This is true for me, too. My T knows that being my authentic self is a big deal for me. He sometimes references "how you came" versus "how you got" as a way to talk about the difference.

I am profoundly grateful for the way that I have transformed what happened to me into a way to help other people and do work that is meaningful to me. This is part of who I am, and an important part. But my history is just that, history, and it does not define me nor do I think that it is something that I have to reject or wish I could remove from myself like a tumor.