Shattered and Becoming: A Reflection on Narcissistic Abuse and Self-Forgiveness

Here I sit yet again, humbled to the absolute core of my being. Shattered. Broken. And yet—still grateful that God, once again, has brought me to the sacred place of being on my knees. Calling out for guidance. For support. For love.

My ego has fought me for months, saying things like:  

“No, I’m fine.”  

“It didn’t hurt that badly.”  

“I’m better off anyway.”  

“I did the right thing for my daughter and myself. I broke the cycle. I should be proud.”

And all of those things are true. But beneath them still sits a little girl, wondering—once again—why she wasn’t worthy of love. Why she gave her all and was tricked again by the smoke and mirrors of intensity disguised as intimacy. Passion disguised as presence.

My adult self feels tremendous guilt.  

“I should have known better. You’ve been here before. How did you wind up here again? Why didn’t you listen to your body? Why couldn’t you protect your inner child this time?”

The truth is—I tried. And that’s where I try to hold compassion for myself.

I am still learning. I am still becoming.  

I wanted to believe—maybe to prove to myself—that I could face my father again, just in a different form. That now, with everything I’ve learned, I could win. That this time I could recognize the playbook and rewrite the ending. Save both of us. Finally have the love story I’ve longed for since childhood.

But you cannot win a battle against someone who is at war with themselves.  

You cannot save someone whose very identity depends on controlling the narrative.  

You cannot reach someone who sees love as weakness and dominance as victory.  

You cannot help someone who chooses, time and time again, to stay loyal to their lower self—even after God has offered them chance after chance to grow.

You are powerless.  

I know how that word feels in the body—how it seizes your breath, how it pulses in your bones.  

Because if you are powerless… then you cannot rewrite your father’s story.  

You cannot redeem the parts of yourself still aching for his love.  

You cannot become the one who finally “woke him up.”  

You cannot save her father. And you cannot save yours.

All that’s left is to accept.

Accept the agonizing pain. The rejection. The shattered heart.  

Accept the truth: He was never going to change. Not for you. Not for your child. Not for anyone.  

Accept the father your daughter has.  

Accept the role you now carry—to protect her from the patterns that shaped your early life.  

Accept that you may have to watch him pour the same grand illusions onto someone new—love-bombing her with the very things you once prayed for. And yes, that will sting, again and again..  

Just accept it. Stop fighting it.

At the bottom of that hole of acceptance—through the anxiety, rumination, exhaustion, racing thoughts, and hopelessness—is a reality more beautiful than the fantasy you crafted with him.  

At the bottom of that pain is a world where your inner child heals completely.  

Where she lives in harmony with your daughter.  

Where all your “work” to break cycles becomes not just intention—but living truth.  

Where your daughter doesn’t have to walk the same path over and over.  

Where the “broken home” turns out to be the greatest wholeness you could offer her.  

Where she won’t grow up confused about why her father loves her in grand gestures one day and wounds her the next.  

Where she doesn’t have to grow up believing that control dressed as love is something to earn or chase.

Where she will never have to learn that abuse and love need to coexist.  

She will never have to learn that—at the bottom of this acceptance.

So hold your shattered heart in one hand, and her in the other.  

Walk through the fire again.  

I know you worry that she’ll feel all your pain—but no. She will feel you clear it.  

You will show her what it looks like to fearlessly face yourself and live in the clearing that follows.  

You will teach her how to walk through fire and become transformed by it.

Imagine if your mother had done that for you.  

Imagine if she hadn’t pushed it all down until it came out sideways—as self-destruction, depression, silence, suicide.  

You had to teach this to yourself.  

That’s why it felt so hard.  

That’s why it has taken so many attempts.

He is your mirror—but not of who you are.  

That part was wrong, the last time around.  

He is not a reflection of your worth. He is a reflection of your wounds.

He was another divine delivery of every heartache you’ve ever carried.  

And this time—you left.

Not without scars.  

But with your greatest gift in your belly: your daughter.  

And the wisdom you needed to finally rise.

So yes, there is some wreckage in the aftermath.  

It’s okay.

We learn the most when we’re brought to our knees.  

We transform the most when everything familiar falls away.  

Real lessons don’t come when we are untouched—they come when we are humbled.

So Lord, shatter me so completely that there is nothing false left.  

Allow me to be so lost, I finally find myself.