It has been brought to my attention that I have a slight preoccupation with words. Not just words as, well, words, but using the correct word to describe something. More than once I have corrected my therapist when he used the 'wrong' word. Most of the time it has to do with feelings. See, I don't do feelings well. I don't like them, I don't describe them very well (at least not the same as others do) and I don't experience them nearly as often as I have been lead to believe is 'Normal'. And so, I suppose, yes, I am particular about my word choice, especially in that context.
I had a meds appointment this morning. As I noted in my last blog the Wellbutrin that has been added to my daily medication has succeded in making the urges to cut and thoughts of suicide much less noticible, however it has also left me feeling flat, colorless, lifeless. I told him that. That is, I told him that it makes me feel 'flat'. He looked at me and said 'You feel empty?'. Since when did flat and empty mean the same thing? The cup is empty, the table is flat. It's not rocket science people. I am very careful when I pick my words especially in therapy or at a doctors appointment. What I say is what I really mean. I use a specific word because that is what it is to me. Disgust does not mean I find something 'icky'(yes, I have actually had that suggested). Lousy is worse than Out of Sorts but not as bad as Awful. And Flat is not Empty.
3 comments:
I once described that flat feeling as like walking around the world and everything is in black and white and drawn no cardboard. Like people you pass are just cutouts, each one looking remarkably similar to the last. There's a lack of contrast, of beauty, of any depth to the world. The world has no meaning or purpose any more, it just...exists.
That something like how you have felt?
~Shiv
No, though that's a good discription. But it's not the world that seems flat, it's me. Flat, colorless... Everything is muted, a ghost of what it used to be. I'm just... Flat. *shrug* But good lord, where did he get 'empty' from 'flat'?
Psychiatrists have a tendency, I've found, to conflate meaning. We have to fit into their neat little diagnostic categories somehow, so they often shoe-horn our experiences/states to make them fit. It irritates me as well but then I've been accused of pedantry on more than one occasion. On the bright side, at least you've probably established that your feelings are not open to wide interpretation, which can be a blessing.
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