This means the same thing as discussions about best habitats/diets of animals or plants, so I'll explain it in that sense because I believe it will be more clear:
(The statements below aren't necessarily facts)
Thrive In
This relates to an environment. It means that, while the animal or plant may be able to survive in other environments, it does extremely well in this sort of environment.
Desert cacti thrive in hot, dry environments.
Thrive on
This relates to food consumption (or, in the case of your question, what gives a person energy). As with the previous, an animal or plant may be able to survive on another diet but this diet is very beneficial to the plant.:
Horses thrive on a varied diet of oats, fresh grazing, and hay.
As it relates to Stress
When you say "Thrive on stress" it means that the stress makes the subject perform better than she performs when she's not in a stressful situation.
or can we say this sentence has meaning like "she can beat stress easily, she can be successful even though stress"
It says the opposite... "thrive on stress" almost implies that her success in a situation is due to the stress, not despite it.
To express realizing something much later on
Only after some time was I able to realize...
I realized much later that...
the amount of time is usually a modifying phrase. It is implied that the realization came somewhat suddenly since if the realization was progressive one might use
Over a period of time, I was able to realize...
For something really sudden
only later did it hit me
some time afterwards I suddenly realized
Best Answer
Because of your first sentence
your second phrases will have the same meaning
Without the first sentence
describes whatever result occurred, whereas
"up to" implies a summation or some sort of calculation.