Thanks for the replies, but I will give my opinion the apathy angle. I think it's still a bad description and kind of manipulative if it's just apathy. Even saying 'numb' or 'empty', BlackPup.

I can completely understand where you would feel these things towards certain people or topics. I can promise you, when I'm at work and depressed, I do not care about work. It does not mean anything to me. I could urinate on my boss' desk, get fired and not care in the slightest.

Another example, when I am in my room and I get a phone call from my mom, I do not care about her. I do not answer the phone. I literally do not make the connection that she is the person who gave me life, sacrificed for me or loves me. I just see it as an annoyance, if anything. She becomes a stranger. I feel numb, empty or nothing towards her, specifically. Or maybe perhaps 90% of the world, including myself sometimes, but I do not view as me devaluing 'them' so much as me valuing 'something else' much, much more.

My brain simply does not afford me the resources to care about anything other than whatever I am fixated on. It's like having a paper cut, then someone chops off your foot. Suddenly, you can't feel the paper cut. Maybe that's a bad analogy.

If that perspective is true then, saying 'nothing' is still dishonest. It's being selective. You value 'nothing' in relation to something you do value very much, which perhaps is the misery itself.

By that measure, I can always say I value nothing. I am sitting at my desk and I do not value a lot of things. Practically, I do not value them. I do not feel guilty for not valuing them either, nor do I think I should. I just can't muster up the energy to feel value towards them. My boss, for instance, if he died tomorrow, I wouldn't care. I do not have the energy to manufacture a relationship there right now.

Not valuing my mom is just kind of an extension of that strategy, imo. I still feel that saying 'nothing' is a very bad way of putting it, but thank you for the responses.