My only point to think to reply to your translation is of your "I lost a chunk of myself."   It may be too simplistic or even patronizing, but I wonder isn't there mostly hugely intact the basic authentic You that's overcome all, remained intact through the years, of your Self, and maybe whatever chunk of stuff lost in the passage was not so disastrous, not so unsurvivably lost?  Not to diminish what might have been.  Maybe I'm just still only brainwashed with idea that there's something of my essence that's indestructible or somehow kinda like eternal (for a time anyway) despite it all.  Or at least that it's a kinda good thing and enough to have remained alive still and kicking so many years later through all that, ... not just for the sake of avoiding the pain of thinking about all that might have been or all I might have been and might otherwise have made of life.