Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Reanimator

As i work towards being healthier and more functional, one of the most important things i can do, i think, is ask a lot of questions. Of myself. Hard ones.

It’s a bit tricky, because navel-gazing isn’t a good place for me. I can get obsessed, or mired in circular thinking rather easily. I need to ask the hard questions, but answer them relatively quickly, without dwelling on them. It’s not as difficult as i’d worried it might be. I’ve given most of these questions significant thought before, but either stuffed them away in some nook of my brain because i couldn’t deal with it, or just simply been unable/unwilling to implement whatever conclusions i’d come to. Simply put, most of the answers are in there, and fairly accessible just by asking the questions.

By asking and answering some of those harder ones, i’ve been able to set my feet upon a path, and plod in a generally forward direction. I know there are things about my brain that work differently than most people, and for the purposes of being more relatable i refer to them as mental illnesses. I’ve asked why i am this way and come to some kind of conclusion that, at least for now, satisfies me to the point where i can accept it and move on. I’ve asked myself what i’d like to change about myself and my life, and acknowledged what i need to do to get there. The questions don’t stop there, but the biggest, most serious ones regarding what made me this way are mostly behind me (probably). Hopefully. Maybe? Okay, we’ll go with “for now”.

 

As someone who’s spent a significant part of my life in deep contemplation, i suppose i’ve developed a sort of slapdash personal philosophy, at least with respect to the broader definition of my own existence. I see my life as a tightrope walk. Or a balance beam. Or standing in the centre of a teeter totter, with one foot on either side. Yeah, i think i’m that sort of person. I’m looking for balance. Not so much for stasis, because boring, but i’m on a swing and if it goes too high i fall off and if i don’t pump my legs i’ll eventually stop, and either of those is death. That extends to my worldview, but only in the broadest and most non-theistic sense. I see that there are a chain of events set off by every action we take, whether conscious or unconscious, and that which happens as a result are natural consequences. I do what i do, and life responds in return, and while i see life around me as somewhat random and coincidental, i see evidence every day that convinces me that my choices play an important part in who i am and how i live, thus persuading me of the benefit of living a more conscious life. I am compelled to continue.

Yes, Life happens. Every day, all day. With me and without me. But insofar as i am conscious and aware, i have autonomy in how i respond to it. As someone born into a mental cage inside an emotional prison – this is sweet freedom. I’m deeply comforted by the unconsciousness of Life’s non-response to my presence, which is a balm to the constant and strident histrionics of humans responding both to me and around me. And while i love humans very much, i’m loathe to be associated with most of them.

Each time depression cycles back around it’s like dying. Things slow and darken and everything is tiring and painful. People exacerbate the condition, making me want to skip to the inevitable conclusion and save myself the suffering. So i withdraw to a place where the feelings are more manageable. My Fortress of (relative) Solitude.

It’s difficult with this particular brain and heart to be amongst you for very long and remain conscious, intentional, and contribute positively to those around me. I know it will change as i move forward – i see continued improvement with every small foray i make into the big, bad world. I have much evidence to hope that one day it might be mostly natural, and even fluid. For now though, i’m fortunately able to live in my Little Crooked House with my moat of trees and grass and wagon wheels, and my dragon-dogs and fire breathing husband and son.

I ask questions, form hypotheses, and then go out and test them, gathering evidence to bring back to my lab, where i study the data and then do it all again. I’m working on a theory, but that paper is a long way from being written, and peer review still scares the  shit outta me.

 

I just combined the 2 prior images and came up with Princess Frankenstein. I like it.

 

Love and Peace,

~H~

 

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Discharge

 

 

Hey You.

Yeah, you. I know i haven’t addressed you directly in a while, but i’ve been dealing with some stuff.There’s a shocker, eh? Not so much, i know, but here’s the thing: i still worry what other people think of me. Much less, mind you, but sometimes still too much and at the wrong times.

And that line can be pretty tough to figure out.
Also, i’m not sure in this case that i have.
So, you may actually be sick and tired of hearing about “my struggles with mental illness”. Blahblahblahdeblahblah.

I’m gonna risk it, because getting the kind of better i want to be, is inherently risky. Sometimes people don’t get it, sometimes they misunderstand entirely, and sometimes MissusH, they just. don’t. like you.
So, i’m writing to you on the assumption that a couple of you are going to fall into those last 3 categories… And it’s not gonna kill me.

