Anonymous wrote:"Fun teenage years" and "fun college years".
OP does sound annoying.
The only people I know who had "fun" during those years amounted to, a best, administrative assistants who married losers and have no children.
Wow. You don't sound mentally OK yourself.
What she means by fun years is exploring who you are, being free to pursue what interests you, making mistakes and recovering from them. Normal life stuff.
Unfortunately for people who start like OP, it takes half a life time to be ok with a lot of effort, and some are still not OK. Others who were raised in emotionally healthier conditions, don't have this uphill battle. They are able to build up their lives, while those like OP have to fill the huge holes (continuing the construction analogy) to make sure the ground is even and sound before they can ever start building something.
OP, it's not fair that different people get a different start in life. But take pride and comfort that in your family it stops with you and you won't pass this on to the next generation. It's huge, and you're a strong and wise person to have done all this work.