Hypertension or not?
As there seem to be some conflicting viewpoints here, can I try to simplify things?
1. The first essential is to find out whether you actually have high blood pressure or not. A good way of doing so is to select one doctor and ask him/her to put you through the CAA's algorithm for the investigation of Hypertension (available on the CAA website), part of which is to do a 24 hour BP monitoring. If your BP drops while you are asleep, then your BP is probably anxiety-related (aka white coat syndrome). If it stays raised, then you need further tests to find out if there is an underlying cause.
2. One feature of your story that I do not like is the shaky, sweaty attack that you had. It's a rare, small print cause of high BP, but is caused by the adrenal gland letting adrenaline (epinephrine) into the circulation, and tends to cause bouts of raised BP rather than constantly raised BP. It is caused by a small, treatable benign tumour on the adrenal gland which goes under the jaw-breaking name of a phaeochromocytoma. I'm not saying that's what it is, but it should be considered given your history.
Good Luck!