It may seem to some that being mentally ill is all i talk about. That’s fair. It’s just that i’ve always been this way, and i didn’t know what-in-the-actual-FUCK?! was wrong with me until around 10yrs ago. And for some of you who’ve known me a lot longer than that, i may have seemed relatively okay, just maybe a little odd. You may have given some passing thought to my unmet potential. But my brain has alwaysalwaysalways worked this way, it’s just that i was able to manage reasonably well enough to get by. Then my mom died, and i slipped. Then i had kids, and i slipped further. I fell in love, and slipped even further. And then i lost weight and tumbled all the way down the rabbit hole.

The diagnoses came fairly quickly and easily after that, and i was so exposed and vulnerable, i couldn’t deny them anymore. Yes, it was terrifying (no exaggeration), but it was also such a massive relief like i had never, ever experienced in my entire life up until that point. My life was a winding top that hadn’t yet been released. I had lived my life trying to hold all my shit together, and i’d wound myself tighter and tighter until i was barely functional (and by barely i mean not really).

And to continue the metaphor would be wholly appropriate, because baby, i spun. I went spinning wildly, and everywhere – to which anyone who’s known me over the last 10yrs can attest… Ah, don’t though, plzkthx. Heh. I’ve stopped spinning, but i am wicked unsteady on my feet. I still stumble and totter and weave, and occasionally do a hard lipstand.

I want to live a functional and authentic life, as happily and freely as i’m able.
To that end, i think about life, the universe, and everything. And i think out loud.
If you weren’t reading this – it would still be here. So, you may as well. You know, if you wanna.

**********

I’ve been very focused for the last few years, on curating my life. Not to live in an echo chamber -i grew up in one of those- but to create an atmosphere which is most conducive to growth and beauty. On one hand, it’s involved breaking down walls and busting down doors that were built around me, limiting my access to information and knowledge. I found the forbidden fruit, i ate it, and it’s my favourite. I don’t live in a little, dim shack anymore – i live in the goddamned garden. And i tend to that Tree diligently, that it might continue to bear the fruit that i love so much. So far, that has mostly involved a lot of weeding.

I’ve been pruning people. It’s been one of the most difficult, most scary, and most rewarding things i’ve ever done in my life. Once i knew what was “wrong” with me, i had to look at why, and then once i knew why, i could figure out who i am and what i want and where i want to go. How i get there has mostly involved just removing obstacles. People, whether they mean to be or not, are in my way. They’re weeds, trying to choke the life outta my Tree. And just… NO. If you’re gonna be a weed in my garden, you’ve gotta go.

Familiarity went first. I left the place i knew and went to a place i didn’t know. It made it easier to remove people that had to go. It took me a long, clumsy, awkward and painful time to do it – but i did, and am, doing it. Family had to go first. They thought they knew me. Heck, i thought they knew me too. They didn’t, not at all. And to be fair, how could they, when i didn’t even know myself? I have neither the wish nor the intent to go into any detail, just suffice to say, we were never really family in the first place, and the time has passed for us to be associated with one another. It’s only a source of deep sorrow and pain for me, so it’s been a very healthy and self-loving decision on my part to walk away.

My mother’s death saved my life. She was the most toxic relationship that has ended. Not her choice and not mine, but life’s. She raised me to be a certain kinda way, and i don’t know if anything other than her death could have stopped her from achieving that. Once i acknowledged the relief and release that her passing gave me, i was given my first serious chance at being who and what i want to be. The end of our relationship made change seem suddenly possible for me. It became the benchmark for assessing the pros and cons of my continued relationships with others. Life plopped a gimme into my lap, but the other ones would be up to me. (Don’t get nervous now, i’m ending relationships by walking away. Life has no feelings – i have all of them.)

I think i couldn’t see myself through my own eyes. I was raised to be obedient… subservient even. I was raised to be a reflection of other people’s desires of what i should and should not be. I was raised not to think for myself, but instead to sing out the words and ideas and beliefs that had been forcefully vomited into my brain without my permission. Not once in all of my childhood was i asked what i thought about anything, and the only time i was asked what i felt, it was understood implicitly that i was only being asked to confirm what they thought i should be feeling. Looking back now, i see a group of nodding heads, calmed and comforted by the lack of dissension. It never occurred to me to have an opinion different than my family’s… I didn’t know i could, let alone that i DID.

