The Demon Staring Back at Me

By

Jesse Busdegan

A True Account of Events

.00001Copyright © Jesse Busdegan 2021.

Published in 2021 by Hillary Marek

All rights reserved. There not be reproduced or used in any manner

whatsoever without the author's express written permission except

for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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Disclaimer
The conversations in the book all come from the author’s recollections,

though they are not written to represent word-for-word transcripts.

Instead, the author has retold them in a way that evokes the feeling and

meaning of what was said, and in all instances, the essence of the dialogue is

accurate. All characters and incidents and dialogue are real, and are not

products of the author’s imagination because the author had no vision

whatsoever for those sorts of things at the time of this writing.

Although the publisher and the author have made every effort to ensure

that the information in this book was correct at press time and while this

publication is designed to provide accurate information regarding the

subject matter covered, the publisher and the author assume no

responsibility for errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or any other

inconsistencies herein and hereby at this moment disclaim any liability to any

party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions,

whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any

other cause.

This publication is meant as a source of valuable information for the reader.

However, it is not meant as a substitute for direct expert assistance. If

such a level of assistance is required, the services of a competent

professional should be sought.

Thank you
Without the influence and opportunity from Greg Ellis and the

strength and purpose I got after reading his book “The Respondent,” I

would not have had the power to write about my own experience, so

thank you. As well as to my Sister Lilly, without meeting you and having

a guardian angel watching over me while tragedy took place, I would not

have gotten this far without you, thank you, and I love you. To Cynthia

Spence thank you for being my shining light when I thought I had no

editor; you came in and saved the day and to Tina Durbin, my rock and

someone that kept me sane through this time. To Hillary Marek, my

publisher, your excellent kick-ass attitude and advice when it came to

the direction we needed to go in and what way the book was to be given

to this world and thoughts on how we could tell the story to the fullest

of truth, I thank you, the book wouldn't have come to light, you are

amazing, and I am honored for you to be apart of this book. To my

children, this is an account of the truth, and I hope one day you will

know what happened, thank you for giving me what time I had as a dad,

and know that I love you all very much.

The Beginning Of The End

Sitting at the kitchen table the night of February 1st; playing over and

over again in my mind; reliving what had happened earlier that day.

I came to the realization life was about to become a messy, painful

dark hole of emotions. I had no idea how deep the rabbit hole would go.

I woke up that morning with my 3-year-old son as always happy and full

of curiosity, my beautiful one-year-old daughter, who is getting ready

to take her first steps. They ate breakfast and played a bit before I

got them ready to go back to their mother’s, I watched them from the

kitchen as I thought how lucky I was to be Greyson and Ivy’s father

and that my love for them was more than words could describe.

Little did I know that was all about to change. I got the kids ready and

started walking across the street. Yes, I know what you’re thinking;

what do you mean across the street?

In November of the previous year, I had given up our house for

Shauna and the children and moved 400 meters across the street into

an apartment she had helped me pick out.

I had done this so we could work on our family with the thought that

eventually we would be back to where we had been the year prior. More
importantly, I felt we could share time by alternating days we cared

for our children.

We crossed the street and walked up the steps to their condo. There

she was; the woman that I was still so madly in love with! The mother

of my children was someone I would have taken a bullet to the face

for; as she loomed in the entrance of her domicile, a smirk that was all

too familiar perched upon her face.

A smirk I would eventually learn is referred to as the Narcissistic

Smirk. A common characteristic of narcissistic abusers; which at the

time was something I knew very little about. Though I knew something

was up unfortunately when it comes to toxic narcissism or more

specifically a covert narcissist anything is possible, nothing is off-

limits and you never see it coming until it’s too late.

“Good morning, my love,” I said to her as she stood there with the

smirk, my emotions flooded out of me “why didn’t you stay last night,

you only stayed for two hours and left, why don’t you want to be around

me anymore………you told me you loved me, I moved here so we could fix

things and be a family!” I pleaded with her, the words that came back

were a lie if I had ever heard one.

