Healing the Shattered: Surviving Narcissistic Abuse
TODD DOYLE
Disclaimer
Healing the Shattered: Surviving Narcissistic Abuse
Copyright © 2022 by Todd Doyle
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, Todd Doyle, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility or liability whatsoever on behalf of the consumer or reader of this material. Any perceived slight of any individual or organization is purely unintentional.
The resources in this book are provided for informational purposes only and should not be used to replace the specialized training and professional judgment of a health care or mental health professional. Neither the author nor the publisher can be held responsible for the use of the information provided within this book. Please, always consult a trained professional before making any decision regarding treatment of yourself or others. Although, each of the chapters in this book remains factual, some names have been changed to protect the identity and privacy of their families.
ISBN: 979-8-3607-8254-4 Imprint: Independently published
Contact Info: www.ToddDoyle.com
First Edition: December, 2022
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I, without doubt, loved her unconditionally without pause, without hesitation, and the best way I could. I was faithful and I was true to her. She was broken like a shattered mirror. One person, in a thousand pieces, with each piece reflecting back a different version of herself to whomever was looking.
Beauty has, and always will be, in the eye of the beholder. To me, she was my person. She… was my One.
I was with my narcissist for a year. We had fallen deeply in love very quickly. Or…, so I had thought. Back then, I knew nothing of what I know now. I didn’t know I was being lovebombed. I didn’t know she was, unfortunately, what she turned out to be.
Before meeting her, I felt as though my life had no purpose. For years, I had suffered grief and loneliness. Several close friends had passed away in a relatively short amount of time as I had grown older. I felt bewildered but still grateful. One night, I had a deep conversation with God about where I was in my life. I said a prayer to the Lord, and actually threw my hands up to God, and asked him to “use me.” This is very personal to me. Never before in my life, had I thrown my hands up to God and told Him to do something with my life before.
I meant every word. It was my last, final, and unrequited plea.
A few days later, she and I began talking inadvertently, and somewhat, out of the blue. We talked for two months on the phone before ever meeting in person. It just sort of happened. I had been talking to one girl, who lived far away, and I wanted my narcissist’s opinion (can you believe this?) if she thought the other female’s texts were “emotional manipulation.”
In the very beginning, I felt it was a deep, mind-bending almost, soul connection between she and I.
I felt like I had known her before this life. I felt like she and I were always somehow destined to be together one day. I had met her when we were in middle school. We were friendly towards one another. But, we ran in different circles. We grew up having different sets of friends with only a few overlapping connections.
In 10th grade, two of my closest male friends, who happened to be in a class with my narcissist, told me one time in great length: “Todd, we think you and her should be friends. We think you’d really get along. We think you both have the same type of personality.”
Almost twenty years later, my recently deceased best friend Kevin had also told me, one day, that I should date my narcissist. He was over at the house and I had my Facebook page open. I just happened to click onto her profile. Kevin got excited and with exclamation he declared, “Todd, you should date HER!” It was the first, and only time in 28 years, that he ever specifically said I should date anyone. What are the odds of that?
It was strange having three of my closest friends in my life all point me towards her. I felt like God may have placed her back for me. Considering, the way in which she and I collided together, a year ago (some 28 YEARS after having met in middle school,) – seemingly out of nowhere – and without prompt or cause, made me feel like it could be a very blessed by God thing between she and I. I began interpreting the signs I was seeing at the time. My ex had nothing to do with my interpretations of the signs I was seeing. That was my own experience. I did share my feelings with her about them. As those interpretations, subconsciously, ended up becoming a way my mind would try to validate the relationship throughout the abuse. It was like my mind kept whispering back to me, “But…, God put you two together.” I often reflected on thoughts like those, every time I really wanted to leave her, as the relationship began to fall apart. I’m getting too ahead of myself.
