Just because it's a gift, doesn't mean I'm ok with it....

To clarify.
I HATED the idea that what happened to me, my family and my siblings was a gift. (And this time that word is laced with sarcasm,disdain, anger and disgust). I resisted it, and railed against it and fought it with every logical and irrational argument I could throw at it.
What happened in the walls of my home was a sin against humanity, and a crime against many laws as well. It was revolting, disgusting, terrible, unfair, and filled me with feelings of injustice, despair, anger, helplessness.I'm not glad that terrible things happened in my home.

But, when I viewed those events and people as evil, disgusting, hurtful, painful, I became, to myself, only a product of those things. I became broken, less than, not enough, incomplete, broken, dirty, disgusting and only able to bring hurt and pain to those I loved. The hurt of those early days and the confusion and realization that this was not right coursed through my veins like a life force of its own. At least one of my siblings always had the awareness that this was not right, but I didn't. It hit me like a ton of bricks when I learned, realized, was taught, that this was not right.

It colored how I saw the world, events, and mostly, myself. I was broken, and hadn't even realized that I was. How could I trust anything, anyone, at all? How can I know say that experience is a gift?

Because the truth is you, me, even my father, we are all gifts. We all have in us the chance for beauty and more and love.

For a variety of reasons from his own likely abuse, to a lack of understanding of bipolar, and even a bit of his own refusal to consider the beauty of life, my father was not able to be much of a gift to me in the traditional sense.
Many of my personal characteristics that are strengths today : kindness, empathy, an even-keel (in public), strength, acceptance, optimism - were deliberately cultivated as a response to the lack of their existence. They were not always modeled for me to absorb naturally.
But. I am still a gift. I am brimming with potential to love, connect, grow, learn. 
And that is how my youth can be a gift. Those things that happened to my siblings and I will NEVER be a gift. But I AM A GIFT. And YOU ARE a gift.  
And you,and I, we have the choice, to take those disgusting, horrible painful things,and survive them. Grow through them, and to take something ugly, and turn it into something beautiful. Because, we are gifts, all of us.

Maybe my gift is the realization that no matter how sure you are that you have nothing to give, in fact your gifts are endless. Maybe my gift is the thought that, even if your father tells you "no one will love you" and insists on keeping you, and your world small, you can BLOSSOM, and GROW and bust out of the bullshit lies you were told.

I'll never be grateful my father was ill. But I'm grateful always of the lesson that my worth is not determined by his actions. That my worth and value is an inalienable right. That no matter the mistakes I make or hurts I inadvertently inflict or things I get wrong, my worth is the same.

And so is yours.

If you've suffered pain or hurt or unfairness in one or many forms, the concept that that experience is a gift is down right offensive. It was to me for a very, very long time. How dare you suggest that those frightened years have somehow made me better, how DARE you?!?!?! 

I'd have given just about anything to see the world through eyes that didn't see what I saw, that could feel love with a heart that didn't have to build a wall to protect itself from its very source, to expect life to unfold in a beautiful, fair, fun, enjoyable way instead of always being on guard for the next attack on my body, soul or both.

But. I can empathize with a woman who never felt support from her mother and struggles with it decades later. I can look a child in the eyes and tell them, with full belief, that they are amazing, no matter the horrors of their life. I can fight, and fight, and fight to build a world that is how I hoped mine would be. I can see the value in struggle, the beauty in imperfection, and the worth of each one of you.

And that, is, in fact, my gift. Don't lose your gift to keep the pain.