She responded in a sarcastic tone “I’ve told you this many times

Jesse” the smirk never wavering “I need a couple of weeks to find

myself and to love myself again if I can’t be happy with myself how can

I love my family!” She said bluntly and followed the kids inside.

Leaving me hurt and alone for what felt like the umpteenth time. I was

dismissed and lied to, a tear rolling down my cheek as I trudged back

across the street, more depressed than ever before.

It wasn’t that she wanted to find herself, it was that she had already

found someone else. Not a new love mind you rather what is commonly

known as the “new supply.” Someone to focus her energy and toxicity

on as I was slowly phased out.

I entered my apartment to start my job for the day; I knew my

efforts had been in vain and the end of what had started as everything

I had ever wanted was coming to an excruciating painful end. Painful

because even after everything I had endured, I still loved her and

invited the thought of raising our children together.

At that time, I worked for a security company in a 2nd level technical

support position wherein I would help; technologically inept, people stop

their panels from beeping by walking them through fixing them over

the phone.

As I slumped down in my chair and turned on my computer to begin

work for the day, my phone alerted me of a new text

message…………..“This Is a formal request from Shauna *****; you are

back on drugs, and your time with your children is suspended until you

can provide and pass a hair follicle drug test,” I read.

I felt as if my chest had caved in, and all the breath had left my body,

leaving me feeling a pain; I had not felt since June the previous year,

an immense physical pain that only comes from loving someone so much

that the idea of losing them, or worse the thought of them not loving

you back that ignites every single nerve ending in searing pain

emanating from a twice-broken heart.

As I brought my thoughts together, I messaged her back, “Why would

you do this, why would you destroy our family again after I pulled my

life together for us? I have done things no one else would do for

anyone, and I love you more than anything! PLEASE DON’T DO THIS!”

I waited for the reply… it never came. I knew it was the start of the

“Silent Treatment” a punishment narcissists use to emotionally and

psychologically manipulate you.

The more sinister purpose of the silent treatment is to ensure there is

no chance for closure leaving the victim shell shocked and vulnerable,

that way if the narcissist has plans on coming back after their new

supply has dried up, then the door and their access to you is still open.
I sat on the couch surprised that I was about to go through this again.

I started to think about the first day I met Shauna and how this cycle

of manipulation, trauma and what I thought had been genuine love all

began.

I had just started living in Castledowns, an area in north Edmonton, in

a 2-story townhouse that I was thankful to have found! I had been

having a string of bad luck lately, I lost my job, my car had broken

down, and my girlfriend had left me. I was as rough as rough could get

at this point, I was just looking for some reprieve from what was a

horrendous month.

Low and behold, I got a call for a potential job opportunity I was

pretty excited about. The opportunity was at a burger place I had

worked a few years prior, and I had loved it! They always bragged

about how their burgers seemed to be smiling, which I took as a

possible sign of good things to come. So I went for the interview and

nailed it!

Starting the following week, I would begin to work at the restaurant

as a waiter. I remember getting out of the discussion and jumping up

in the air thinking to myself, “Yes, Jesse, things are looking up,” doing

the little fist pump in celebration.

Monday came around, and I showed up ready for work at noon for

Orientation. I was greeted by a woman who was about 5’5, with a bright

and bubbly smile. The nose was a bit too big for her face in a cute way

that accented the rest of her facial features in an enchanting sort of

way. Her brunette hair was very curly and cascaded down to about the

small of her back, she had a fantastic body.

“Hi Jesse, I’m one of your managers; my name is Shauna; nice to meet

you!” she said introducing herself with a smile. That was the first time

I laid eyes on the woman I would fall in love with; only to have my life

ruined and my soul ripped to shreds.

As the week went on, I learned the ins and outs of the company,

interacting with guests, and familiarizing myself with the daily

procedures the job entailed. The greatest thing about it this time was

that I wasn’t in a position of authority. For years I was in managerial

positions, and being in those positions came with a lot of pressure and

stress that often go hand in hand with those roles in the workplace.

