I sincerely sympathize with what you're going through. Like you, I deal with nocturnal disturbances, although in my case they are very occasional night terrors. I'm not sure if it's similar to your panic attacks, but it's truly terrifying.
In my experience, these episodes usually occur after particularly stressful periods, marked by changes and a tendency to overeat. Overeating seems to be a trigger in my case.
What makes night terrors particularly frightening is the very intense sensation of presences or visions during these episodes. It's a really frightening and destabilizing experience.
Thankfully mine aren't like that. I think I would freak out a bit too much if that were the case. I don't need any visions in my bedroom! I'm sorry that you are dealing with that. It's interesting to find that more people deal with this sort of thing than I would have guessed.
Yes, it's true that I'm also amazed at the number of people who have to deal with it. I don't know if it's more than before or if it's just that more and more people are speaking out about it.
I hope it's the latter, otherwise the former would mean there's a societal problem 😉
There is still a stigma about this sort of thing. People don't want to be viewed as weak or broken. I think it's probably a combination of the two though.