I feel as though I sound like a 16 year old in my previous post. Sorry for that. I am, indeed, 10 years older. I was so upset, which probably goes without saying. I feel very rejected by my mom, and it's tough. Sometimes it's tougher than others.

I need to not let her behavior (and my dad's) hold me back. I need to continue to really work hard and rise above it. It's tough to know how to do that when I was raised in such a dysfunctional environment. If your caretakers can't take care of each other/themselves, how are they supposed to teach you to care for yourself? If your caretakers reject you, how are you supposed to accept yourself?

I wish everyone who was seriously contemplating being a parent was magically infertile until *boom* they could care for themselves well. When setting out to become a parent, it's not imperative to have all the answers to life. That's impossible. But it is important to have the basics down, to know who you are, to be secure with yourself and your place in the world, to be secure in your relationship with your significant other and yourself.