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Let's hear it for the potentials of shared thinking out loud, and of generative conflict. Thanks for this. And, in part because of it, I too want to retune a bit.

I don't at all think one should "glorify" pain/suffering, mental or otherwise. Though some might want to argue that pain/suffering itself is "redemptive" or that "what doesn't kill one makes one stronger," my concern here is quite different and much more akin to "even as we work to overcome/live with mental differences, we can also grow and change with them." Its not, in my mind, pain/suffering that is the important operative factor in growth/change, but rather the conflict that pain/suffering may be a signal of. Its the positive features of conflict that I think we need to be more aware of, not the value of pain/suffering, which may itself get in the way of the recognition and productive use of conflict. To the extent one can alleviate suffering without becoming insensitive to conflict, I'm all in favor of it.

I'm also in favor of building on whatever scraps of possibility and agency can be found in any given situation. And maybe this is worth retuning a bit too. I don't think of "possibility and agency" as something one has or doesn't have. Nor do I think that not having it means one needs sympathy/help from others and having it means one doesn't. Instead, I think that "possibility and agency" are things that people have in varying amounts, with different people having different amounts at different times, and that people are always better off with sympathy/help from others regardless of the current status of their "possibility and agency."

Sympathy/help in a mental health context should, it seems to me begin with the assumption that humans always some starting level of "possibility and agency" and that the task is to enhance it. By whatever means can be found including, as appropriate, relief of pain/suffering.