Hi Al,
I'm so glad you posted this discussion. I suffered from severe panic attacks for years after my craniotomy. The first one I had, I literally thought I was going to die. The second one happened while I was driving and I refused for months to drive on the highway. These things can be very debilitating. The worst part was, is that people in the medical field kept telling me I was doing it to myself. The way I found to recover from this is to recognize the symptoms of my panic attack,, tell myself over and over that no one ever died of a panic attack and I found help on websites for people who have panic disorder. There are medications that can help, especially SSRIs. You can work on meditation and focus techniques. Something that I've heard of, is actually going and sitting in the ER waiting room, but not checking in. It gives the sense that if something is wrong, you are in the right place. It depends on where your AVM was but this could all be because of the brain injury associated with the AVM or simply from the psychological factors. Good Luck. I understand.