Definition
Exulansis fatigue, noun. The cumulative exhaustion of trying to explain your internal experience to people who cannot relate to it — until you stop trying altogether.
Exulansis is a moment. Exulansis fatigue is the accumulation.
Every translation is a tax: the energy spent converting what you actually mean into linear, receivable pieces. Exulansis fatigue is what happens when the tax has been collected so many times there is nothing left to spend.
In my words, spoken on the morning of July 20, 2026: exulansis fatigue comes when I become weary of being asked to explain the unexplainable. And depression follows when "I can't explain it" isn't a good enough explanation for someone else to believe that I see something they don't.
Etymology
Exulansis is John Koenig's word, from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: giving up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it. The fatigue is mine. The pairing entered my written record on January 13, 2025, and the timestamp matters, for reasons this glossary exists to demonstrate.
What Exulansis Fatigue Does Not Mean
It is not introversion. It is not social withdrawal. It is not burnout from the experience itself — the experience is usually fine. The cost is the translation labor, not the living.
And it is not "excellence fatigue." An AI transcription system decided that exulansis — a word I use every single day — was statistically improbable, and wrote "excellence" into my body of work instead. I am not tired of being excellent. Excellence isn't something you measure; that is why I don't use the word. I am tired of the tax. The machine that mangled my word for not being received proved the word while mangling it.
The Card
EXULANSIS FATIGUE — The tax, collected until nothing is left.
If you know, you already know. That's the point of the card.