When i say “family” i mostly mean my mother, and to a lesser extent, my father and stepfather. My mother’s family never had much to do with her, save her parents, and she didn’t much care for any of them, including her parents. My stepfather is living and i have no wish to libel him or his family, only to say that i’m content for things to be as they are. For the loss of my siblings, i hold pain, regret, and some responsibility, but again, i am content. I fear the damage done to all of us by our upbringing is too great for us to overcome. Maybe some day, but not today.

Since pruning my life of family my garden has become more vibrant and beautiful. There are colours and smells and tastes that please me and comfort me and inspire me to work harder and create a yet more incredible space. I’ve rid my life of things that limit its fertility and capacity for growth.

I was told that other people were mentally inferior to us.
I grew up with an epithet for everyone who wasn’t us.*
I was raised to believe that everyone who didn’t believe what we believed would be eternally tortured when they died.
I wasn’t allowed to watch any programs that seemed “gay”, like Laverne and Shirley, SOAP, and Perfect Strangers.
I could bring a black man home, as long as we didn’t make babies.
I was asked to stop bringing my First Nations friends around.
I was threatened with shunning if i ever brought a Mexican home.
Minutes after viewing my mother’s body, i was told i was going to hell because i had a girlfriend.
My mother would have disowned me for my Mohawk son.

Those are just a few things by way of illustration. Life plucked the strangleweed outta my growing space, giving me a chance to get rid of the rest of it. I’ve been able to root out racism, bigotry, misogyny, misandry, homophobia, transphobia, and religion. My life, my garden, my tree, they’re all MINE, and the more it reflects who i am, and who i want to be, the more reluctant i become to have anything here that isn’t also beautiful and pleasing to me. I’m unwilling to please anyone at the expense of myself.

So, that’s where i’m at today. Coming to the end of my mourning period, i think. Trying not to feel bad about it, and also trying not to feel bad about not feeling terribly bad about it.

Gonna go walk the dogs.
Love and Peace,
~H~
*I want to make it clear that i heard the epithets, i didn’t use them.

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

(No More) Mindshaker Meltdown

That old vicious cycle screaming within
As I talk of the building with the crashin’ about
~ Mother Love Bone, Mindshaker Meltdown

A big part of managing my anxiety has come from not thinking about certain things. I’ve had to learn how to control my thoughts. If thoughts were bugs, i’d be Willie Scott in the Temple of Doom. I had to reach my hand into the little tunnel full of the creepiest and crawliest of them in order to release myself from the prison i’d created in my own mind.

How can i stand there, covered in little fears with whispering legs, and then willingly place my questing hand into a black hole filled with more chittering terrors?
Well, i don’t think about it, that’s how.

Wrangling my thoughts seemed an impossible task. I was always at their mercy: racing thoughts, invasive ones too, obsessions aplenty. All cavorting through the big carnival tent of my skull, carousing with impunity. I was just Weary Willie (different Willie – look him up) who came in to sweep up all the Cracker Jack and elephant shit when it was finally over.
I grew sick and tired of being at their whims, various and sundry. I also got pissed off. My brain, admittedly a bit of a fixer upper, has some big, beautiful windows that merely needed a good cleaning, and the open beam cathedral ceiling is really quite spectacular. If i didn’t agree to take on the job of getting her marketable, she may very well have been razed to the ground.

No promises, but i think i’m done with the analogies for now.

Anyone who’s been in the grips of runaway thinking knows how hard it is to stop. And that thing you know you shouldn’t think about, because you’ll be lost to time and reason, too. I emerged from those dismal sessions empty of everything save self-loathing. Some period of depression always followed. Then the slow work of picking myself up, carrying on, and attempting to get traction and maybe some momentum (? HA!) would begin.

Anger came to my rescue, as it so often does. I was laying there in a wrung out, pitiful heap of emotional sludge, the echoes of those words still keeping me company, when i just got angry about the whole thing. The fed-right-the-fuck-up kind of mad. I told myself enough, i wasn’t going to live or die at the mercy of transient thoughts. I decided i would no longer allow those particularly sticky ones to gain purchase in my mind.

