Surviving something hard doesn’t mean it was good for you. You can grow and still wish it hadn’t happened.

Two things get bundled together that are actually separate: what an experience cost you, and what you became able to do afterwards. Growth is not evidence that the thing was justified. You are allowed to have learned something and still say plainly that you would undo it if you could. Nobody has to be grateful for damage in order to have come through it.

If you have been working hard to find the silver lining, you can set that job down. Name what it cost you, to yourself or to one person who will not argue. Any gain does not need defending alongside it.