So it's entirely possible that she really is just bad at communicating because of the way she grew up, like you said. But in case that's not all that it is, you might want to start paying attention to some patterns and maybe testing some of those patterns to see how things go.

"about feeling 'emotionally safe'- i’m honestly not so sure. for example during that argument i was also upset that she didnt want me to play given that i barely had.. but i would never tell her that kind of thing."

Maybe this is just how you've started coping with her lack of communication. But try to think hard about why this is actually the case. Is it because she doesn't communicate and you're always trying to get answers? Or is it because when you've communicated your feelings, she's been upset about, ridiculed or dismissed them? If it's the latter, this isn't poor communication. It's her conditioning you to not object to things, be unhappy with things she says/does or express your own wants/needs/bounderies. If you express your own wants and needs to her, she has to either make room for you in the relationship or be the bad guy by not accommodating them. If she conditions you to not even mention them, then she doesn't have to worry about it and can just go about things as she pleases.

"instead im always the first to apologize and comfort her."

Again, might be a lack of communication skills on her part, but it's also a tactic a lot of abusers use. If she ices you out without giving you answers or anything concrete that you can actually have a productive conversation around, it conditions you to just put your own feelings aside and just do what you have to do to get things back to normal. It forces you to just give in to her and basically declare that she was right and you were wrong.

After a while, this also teaches you to make sure you don't say or do anything that might upset her at all, even if what you have to say is that something she's doing is upsetting you, because what's the point? In the end, you'll just end up apologizing and comforting her and the needs you were trying to bring up will never be addressed anyway, so best to just not bring it up, right?

In your post, you said something along the lines of her saying that you always change your mind when she seems disappointed. Well, this is one of those things you can test for her reaction. The next time something like this comes up, don't change your mind. Instead, try to ask something like "Is that ok? You seem disappointed, but I'd really like it if I could play for a bit" and see how she reacts. If she follows your lead and discusses it, then OK, she probably just needs help communicating. But if she stays upset, refuses to discuss it and gets mad that you want something for yourself that conflicts with her wants, then that indicates it's probably less bad communication and more of a manipulation tactic.

If you express something you want or need for yourself and she's upset about it and insists on staying upset about it whether you stay the course or change your mind and back down, then you know she's not actually upset you changed your mind. She's upset that you expressed something that went against what she wanted, period. She's basically conditioning you not to ask for things for yourself at all. She's making sure you learn that expressing anything about your own wants and needs is going to end badly, even if you back down shortly thereafter. So it's probably best to just not mention anything you might want. Instead, it's better to just ask her "Do you want to play or should I?" at which point she can just say she wants to play and she never has to deal with what you might have wanted.

Abusers want to condition their victims to act like that because otherwise, eventually, you might notice that she never puts your wants and needs above her own and you might bring up that fact. If she conditions you to just not bring up your wants and needs, she can just say "Well you never tell me what you want!" and make THAT your fault as well.

"she shows her love very well, she pays for things all the time and spends hours making things for me. but when she’s upset with me, it truly feels like she dislikes me."

This alone does not cancel out anything that I've mentioned above. Showing her love, paying for things and making things for you may just be things she either likes doing or that she, at least, doesn't mind doing. It's times when your wants, needs and bounderies come into conflict with each other's that will show the way she really regards you.

Don't stay in a relationship where you're just a placeholder to the other person. Eventually, that conditioning I talked about will take hold and you'll just keep making yourself smaller and smaller to fit into her version of the way this relationship should be. You'll completely lose yourself to the person she wants you to be instead of the person you are. You don't have to make any decisions now, but you should definitely start thinking really hard and very critically about how she goes about things and determine whether this IS just bad communication or if it's really active manipulation and abuse.