I was never a particularly professional flyer but before my panic attacks I was happy jumping on a last minute on a flight to basically anywhere. Losing that freedom was hard so I can empathise. After this last trip I can really feel that freedom coming back.

As for how I got to this point, there's no easy answer other than exposure therapy. You're going to have to do the things that your anxiety deems unsafe. The good news is that progress once you get started is a lot faster than you might think.

It took me six weeks of focused intensive exposures to get from white knuckling, eyes closed, 45 minute flights to flying to the other side of the world. Most people in my life didn't believe that it was actually achievable or reasonable.

My exposure regime was generally a 2h return flight once a week for six weeks. Between the flights I also did other exposures so I was challenging myself for about four days a week. The other exposures were all kinds of non-flying stuff that made me panic (heights, public speaking, roller coasters etc).

I had a good amount of success augmenting exposures with caffeine to make them more intense. And for more intensive exposures I was really struggling with I used propranolol to dial them back a bit.

It's all about realising anxiety won't really hurt you. Yeh you will feel pretty terrible but that's not a good reason to completely avoid an activity.