She and I got together in July of 2021. And remember, this is one year into the Covid pandemic. People were scared. People were actively dying. The TV screen was constantly screaming out the worldwide death toll numbers on every channel 24/7. People were afraid. Many still are to this very day.
My father died in November of 2021 while I was with my narcissist. I have my own feelings and opinions on his death. My uncle also died two
weeks after my dad. Death has been a very prevalent fact of life. Prior to those deaths, I had found my oldest friend Lisa passed away at age 35 inside of her apartment. I lost another very close friend named Ginger. I also lost another friend named Tracy. Hell, I even threw my 20-year class reunion in 2017 and honored multiple people from my high school class who had died. Death has surrounded me to some extent. I’ve tried, I think to some success, to understand mortality as it’s been so close to my life personally. Death has a way of putting things into perspective. But, it’s also trauma. In therapy, deaths are classified as life-changing events.
I’ve had many life changing events. I have suffered some deep trauma related to those events. Not every death was traumatic. But, the events associated with some others were.
Who was I at this time? I know I was someone who suffered many years of actively grieving. Related to the loss of so many close friends and family, I know that I had fallen asleep within my own life; I was absent from living. Yet, I was still awake every day. I know that it took about 8 years of losing people, almost every single year, before I realized that it wasn’t so much about staying in a cycle of grief. What was more important, was to be thankful for the times I did have my loved ones’ in my life.
It’s a sense of gratitude. It’s having a grateful heart each morning knowing that every day above ground is a good day. It’s that sense of gratefulness that now helps me get through each and every one of my days. It’s knowing that some people, unfortunately, do not wake up after they lay their heads down on their pillows at night. Some even walk out their front doors to experience their life, and live it, and never make it back to the safety of their home. It’s recognizing this, as a reality, and choosing to live knowing the gravity of fully understanding these concepts.
I’m sure now, that my narcissist could smell my pain, though. I’m sure that in some way, narcissists in general prey upon people they perceive as “weak.” Even though, grief or actively grieving, doesn’t always mean someone is weak. I think this may have been her first mistake… was in thinking that I was weak.
Back to the signs…
The signs were undeniable to me at the time. The day I finally got up the courage to drive the 20 minutes north to go see her for the first time, after we had been talking for 2 months on the phone only, I felt I saw a large number of signs.
That first day I went to visit, and had summoned the courage to go see her, a surprise storm had come out of nowhere while I was showering. By the time I had gotten out of the shower, the storm had withered. I walked out of my house covered in these huge drops of rain as I got inside the truck. I remember, I even took a selfie of it, and sent it to her, to capture the moment. A few minutes later, as I got on the highway to head north, the rain completely stopped. It was like a cleansing, sudden, summer rain had just occurred making things new; like we all had just been watered in some spiritual way.
Then, a minute or two onto the highway, I saw the most beautiful rainbow. I quickly snapped a picture of that also and sent it to her while I was driving. I hadn’t seen a rainbow in many years. It was like God was reminding me of His promise. And, I felt like the hand of God was guiding me, at least in some way, to her; to the blessing that possibly was laid out ahead of my steps. And, the path I was finally taking after all these years, by meeting her.
Did the idea of love sound good to me at the time? I know I wasn’t looking for love. I know that companionship sounded nice, but I didn’t want the pressure that went along with a relationship. Yet, there I was giddily driving up to see her without knowing what, if anything, was going to transpire from us laying eyes on one another again. After some, 24 years, since our graduation night (the last time I had physically laid eyes on her).
As I drove north to see her, I was so nervous about finally facing her again. For years, I had thought about her, at times, and wondered what she would be like to really get to know. I was excited. My heart raced for her. I could physically feel my heart beating faster for her. Even, during the moments prior, when we were just talking on the phone. She had a way about her – very deliberate – in charming my heart.
That first night I drove up to visit was so innocent yet still complex. I knew she was having problems with her ex. He was actually “missing” for the past 3 weeks. He had taken off on some sort of drug bender (per her).
