I don't know you except for through your words, and yet I am confident that you are indeed better. Your empathy and openness are here on the page as proof of your strength.

I will never understand parents whose love for their children is conditional. However, I have experienced it. My siblings and I are only accepted by my mother when it's on her terms--when we are who she wants us to be. Unsurprisingly, she and I don't have much of a relationship, and her many rejections still haunt me when I allow them to.

The people who matter are the people who love you for who you really are. I've been lucky to find such people in the last few years. I'm sure that you will find yourself a deep support system of genuine care-taking friends.