It was very freeing to know I could just work and not have to be

worried about all the politics involved with being a manager. At the end

of the week, I graduated from the job training portion and was

officially considered part of the team. I started that day with my

section of tables as a confident and fun person with a lighthearted and

great sense of humor, conversation as a waiter came second nature,

and I loved interacting with the guests.

As the day finished and I was cashing out, Shauna came up to me at

the table I was sitting at and said, “Hey Jesse, I am having some

people over tonight at my house and was wondering if you would like to

come. It will be mostly staff, and I think it would be great for you to

get to know everyone better.” I had not been out in a social setting in

a very long time, let alone a party, and I got very excited because I

had been so focused on getting back on track and developing a

foundation in my life that I completely stopped caring about my own

needs when it came to social interaction.

“That would be great! I would love to come. What time do you think I

should come by?” I responded, trying not to let my excitement show.

“Anytime after eight.” she said.

“I will see you there,” I answered, unable to hide a big smile and my

excitement this time. I rushed home to get ready even though it was

only 5 pm when I got there, but I wanted to make sure I looked

amazing, seeing as I hadn’t had any fun in ages.

Now, if you asked anyone what my best feature would be, for some

reason everyone always has said that I have fantastic hair. If you have

ever seen La La Land when Ryan Gosling is sitting at the piano; all the

lights go out as a spotlight hits him while he is playing. His hair kind of

drapes in front of his face, and when he’s finished, he looks up and

pulls his hair back from his face, and slides it back to the top.

My hair was styled like that because I wanted to look good that night;

who knows who I would meet, right? I arrived downtown around 8 pm. I

was nervous and excited at the same time. I walked up to Shauna’s

apartment building, hit the buzzer for the second-floor apartment, and

went up the stairs. I knocked on the door.

She answered the door in a little black blouse with one of those

knitted shawl-type shirts over top and jeans. She was wearing dark

eyeliner, her hair was in a bun, it was so curly though it was messy and

breathtaking. I remember staring at her for a moment and thinking,

“wow!” She allowed me in, I looked around the apartment, taking in the

charming big couches facing the big-screen TV.

She had little knick knacks everywhere, glass-front cupboards in the

kitchen and this little table in the corner of the one-bedroom

apartment.

I said, “where is everyone? Am I early?”

She replied, “No one else is coming, I just didn’t know how to get you

alone.” At the same time, as it hit me, so did this feeling of amazement.

No one in history so beautiful had ever wanted me. It seemed too good

to be true, but with all the bad that had happened over the past couple

of years, maybe it was the universe finally giving me a break or at least

telling me that it was my turn for happiness. Opening a bottle of red

wine she poured two glasses; we sat on the couch talking, with every

syllable that came out of her mouth, I fell deeper into this

mesmerizing and addictive drug that was Shauna.

I told her about some of my life, and she told me a bit about hers. We

had a lot of similar interests, one being that we like board games (I

loved board games) It seemed the more the time passed, the more

perfect this woman became, and then the unthinkable happened, she

leaned in and kissed me. It was as if the world melted away, and all

that was there was Shauna and me.

I had been in a few relationships and knew a bit about intimacy, but

that kiss was like nothing I had ever experienced before. I was lost in

her lips, and I never wanted to leave. It was too late at that point to

make it back home. She asked if I could stay the night, and I

graciously accepted.
She took me by the hand and led me to the bedroom. As we undressed,

she took off her shirt and I saw she had this fantastic back tattoo

that ran up most of her back and right side of her body. It was of a

coy fish and water; as she went to put on another baggier shirt, I came

up behind her, started kissing the back of her neck and shoulder. She

turned around to look at me and kissed me with a passion that I had

never known before. I grabbed her and laid her on the bed. We made

love that night for the first time, and it was the best I had ever had.

When we were satisfied I wrapped my arms around her then she’d

wrapped her feet and legs in mine. I was madly in love with Shauna at

that moment, and to this day, that feeling has never faltered, not even

for one second!

