We see through the series her managing it with potions, finding out ther one who cursed her, confronting the personification of her curse in her head, and then trying to make peace with it. She even turns it into a cool ability, but that took work and her Found Family's help.

I was watching a review of the show and something dawned on me. That's that I don't think I've fully come to grips with having an abusive family.

Or better say, it comes in stages.

I know my family was physically and emotionally abusive, but I don't think I've fully accepted it. The memories still haunt me and keep me awake even without triggers. I'm ruminating and replaying memories in my head on what I should've said, I'm shouting, crying, and emotion-eating until my voice goes hoarse and I'm too exhausted to enjoy the day. There were times I got to speak up, but those feel so few and far inbetween.

Here's what I found on the Seven Stages of Grief:

Physically, I'm at stages 6 and 7, because I've already moved out, going to start a new job in my career field, and learning to use the energy I have for myself instead of putting it towards my abusive family member.

But Mentally? I think that I'm bouncing between stages 2-4, with moments of 5.

I need to relearn how to live with being from an abusive family in a peaceful manner. I think I technically learned how to do that when I cut things off with two other family members, but now I need to do it again a third time.

I guess I'm also scared how I might need to continue making the tough decision to cut off other family because I don't feel like I can truly break away from the abusive ones since the nicer ones are still choosing to be with them. I think I feel that way because Lyndsay kept bringing up the main family abuser in conflicts to accuse me of "villainizing" him - even though I never mentioned him in the conversation. I've called her out on that and told her that he has nothing to do with the conflicts between us, but she still kept doing it.

Moving onto her, I think that she's stuck in the first phase. She doesn't accept my decision and might not have even begun processing them. Since she refused to get councilling the couple of times I've brought it up, she doesn't want to process it. Lindsay has awareness that she has triggers, but doesn't do more with managing that. Likely process other things too, because brining up the family abuser is one of several unrelated topics she bounces around in conflicts. Fuck, it drained me just trying to get us back to the main topic.

All the more reason getting away from her was a good idea on my part. Being around someone who's stuck in denial can hinder my ability to process and accept grief. Now I can continue my journey.