At first i thought it was going to be one of the hardest things i’ve ever done, but the wonderful surprise is how easy it’s been. Once i realised how adept i already was at not thinking about some things, i just had to apply the same technique to thoughts i’d believed i was powerless to resist. Take perceived faux pas, for instance. If i did something in a social situation that i thought was stupid or wrong, it was all i could think about, almost from the moment i’d done it, until well after it was over.

It would start with embarrassment. Exclamations of horror, replete with histrionic declarations (I’m never going back to the grocery store, EVER!) and laden with cursing (Oh shit, goddamnit!) Then would come the pointless questions i never had an answer for, that only dragged me further down (Why do i always do that? WHY?!) Until finally i’d be nothing but a puddle of nihilistic ennui (What’s the point? I’ll always be this way.)

I deal with that thought immediately now. First i acknowledge it, then i do a quick run-through of how it’s gonna go if i allow it to overwhelm my brain. (HINT: Not well.) Next i ask myself if there’s something tangible i can do to relieve the anxiety. Like, could i call up the person i was talking to and clarify what i meant to say or apologise? Could i ask what their perception was of our interchange? If yes, i do so, and if not, i remind myself of all the potential for negative fallout if i have too much of a think on this thing. And then i distract myself. Like, ASAP. My current favourite is housework done to loud rock n’ roll.

It’s been working.

If i can be at a family function and not give a single thought to what so-and-so over there did to me when i was twelve, i can not think about how i laughed too shrilly at dude’s joke when he handed me my coffee and doughnut.

If i can look at the beautiful thing at the store that i want but can’t afford, moving along to the thing that’s not perfect but good enough and in my price range, then i needn’t obsessively mourn lost relationships.

If i can step back and let my children and other loved ones make their own life choices, even if they’re not what i would personally choose for them, then i needn’t suffer the pervasive angst of the life i might have lived.

I can and am doing this, one thought at a time. Is this benefitting me? No. Is there anything i can do about it? No. Am i willing to pay the price for giving in to it? No.

So… It’s Mother Love Bone and window washing then?

HELL YES.

Have a weekend, will ya? I will, too.

Love and Peace,
~H~



IMAGE: Austrian National Library

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Live Carefully, Die of Old Age, and Leave the Body to the Mortician

I said this blog wouldn’t be about the past, but everything is, isn’t it? What i meant when i said that is i’m done with recounting the gory details. Once i got it all out, i wallowed. Hell, i was slogging about in that sickening bog for so long i was the emotional equivalent of the well walker from The Walking Dead. Then i spent a lot of time not talking about it at all. I didn’t even think about it much. Taking in the sun. Drying out. Waiting until i couldn’t smell the rot on me anymore.

Nowadays, i’m focused on balance. To continue the metaphor, i’d like to walk in the sunshine with the living, and not be afraid of seeing my own shadow.

I bring this up because i’ve been thinking about who i wanted to be when i was a child, and who i am today. Very different indeed. I thought i wanted to be famous. An actress, a singer, a jet-setting bon vivant. Someone admired and respected and sought after. Beautiful and elegant, witty and urbane.

Heh. It makes perfect sense. I was made for such a world. I survived much of my childhood by escaping into make-believe. I lost myself in music, in books, in television programs. My therapist has said people like me are superheroes and my mutant power is imagination. I created another life to slip into whenever things were particularly unbearable, and i played various characters depending on the set.

The ease with which i did it lent itself well to school drama productions, church plays, and choirs. I never got nervous, only excited. Zero stage fright. Everyone was always impressed, and i loved the attention. Unfortunately, as i got older i kept getting bigger, and not just up, but out. And fat girls didn’t get picked for the lead. Eventually i became too tired and too broken to fight. I still played many roles, but no longer on a stage.

I used to be sad about it, and then i was angry. I may have been very good. I might have even made something remarkable, something that had longevity. But surviving my childhood took too much out of me. The effort and energy required to keep my inner reality safe, to care for all the characters i’d become so attached to… I lost the joy.

Today i’m grateful my dreams didn’t come true. Not in a philosophical, “no regrets” kind of way, more like, “Phew, dodged that bullet!”
Really.

If that had happened for me, that dream that so many little girls have, i don’t know if i’d have ever been able to acknowledge and face my past or my mental illness. With an imagination like mine, i don’t need Clarence Odbody* to show me what life might be like had i made different choices. I have many regrets, but not being famous isn’t one of them.

