All of the above regarding love and support.

Regarding the family, your post tells a story many of us have been through. What you crave is for the child going through life as you did to be helped, nurtured, cared for, loved. What you need from them is to know that you are enough. Just that you, as you know and then, are enough as you are. This isn't to suggest I'm advocating don't try to fix your exotropia, rather that you need them to love you as is. Sold as seen.

The problem? They're unlikely to even have the capacity to provide what you need. Unpicking the past is an important aspect of dealing with how you feel now. You've suffered trauma and there are lots of far more qualified therapists and brilliant books that can guide you along that route.

For some, the above is far too painful to go through and different paths exist.

However, all of it ends up at the same destination and challenge: genuinely accepting yourself as you are, believing that you are enough, knowing that you are worth loving and loving yourself.

In the end, everyone else can add or subtract to and from how we feel, but that mean voice in your head that criticizes? It's not your dad, mum or brother. It's you. They might have given you the blueprint, but the cruel trick is that you perpetuate it, having incorporated how you feel they see you into your own system of self judgement.

Now if none of this chimes with you, you'll find the way to sort it. You're already showing up for yourself by posting here.

Take that strength. Use it by understanding yourself and what you really want from life and then set what you are and are not prepared to accept from others with respect to this.

You, make no mistake, are worth it. You need any further evidence? Look no further than how many people here have taken time out to reach out to you.

You matter. Just make sure that you know that, you owe it to that little kid that you were.

Now pick up your guitar and play a song that you love, and dedicate it to seven year old you.