I say try facing those issues. Your thinking mind is trying to process and make sense of those anxious issues. Example, if you were in an IED explosion in Iraq...it’s okay to think about it. It’s okay to process it. It’s okay to understand that it happened. But it’s also okay to understand that was a one-time thing and your body reacted the way it did to protect yourself from that one-time event. You may have lost some friends from that bad event, and you may have even been damaged from it. But that trauma is OVER. It’s time to heal through acceptance, talking about it verbally, and saying goodbye to those emotions.
This works well, as long as not you’re not still in Iraq at risk of getting hit with IEDs.
This oversimplifies things a little.
Many things can trigger your brain to react in a similar fashion than during a traumatic experience.
You can also be aware that the experience is not the same or unrelated, but you'll still get a panic attack. Most likely because the actual anxiety or panic is not caused by your thinking brain.
This works well, as long as not you’re not still in Iraq at risk of getting hit with IEDs.