"The more I know, the less I panic." I'm with you 100% there.

I remember my second-ever backpack trip. (The first was a poorly led trip with a Scout troop - and I got hooked anyhow.)

I went to a local backpacking trail in a state park, solo. I can't even remember for sure whether I'd read Colin Fletcher's original Complete Walker then; I think I had. The first couple of hours went fine. Then, about 4 miles into the hike, the trail left the forest and disappeared into a meadow before going into the woods again (according to the map.) The map showed it ran straight, so I picked a distinctive tree on the other side of the meadow and started walking.

Halfway across, I glanced down for a second. When I looked back up, my "distinctive tree" wasn't nearly so distinctive as I'd first thought. I kept walking what I thought was a straight line, and reached the treeline.

No trail.

Walked more and more rapidly along the treeline, searching for the blaze that had to be there somewhere. HAD to be!

No trail.

By now, I was in the early stages of panic. (I hadn't yet started running in circles, hands in the air, "Woe is me! Woe is me." Yet.) The wolves hadn't started slinking out of the woods to surround me yet, but I could swear I saw yellow eyes in the gathering dusk. (Remember, this is around 1pm in southern Ohio.)

I had enough presence of mind to tell myself to take off my pack, sit down, eat a snack and take a drink, and study my map to figure things out. So, about 10 minutes later, I had a plan. I stood up, picked up my pack - and noticed that the blaze I had been looking for was on the tree I'd been leaning against.

I've never thought you came across paranoid - merely sensible and well-reasoned, like me.