I've always been terrified of heights - so climbing was a direct attempt to confront what I thought was a dumb fear. I'm an engineer, and I should be able to build a safe system - and each climb we did that with ropes and pieces of protection like ice screws, or nuts and cams for rock. So my fear was always mitigated by thinking through what system we built, and our judgement of the reliability. Some (like Alex Honnold) rely on their physical gifts to get them through - I didn't have those.

I'm still terrified of heights... it didn;t work.

But I still go on the roof of our house and use my climbing gear (I installed anchors on the peak of the roof and I clip into those).

Still scared.