Fear Not?

I hesitate to post this here, but I could really use the prayers and I know many of my readers are absolute prayer warriors. So here goes. I have been suffering from anxiety or panic attacks for nearly a year now. Worst of all, I can't explain why I am having them. I had my first on a night my husband was away and I had to call him at 3 am to have him "talk me down". They are almost always in the middle of the night. I wake up and begin having this overwhelming sense of fear. I'll take my pulse, but usually it is normal. I'll feel nauseated, tingly, light-headed and break out into a cold sweat. They usually last for 10-20 minutes and then it takes awhile longer to settle down enough to get back to sleep. The next day I feel exhausted and shaky.

I've been keeping track in a journal to see if maybe they are hormonally related. I'm not seeing a super strong pattern. I've also been tracking stressors and sometimes those do line up (husband gone on a long trip, misplaced child, getting lost in Baltimore, impending flight) but other nights there isn't an explainable stressor to trigger an attack.

Wingnut and I went to a movie last night. A nice, quiet, enjoyable evening out alone together and there I was in the theater having an attack. I could hardly concentrate on the film but I was finally able to get ahold of myself. It happened again last night, once we hit the hay. I hadn't been asleep an hour before I was up, pacing and taking deep calming breaths. I'll pray "Hail Marys" as well and that really seems to help.

I've finally made an appointment to see a doctor next week. I hope we can get to the bottom of this and that it isn't all in my mind. My mom suffered from panic attacks when I was a teen and so I think there may be a genetic factor at play, but this really is so unlike me and incredibly distressing to me. I'm always in control(can you say "control freak"?) and I hate having this feeling that I am not in control.

Please, please, please, say a prayer for me!