Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -… [55]

Anyway, my neurotransmitters are scrambled and they’re going to stay scrambled. But I can do okay as long as other people don’t know about me. Inside our neighborhood walls I do fine. Our rides today, though, were hell. Going and coming, they were all the worst things I’ve ever felt—shadows and ghosts, twists and jabs of unexpected pain. — , Octavia E. Butler - Earthseed, Book 1 -…, 55

Note

The clinical register (‘neurotransmitters are scrambled’) collides with the childlike plainness of ‘I can do okay’ and then with the sharp, bodily shorthand of ‘shadows and ghosts, twists and jabs’ — three vocabularies for one condition in a single paragraph, which is how Lauren’s hyperempathy is always written: diagnosed, endured, and felt all at once.