She was left with 3, of her 4 children, in a large home that she would soon be moving out of. She couldn’t afford it on her own. Her oldest daughter’s father had custody of her. That daughter, now grown and of
age, never had any contact with my ex. I believe the two of them have been no contact since that child was around 4 years of age.
She was welcoming that first night. She was excited to see me, too. We were both excited. We hadn’t seen each other in so long! We ended up talking in the kitchen and playing cards. She had asked me on the drive up to her house, by text, if I liked playing the card game Rummy. Of course, I loved playing Rummy! It was my family’s card game. I had grown up playing it. Some of my best memories in childhood were playing Rummy at my aunt and uncle’s home at a very large kitchen table with the entire family.
So, we talked. We caught up. We played cards. She seemed like she was lit up. She seemed genuinely glad I had come to visit her. We moved from the kitchen into the garage, where she showed me the business she had been running from her home: reselling appliances on social media marketplaces. Her entire garage was full of washing machines and dryers. I was proud of her. She claimed to be doing well financially. I remember, there was a lot of smiling going on between us both. By the end of the night, my face actually hurt a little from all the smiling.
You have to remember, this was my old friend from high school – the female I had always deeply wanted to get to know, had friends tell me that I should get to know, but never did. She was the one person that I always kind of thought, had gotten away to some extent. Seeing her that first night was like my opportunity to finally figure it all out. What had it all meant? Three friends all pointing me in her direction? My own feelings of having wanted to get to know her. What did they mean? All of it… this was it! This was me finally getting to know what, if anything, EVERYTHING had meant for so many years.
I saw danger in her eyes as a young adult. I ended up telling her this, that night. I told her how, as a young adult in early high school, when I first looked at her as a young woman and she looked at me, that I felt a deep sense of danger in her eyes. I knew she could see “me.” It was like her eyes could see directly into my soul. It’s never happened before or since. By facing her that first night, I felt like I was finally facing my fear of her. I remember back in high school, when we really first made deep eye contact, that my mind mentally shouted, “Not now! I’m not ready! Later… maybe!” In that way, I brushed her off. It was, as if, I knew directly in that moment that one day she and I would collide together in some way. But,
I wasn’t ready for that to happen back then. That’s what I mean by, it truly did feel like I had known her in another life. It felt like we were two very old souls, who had spent lifetimes knowing one another. But, at that time in high school, I just wasn’t ready for whatever was to come.
So, there we were playing Rummy and then checking out her appliances. When we got to the garage, she hopped up gleefully onto a dryer and she said, “Come here.” I did as she asked. She wrapped her legs around me as I was standing up. She hugged me from behind with me standing between her fully spread legs. Then, she pulled her phone out and took the first picture of us together. She used an app on her phone to take the picture. Apparently, and also inadvertently, the word “Love” was written in gold underneath the photo. Neither one of us seen it until she sent me the photo later. That word, “Love,” was part of a filter she used as she took that first picture of us. “Could that have also been a sign of some sort of predestination?” I wondered later.
That first night was really special. All of my fears subsided by her gentleness and her joy. I began wondering, even before I left her house that night, “What in the world made me wait so long to get to know her? What had I been so afraid of?”
After about 4 to 5 hours of us both just genuinely talking and playing cards, it was getting late and time for me to go. She walked me outside to my truck, away from her kids inside the house. As I opened my truck door to leave, she said, “Hey!” I turned, realizing she was right there next to me, and she leaned in and gave me a peck on my cheek.
“Aww,” I said, “Thanks!” She then spoke softly, “Text me when you get home because I want to make sure you make it home safe.” I said, “Okay.” and I left.
Boy, oh boy, was I happy on that drive home! I remember still smiling as I headed back towards the highway in the dark; the city lights lighting up my way. “My God,” I thought to myself, “She’s so beautiful! AND – she’s funny!”
I believe it hit me, on that drive home,
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