Hello PeaceNLove,
In my experience forgiveness was the last step. I had to work through the pain and anger first and then I could forgive. Forgiving does not mean I accepted unacceptable behavior. Nothing my family did to me was acceptable behavior.
The first step for me was owning my own pain and anger. Even though someone else caused the damage it was now mine to fix and no one was going to fix it for me. My pain and damage now belongs to me and it is my responsibilty to work through it. I had to stop blaming and take responsibility for my own healing process. Blame just kept me looking outward and kept me from healing.
I learn through images a lot of the time. The image I got at the time was having a container within me that everyone filled full with trash my whole life. I kept wanting them to fix it and remove the trash because the trash was causing me pain. I kept looking at that trash and saying look what you did to me. I realized then that it was my container and my trash now and I had to take the trash out and then fill my container with good things. Forgiveness ended up to be one of those good things in my container. It was something I did for myself and no one else.