onto the small undercarriage wheel while hanging onto the wings cross member was a feat that I performed s.l.o.w.l.y., realizing that the point of no return had been approached, ignored and regretted. This was the moment that I supposedly waved byebye to my fear of heights.
I looked at my jump master, waiting for the 'GO', fully aware of nearly two miles of nothingness beneath me.
It was all routine really - a gibbering, sort of routine. I let go, dropping feet first, shouting to myself and anyone else who cared to listen ' one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, four thousand, all the while, back arched, searching for toggles, making sure the canopy was opening correctly [with thoughts of 'how soon after do I know the static line didn't work, or that the primary chute is rooted/tangled/packed incorrectly and need to use the spare'?] I plummetted back to earth.
All of a sudden I was jerked into an position I can only describe as an armchair position [rather comfortable actually], with the whole of the upper Hunter Valley extended out before me - tiny little patchwork fields of green and brown, the silver meander of the mighty Hunter river looking exactly like the topo maps portray - while a beatific sensation invaded my mind. No vertigo, no locked knees, no pain.
Oh Gloria in Excelsis Dio!!
All was wonderful until I reached a height of about five hundred feet when that bloody mongrel tapped me on the shoulder and reminded me that It all looked far too high, and that I could get killed from this height [what an utterly absurd thought to have!], and it all came rushing back at me. So did the ground.
I landed awkwardly, forgetting the required approach and not assuming the correct position, with the consequence that being back on Mother Earth was a bit painful. I gathered the chute and hobbled over to the collection area thinking, shit, my foot hurts, no, no, it really really hurts...how the fuck am I going to ride the bike home with a bung left foot - that's the gear change foot, and there's all those windey bits, and hills &c.&c.&c......
Needless to say I got home alright, I gritted my teeth and channeled all those Dan Dare moments that I absorbed as a child from those post war comics - and somehow it worked.
I did break two bones in my left foot, and all those lovely elderly Ladies from the Library who were sure that I was going to die in this foolhardy act felt justified in the result, sounding much like Terry Gilliam does when he does his 'older lady' role, saying 'I told you so, but would you listen, 'eck as like you would, &c.&c.&c.
As much as I thought that this would work to correct my fear of heights, that saying, 'when man plans, God laughs' comes to mind, as I now, in my slightly advanced years suffer from acrophobia [still], deafness, tinittus and a problem with balance, which makes me resemble a caricature of some old geezer three sheets to the wind.
But Skinny, like you, I now realise that it wasn't a fear of heights that played upon my mind over all that time- it was the desiring to jump from that height [which really is what I'm called to do in that situation], and the subsequent landing.
Prescience is a wonderful thing.