Have you ever felt monachopsis?

I have! I bet you have, too.

This list of unique, strange and unsettling, but common emotions was compiled by Tickld, via the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. They seem oddly fitting for the dead of winter.

1. Sonder: The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.

2. Opia: The intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.

3. Monachopsis: The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.

4. Énouement: The bittersweetness of having arrived in the future, seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your past self.

5. Vellichor: The strange wistfulness of used bookshops. All those books. Once read by someone, somewhere, years ago, now shelved.

6. Rubatosis: The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat.

7. Kenopsia: The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.

8. Mauerbauertraurigkeit: The inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends who you really like.

9. Jouska: A hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head.

10. Chrysalism: The amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm.

11. Vemödalen: The frustration of photographing something you think is amazing when you know thousands of identical photos already exist. (Flowers! My dog!)

12. Anecdoche: A conversation in which everyone is talking, but nobody is listening. (which isn’t an emotion, is it? Maybe this is the feeling you get when you suddenly realize that’s what’s going on? I’ve been in conversations like that, and generally just bow out.)

13. Ellipsism: A sadness that you’ll never be able to know how history will turn out. (I think that also is the fear of death, because you know want to know that the lives of everyone you love turn will out fine, and it’s sad to know you won’t.)

14. Kuebiko: A state of exhaustion inspired by acts of senseless violence.

15. Lachesism: The desire to be struck by disaster – to survive a plane crash, or to lose everything in a fire.

16. Exulansis: The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it. (I often feel this way with my husband. Ha!)

17. Adronitis: Frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone.

18. Ruckkehrunruhe: The feeling of returning home after an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness.

19. Nodus Tollens: The realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore. (Thank goodness this one is fleeting, for me, anyway.)

20. Onism: The frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time.

21. Liberosis: The desire to care less about things. (Lately I feel this way about politics.)

22. Altschmerz: Weariness with the same old issues that you’ve always had – the same boring flaws and anxieties that you’ve been gnawing on for years. (oh yes.)

23. Occhiolism: The awareness of the smallness of your perspective.

Linda K. Sienkiewicz is the author of the award-winning novel In the Context of Love, a story about one woman’s need to tell the truth without shame.

2016 Sarton Women’s Fiction Finalist
2016 Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist
2016 Readers’ Favorite Finalist
2016 USA Book News Best Book Finalist
2015 Great Midwest Book Fest Honorable Mention.

“…at once a love story, a cautionary tale, and an inspirational journey.” ~ Bonnie Jo Campbell, author of National Book Award Finalist, American Salvage, and critically acclaimed Once Upon a River,and Mothers, Tell Your Daughters