str8,
I can understand your desire to park the helicopter. I've thought about doing the same from time to time. I started flying at 19, in US Army flight school. Flew under-powered UH-1C and slightly under-powered AH-1Gs in Vietnam in 68 and 69. Back then, the military training was good, but nothing like is taught these days. We needed a lot of sand-bags to fill seats between 68 and 72.
I had a couple of my colleagues take rounds and few went down. There are too many war stories to mention, but the main point I have is we tended to find an excuse for the other guy dying and not us. None of it made sense, but it helped us to strap the helicopter on the next day and keep going.
Hangar talking. I think most pilots in the war survived and had less problems after the ward because we were able to come back to the base at the end of the day, and have a beer or twenty with the other pilots. We'd talk through our fears. We'd never show fear (or thought we weren't) to the others, but talking though the day's activities made us get our problems on the table. On our time off, we used to train or try out new techniques to keep us from getting into a problem from previous days. You might give that a try with the other helicopter drivers you used to hang with.
If you do go back to flying, concentrate on your job:
Know your aircraft,
Ensure that your aircraft is mechanically sound,
Understand what your mission is for the day, plan it and stick to it,
Train as much as you can. That includes reading magazines, asking questions of mechanics (engineers) older and younger pilots, attend seminars (even local ones where other pilots in your area get together and talk about local problems, flight techniques, etc).
When flying, give 100% to situational awareness. Know where you are 3 dimentionally, where the obstructions are and other aircraft.
If you concentrate on the threats, the presumed risk of flying, you are not concentrating on your job and you will fail (I.e. screw up, crash, etc.)
I got out of flying helicopters in 88, but flew corporate fixed-wing until 91 then got into accident investigation work. Some one asked about statistics. Helicopters tend to have accidents because they do jobs that fixed-wing cannot do. Fixed-wing need nice runways and have plenty of room to do their job. Accident rates vary with the tpye of job. Seismic is a higher risk than flying offshore. The offshore industry is slowly coming aronud to introducing equipment, increased traiing, and working with the aircraft manufacturers to improve handling qualities and reducing pilot workload. The airline industry started same process over 30 years ago.
But, it still comes down to the individual pilot to put it all together. I flew for a couple of bad operators in the fish and game and forest-fire suppression business in the mid-70s making $500 a month and no expenses. There are still operators like that around, and they usually do not believe in all the training or fancy equipment installation.
If you run into a fixed-wnig driver who bad-mouths helicopters pilots, just remember that you are in an elite group of professionals and tell them that the differance between a fixed-wing pilto and a helicopter pilot is that a fixed-wing pilot always wanted to get into aviation, but didn't have the b.. courage to try.
You'll make the correct decision for yourself. Good luck in life.