How do I handle night panic attacks?

Every few nights for the month or two I’ve been having panic attacks as I start to fall asleep. It often starts off with general feelings of discomfort—my body feels itchy and like I can’t get comfortable. This leads to me getting the general symptoms of a panic attack, my heart rate quickens, I stop being logical.

When I do fall asleep on these nights, I generally wake up several times in the night from nightmares hyperventilating. Sometimes I remember this happening, but other times I have no recollection of it at all, and only know about it because my partner who shares a bed with me tells me about it in the morning.

I’m in college and live in a dorm, so we share a twin-sized bed, so there isn’t much space. When I wake up, my partner wakes up.

Lately I’ve been so scared of panicking at night that I’ve been taking diphenhydramine every night to fall asleep—it’s an over the counter thing you can buy at drugstores that’s essentially an antihistamine but is marked as a sleep aid. I was taking one pill of that (25 mg), which kind of worked for a while, but my body has adjusted and now I’m taking either one or two a night.

Backstory: I have an anxiety disorder, and was on Zoloft for it all through high school, which I tapered off of this summer with a doctor’s help. I know I should seek a doctor’s advice for what’s going on now, but given what I’ve said, I’m wondering if anyone has been in this situation before, and can offer their experience. I’m feeling increasingly guilty at making my partner suffer through this with me, and that’s the hardest part of it all. They really like sharing a bed with me, but I’m worried that this is causing them harm.

What should I do?