I've been a meditator for many years and I find that it takes practice for the mind to calm down.  It is a misconception that meditation is the letting go of all thoughts, though that can be done at times.  I've been able to do a lot of self-healing with meditation, yet I recognize that there are other modularity's too that don't require medical intervention.  

Regarding your panic attacks - have you ever focused on your breathing and determined how you really breath?  Most of us learned to breath with our chest instead of our belly (the natural way, the way an infant breathes).  Here is a quote from http://www.thehappyguy.com/articles/stress-breath.html

"Famous health guru, Dr. Andrew Weil, says that if he could only give one tip for better health, it would be to breathe properly. Proper breathing technique is central to the ancient practices of Yoga, Qi Gong, Ayurveda and other meditation disciplines. A clinical study of thousands of participants over a 30-year period presents convincing evidence that the most significant factor in peak health and long life is how well you breathe."

Chest breathing and shallow breathing cause anxiety and panic attacks.  From: http://nicolaquinn.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=60

Why Bad Breathing Causes Anxiety and Panic Attacks

"Rapid shallow breathing causes hyperventilation and this happens when more carbon dioxide is breathed out than the body is able to manufacture. Symptoms include dizziness, tingling, tightness of the chest with rapid heartbeat, feelings of unreality and an inability to think clearly. Does that sound familiar?

Then in a rapid downward spiral these hideous feelings then make you breathe even quicker causing the symptoms to worsen even further. And there we have it, a classic anxiety and panic spiral which is very difficult to get out of and afterwards the exhaustion and feelings of being a limp rag combine with utter devastation and defeat and lead to ever increasing despair and phobias.

Breathing into a brown paper bag is a way of helping once the spiral has been embarked upon but a better way is to get into the habit of breathing correctly ALL the time so you never get to the point where you need to do that.

You may ask how can just breathing correctly help my anxiety and panic attacks?

Think about it, what you fear most are those awful feelings, the palpitations that come on for no reason, the dizziness, wobbliness, weak knees, feelings of unreality and not knowing what to do because you cannot even think straight, well if you knew how to prevent those from happening there would be nothing to fear, right?"

I'm going to go one step farther regarding your general anxiety disorder and talk about something that I've just discovered - Trauma Release Exercises.  I think that it's an exciting development in the field of anxiety, depression and PTSD.  The originator and author of a book and DVD on the topic spent several years in Africa, Bethlehem, and Lebanon during which time in each place there were wars and armed conflicts.  He experienced extended periods of being under direct mortar attacks as well as outright murder of civilians who he was working with.  He recognized his own PTSD and from his memories of his and the reaction of others developed exercises for releasing stored trauma.  Anxiety, depression and PTSD are merely symptoms of our inability to process traumatic events and everyone has had traumatic events in their lives.  It goes with life on the planet.   We don't remember it all, but it is stored and we will feel better as we release it.  You are currently experiencing a lot of trauma and if you are a loving, caring, person and you are more sensitive to it than others are - it hits real hard.  So the exercises I'm talking about can be found in the book "The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process: Transcend Your Toughest Times" and can be found at Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/Revolutionary-Trauma-Release-Process-Transcend/dp/18972...

or probably your local library.  (I have searched the Internet and just don't find them explained on the Internet.)  I just started the exercises and have felt some release (I've done a lot of other work in this area, so don't know how much I've still got stored).   The exercises are stressful on your legs, and they are meant to be that way.  The exercises end up with you on your back and trembling which releases trauma from your system.  I'm not connected in any way with the author or the book but you will note at the Amazon site above that 21 out of 21 reviewers gave it a 5 star rating - utterly fantastic for any book, particularly a self help book.  The author explains in exquisite detail how trauma affects the wiring of our brain and how we react to traumatic situations with the reptilian portion of our brains and not our logical portion and how we can create the reptilian response through his exercises to get the trauma processed and released.  One of the benefits of TRE is a much better night's sleep.

Here are some testimonials from the author's web site (again, I have no connection with the author or his web site):

http://artistic-webdesign.com/wordpress/2009/11/05/testimonials/

There is a DVD that can be purchased along with the book and I have that on order, but the book contains enough information to get you headed in the right direction.

Do not deny the trauma that you are currently dealing with.  We have been taught that a lot of trauma we experience is "normal" in that we are not supposed to be affected by it and it's one of the big lies in the Hollywood/Madison Avenue world we live in, and that's why we suppress it.  You are experiencing trauma and it is difficult, but what I've listed above are a couple of ways to deal with it.

 Why not try:

Beating Anxiety and Phobias

Hi there,

Your post is just about a month old. How are you doing? Any better?

Hoping you are well,

Jill :)