I agree with both of you and thank you for posting what you did.

I just wanted to share a bit more.

I think it's important to clarify that it being called a "gift" is not (for the most part) to say it's something embraced like one would a beautiful diamond ring...to admire and adore...to use as an excuse not to fix what's not working in our lives.

I think the term gift is used to say that it was a gift created from within to save us our sanity or worse. That is the way the word "gift" is used here for the most part and from what I've seen.

I think it's referred to an ongoing gift in that the skills and tools accompanying allow for some of us to be possibly even higher functioning that the "norm" in certain things. People often look at me and say, "how do you handle such and such. I couldn't!" And this is from a mentally "healthy" person. There are specific skills with this that can certainly be used as a gift.

I just wanted to clarify my use of the word gift and what I often feel I read in that word. It's not used to say, "Oh, this is great! Not a thing messed up anywhere in my life!" in a form of denial or what have you. It's used to say, "Wow...considering...this illness kept me alive, sane, functioning, so much. Now I have to make this 'gift' work for me and my life where it's not."

KD