That description is spot-on. That first one man, it throws your whole existence upside down. The rest suck too of course, but that first one is the worst. One of the things that irks me about panic attacks is that you can be in a great place for a long time and think you are done with them, and then randomly bam! The assholes come back. But like you said, you know what to do, so it isn't a big deal.
We've all got our ways and ideas and methods. I do the silence thing. I like eastern philosophies. Listening to that sweet, sweet silence instead of all the other crap going on in my head.
Yay for lights. The best part of the dark season. In regard to crooked pictures, they are great. My favorite pictures are with crooked horizons. Beach pictures with all their smoothness and muted colors so tame and then (like an asshole panic attack) bam! The horizon is diagonal. I vote to ignore photography standards. :)
Yeah… they really aren't nice about it, are they?
And I agree, it's fun to bend the photography rules a bit now and then. Horizons don't always need to be horizontal :)