I'm now seventeen years old, I'll start my senior year of high school in september and lately, I have been having what I believe are panic attacks; my breathing is uncontrollable, my heart beats out of my chest and I feel like I may pass out. They started to occur right after my father had a stroke,(he's okay now, just has trouble with his speech and writing abilities) they started off just happening every once in a while, but now they happen more than once everyday. They are random and unprovoked most of the time. I have no control over when they happen and don't really know what to do to stop them. I've tried breathing exercises and talking to my friends about it. They are extremely supportive and help me whenever they can, but they don't really know what I'm going through. And also, when I'm alone and it's 1:00 am and I've been trying to sleep for six hours except I can't because I feel like my lungs are collapsing.Sometimes my anxiety makes me feel so helpless that it makes me want to disappear. I don;t want to let it run my life anymore and I'd really like to seek further help. I'm just not really sure how to explain all of this to my parents. I have tried to tell them that my "nerves" are more than just nerves, but whenever I try to tell them they just tell me that I'm over reacting and that I just have to get over it. I really don't know what to do at this point, If anyone of you has anything helpful as far as reaching out for help or any sort of tricks or tips that I can use my own self I'd really appreciate any feed back.