I spent so many years of my life trying to find acceptance and approval that i didn’t realise how solitary a person i really am. Maybe people were spoiled for me from the beginning, or maybe i was born this way. I suspect, as is the way of nearly all things – it is a combination of the two. I love you guys, but i find you bloody exhausting. I’m still learning to manage my brain: my thoughts, my feelings; the fantastic and terrible way my brain works. I must dial down my hypervigilance to being merely vigilant. I sought relationship yet i would go to crazy-sick lengths to avoid rejection. That set up a constant push-pull inside, which only amped up my already significant level of ambivalence and ambiguity.

I guess what i mean is it takes an incredible effort to shift my existence from the relentless pull towards opposite extremes. To reverse it in fact; to seek the middle, but not quite the middle. Balance. Sometimes that’s way over to one side, and sometimes it’s the other. Perpetually making minor adjustments to thoughts and behaviours in order to be healthier, more functional, and hopefully happier in my connections with other humans.
Exhausting, as i stated earlier.

To return to my original point, if i’d enjoyed any noteworthy success at all, i might’nt have ever needed to stop playing roles. Slipping from character to character might have made me more successful. I could’ve fed hungrily upon any accolades and adoration like i see actors, singers, and other celebrities receiving today.
It would’ve probably kept me sick.

I’ve had struggles with excess: food, drugs, sex… Please sir, i want some more, and Thank you sir, may i have another? I think that lifestyle might’ve animated and emboldened my proclivities for debauchery and debasement. And i’d have burnt out rather quickly, too. I’d be fortunate to be alive when the ride was over. Who’m i kidding? It’s amazing that i’m still alive now. I would have lived fast and died young. And nobody leaves a beautiful corpse.

So now to wrap all this up in a succinct summation: I’m glad to be here on this bit of land, in this little, crooked house. I have my husband and my children and their children and my dogs. I don’t need to see anyone else except my health care professionals. I’ve been afforded the time and the space to figure out when, where, and for how long i want to be around any other humans besides them. It’s a safe and happy and gratifying place for me to be today.

Love and Peace,
~H~

* The angel, from the movie It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

IMAGE: Jay Rembert

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly

Thoughts That I Have Pt. II

“The heart wants what it wants.”

About that…

My heart gets it wrong. A LOT. I mean, a lot a lot. And my heart doesn’t “know” anything. It’s just one of the areas that manifest the feelings generated by the thoughts in my brain.* And as i’ve mentioned before, my brain doesn’t always work well or properly – and my choices in both sexual and non-sexual relationships is often a stark example of that fact. So yeah, sometimes i want relationships that aren’t good, healthy or otherwise beneficial to me. I’ve often heard it said the heart wants what it wants, and the tone of resignation that usually accompanies it. It seems to hint that one is helpless against its desires. That against the onslaught of emotions (especially romantic ones) i’m just along for the ride, and i should allow myself to be swept away. “Don’t fight it, H. The heart wants what it wants, after all.” Insert shrugged shoulders and a deep sigh.

It almost seems like an excuse to me. Like, i want the person i know isn’t a good choice to be in a relationship with, so i’m gonna blame the destructive inevitability of my heart’s desires to abdicate responsibility for this choice i am indeed making.

And so while i’m not gonna stop enjoying love expressed through art -the poems, ballads, epic romances, the sweeping historical novels and all the rest- i need to see it for what it is and what it is not. What it is, is the way we communicate with each other regarding how it can feel to care for someone. What it isn’t, is the organ with which i make decisions. Not simple ones like whether or not to return a passing smile, and certainly not much more complex ones like whom to marry and/or create a family.

You may think that’s obvious, and maybe it should’ve been, but it certainly wasn’t to me. Based on results, i was choosing my relationships on the whims of some nebulous idea that my heart was its own little person, with a mind of its own. I thought my heart always knew what was right for me, even if i didn’t know it intellectually. That –along with a large dose of religion and an absurd belief in romantic predestination– led me to make some (mostly) disastrous choices in both friends and intimate partners.

