feelings.

I had this bipolar patient back in acute psych.  She was 18 and very sick already, her medical record included an exceptional number of hospitalizations from a very young age and it made for a bad prognosis.  But I won't ever forget her looking at me in the eye and explaining her sentiments (and yes, this is from memory from years ago, so I'm paraphrasing here--in reality it was all the more beautiful and hauntingly sad):

"I would not trade this for anything.  You see, when I'm sad, I'm sad.  More sad than anyone will ever know.  It's awful, there's no end in sight.  But when I'm happy?  I know happiness that you will never experience.  You see, I can feel things that you will never comprehend.  And for that, I will suffer these waves of depression knowing that there exists that joy like no other.  Because I can have these feelings.  I CAN feel.  And I pity the rest of you, because you will never know what this is."

And even though it sucks, I guess it is something to know that I can experience these feelings.  I'm not a brick.  I'm not numb.  I can let myself experience thought and feeling.  And while I'm not bipolar, I've always thought I can process emotion and feeling in a way that not many other people can relate to--and I'm trying to explain it, because I'm not trying to brag here.  It's really fucking shitty and isolating a lot of the time.  But it can also be incredibly beautiful too.

Does that make sense?