More from Stunt: Children lose their minds the way that adults do: Anxiety and metaphor.

[juushika]

While we're on the point:

Children lose their minds the way that adults do. Same as adults, we have various strategies to win our minds back. Immaculata told me about a girl who did equations in her head to fall asleep at night. The equations were very sophisticated. The numbers made her less distraught. And they kept the witches away. If you have a million birds flying around in your head, it makes a difference if you can name them. All of that skittering. Name the birds. Only then can their calls be separated. Only then can their beaks be blunted.

—Stunt, Claudia Dey, 74

Not in complete agreement—to name very bird you must count every bird, and cataloging their millions can be an oppressive, and even with bunted beaks you can smother in their feathers, billions of feathers—but: yes, this.