What happens in my heart when i meet someone i’m attracted to, whether for friendship or something more, isn’t something i should follow blindly. Nor am i helpless to resist such feelings. Sometimes my taste sucks, sometimes i’m just plain wrong, and sometimes the feelings simply aren’t reciprocated. Perhaps they aren’t returned as much as i’d like them to be, or (the worst) they stop being returned at all. That last one has happened to me many, many times.

Getting dumped is the absolute shits. It’s painful, and for me, embarrassing and shameful. I was the family scapegoat until i slipped their grasp, but i wasn’t able to shake the feeling that everything that went wrong around me was my fault. I was terrified of rejection and it caused reflexive blame, self-loathing, powerlessness, and a pervasive sense of doom. Quite often it also triggered depression or mania or other behaviors associated with my mental issues. Sometimes the price i paid was high, and often my children and eventually my husband paid, too.

My heart though? My heart just wanted them back. Every one of them. It wasn’t until i got distance from them along with some traction regarding my mental health that my feelings were gradually overridden by my brain. I see now some of them weren’t right for me, some of them were no longer a good fit, and some of them had done me a huge favour by leaving.

* Again with the obvious statements, i know.

IMAGE: Robb North

Posted on by histrionicabutterfly · 2 Comments

Thoughts That I Have That Are Mine and Are Not Yours Because They Are Mine

“The heart never lies.”

Ah, bull pucky. Besides the fact that my heart isn’t the place where my feelings come from, and my heart doesn’t have an agenda, my feelings come from my brain* and my brain not only has been through some stuff, it may have been born or otherwise emerged from my formative years with some serious defects or flaws or quirks, or whatever you’d prefer to call them. To be blunt, i’ve had some screwed up ways of looking at things.

I was indoctrinated by religion, pummeled by years of abuse, and systematically and vigorously taught not to think for myself. My upbringing showed me a twisted version of love, and skewed my perceptions about people generally, and relationships specifically. And no, i didn’t know in my heart that something was wrong. I thought it was normal. It didn’t feel good all the time, but sometimes it did. It felt natural and comfortable absolutely. I didn’t realise how i’d been raised was spectacularly wrong until i was 21 years old.

As a result, i’ve had a number of crappy relationships with crappy people. I’ve remained loyal to some who were utterly unworthy of it for ruinously long periods of time. Such is my loyalty that i’ll tell you with very few exceptions, it was them that ended the relationship and not me. (Except with men, but let’s save that particular ball of crazy for another time.) I loved them and wanted them in my life, and my physical response was a varying combination of an elevated heartbeat that either feels all bursty with the joyousness of human connection, or painfully aching and rather clenched with the threat of that connection being ended.

These were people who said awful things about me behind my back. Some had assaulted me physically and/or sexually. Some were only in it for what i gave them, be that my body, my time, my money, or even just my unconditional support and my i’ll-never-leave-youness. People who didn’t particularly want me, but for whom i was better than nobody. And my favourite, those who thought it was either their calling or their duty to be in my life. And i’ll be brutally honest and tell you that although i sucked at relationships of any kind, regardless of whether sex was involved or not, i wanted them all – every selfish, cruel, judgmental, unavailable one of them. They may have been one, or all of those things, plus others, but i’m trying not to dwell here (no really, heh). The important thing is they weren’t good for me, either for a period of time or for all my time.

They used me up. They sucked me dry of everything i had to give and then summarily dropped me. Now, my capacity to give was admittedly limited, but i didn’t really know that at the time. All i knew when they ended the relationship was i’d done something wrong, i’d screwed things up again, somehow. And to be fair, i think some of them were as clueless as me –about themselves and their own machinations– and to them i just seemed to become unsuitable friend material. But my heart was crushed because i wanted them.

In fact, my heart thought i needed them. It reached out towards them and urged me to fix things. It imbued me with a desire to make things right regardless of the cost. And on those occasions that i obeyed its desperate pleas, it rewarded me with feelings that might qualify as blissful. I’d be floating on a pink, fluffy cloud and gazing down at the apple trees and honey bees and snow white turtle doves. However, life with the person i thought i wanted in my life was never harmonious like that song by The New Seekers. My heart was manifesting the things in my brain that were dysfunctional.

The parts of my brain that functioned fairly well were pretty sure it wasn’t going to work out, and i was going to get hurt all over again.

* I know this is obvious stuff everyone knows. Sometimes i find a bromide helpful.

IMAGE: Allessandro Valli