Lift phobia

I see there are other threads on here from people with a fear of using lifts, but they are very old so I thought I would bring this up anyway.

I have been terrified of lits for many years, but it got much worse after I retired (18 years ago!) so that I just avoid them if I possibly can. I had to use them at work and sort of got used to them - the university building I worked in originally had 'pater-nosters' (the open constantly moving ones you just step on and off) which were fine, but shortly after going to work there they broke down and were replaced with another ordinary lift, only worse than the other ones already there because it didn't have a window in it. But I got used to it out of necessity.

Nowadays I just can't go in a lift in normal circumstances, although if absolutely necessary I will go in one with my husband, but never alone. Our new supermarket is an upstairs one, with travelators and lifts, and of course I always use the travelator. Yesterday it wasn't until I was leaving with a very full trolley that I discovered the 'down' travelator was closed , but worse still the lifts are now limited to one person or family at a time. No way could I get in one of those metal monsters on my own, though I can just about manage it if there are one or two other people. So I spoke to a member of staff and she called a security man, who kindly took my trolley down in the lift while I went down the stairs. I used the excuse of 'medical reasons' for not using the lift - true really because I would have had a complete meltdown!

I've had two lots of 'counselling' to try to cure me of this fear, one guy relieved me of £400 for 2 sessions of NLP which didn't work at all, another woman tried her best at hypnotherapy for £70, but she couldn't get me 'under' and nothing she did worked. Any other ideas would be welcome!

I have this phobia, amongst others.
I'm not too bad if there are other people with me. But definitely not alone.
I'm afraid I've found no cure either.
So would be interested to hear from others.

I recall having a terrible fear of lifts up until I was about 4 or 5.

It wasn't the being shut inside them or the movement as such but more the general environment and surroundings and I had this ritual of having to be 'picked up' by my parents when riding in them.

The ventilation grilles that are sometimes a fixture in them whose perforations resemble the lowercase letter L also used to freak me out.

Our central library had one of those monstrosities back then (which was replaced by a more modern one back in the early 2000s) and I eventually ended up developing a phobia about being in the entire building, let alone its horrible lift. Ditto for our Co-op department store in our town centre, which also had a similar horrible lift back then.

There were many bouts of hab-dabs and tantrums from me back then for ages after riding in those lifts without me being picked up, which often resulted in my mom getting to the end of her tether with me as a 3-year old!

Some windowless toilets and bathrooms also used to freak me out as a kid.