I knew right then as I fell asleep that I wanted to marry this woman

but how could I know that already. I must have been crazy, I just met

this woman. What was it that had me so sure that she was the “one?”

I never was good at listening to my gut and always ignored the red

flags, there would be plenty of red flags ahead.

However, at that moment, I decided I was going to take this risk no

matter what; again I don’t know why I thought so, but my heart sure

thought it knew that she was the one.

 A Blind Eye

I woke up the next morning looking around. Everything seemed

brighter, more lively; we got up together while having coffee, we

flirted and talked about life and our histories; I told her about my son

Ryland.
Who at the time was only 2; he is from a previous partner that I never

felt I loved, nor did I feel she loved me; I am not perfect nor was I a

great person back then. Still, I love Ryland very much, he would come

to my house Saturday morning and I would take him to daycare on

Monday morning, and this happened every weekend, according to the

court order that was supposed to happen till the end of time.

Either way, the more I dove into my background, the more she seemed

to soak it up, not like someone overly interested. Still, more like she

was taking events in and cataloging them into the filing cabinet in her

mind, she asked me “what are your plans for the day?”

Seeing as it was my birthday, September 14th, I didn’t have plans but

said cutely, “hanging out with you!” She smiled and touched my arm to

let me know that she appreciated the moment.

I sat on the couch while she got ready for the day; her white poodle

like dog named Frank came and jumped up on the couch and laid beside

me; I scratched his ears and looked at the cat lazing on the floor, she

came out of the bathroom looking like an angel, again for the 2nd day in

a row! I had never seen someone so beautiful in my life, today she had

black leggings on that accented her butt, man did I love her butt.

Tank top, and she had put her crazy curly hair up into a high bun, her

tank top is open, you could see the tattoo coming up from the right side
of her back to behind her shoulder. She had this almost mesmerizing

perfume; every time I caught her scent it made me melt, we left her

house and went back to my house on the north end; I showed her the

condo and said I was just going to take a shower, and then I had an

idea for the day.

I had this crazy idea, It was payday and we had nothing to do; I made

a couple of calls after my shower, she had wondered what I was doing

so secretly, leaning on the edge of the couch trying to make out what I

was saying, I got off the phone and asked “how would you like to go on a

road trip?” her eyes got very excited!

Shauna’s eyes were very piercing light hazel, they could stare into your

soul and not always in a good way, she asked “how would we do that, I

thought your car was gone?”, I had been in an accident right before we

met and had to junk it; “well, I made some calls and rented a truck for

today and tonight, I thought maybe we could just drive, go out of

Edmonton and just go see some stuff. Just spend today, together” my

voice a little shaky as I hoped she didn’t find it stupid or boring. My

confidence was at about 80% after the last relationship.

I wanted to be with Shauna, I did not want to screw it up. We picked

up the truck; it was a bright white Ford F-150. I had never driven a

truck that big before but it was fun. I got the hang of it pretty quick.

We stopped at the Safeway to get some snacks and drinks and then

back at her house for a second to grab her white sweater cause it was

getting kind of windy at that point.

It was my birthday, and I was determined to have a great day with

this woman that gave me a new reason to live.

We drove north out of Edmonton past Elk Island National Park and the

Ukrainian village. We went this way all the time with my father growing

up; my Baba Rose lived in Andrew, and I thought it would be fun to go

through Mundare and Andrew just for nostalgia sake, so we made the

turn off to Mundare about an hour later.

I always thought it was ridiculous that they had a giant sausage as a

monument in the middle of the town signifying Mundare sausage.

Honestly it just looked like a big poop, thinking to myself but laughing

out loud. In the middle of this giant sausage was a staircase that led to

a platform that you could stand on in the middle of it.

It was supposed to be an attraction, something for tourists to take a

picture with; let's get real, who would become a tourist in Mundare?;
we finally stopped and got out of the truck after such a long drive. I

stretched my arms and legs and yawned loudly, Shauna giggled.

We headed for the monument to meat; I took out my cell phone and

said to her, “you should go up the stairs, and I will take a picture of

you” I smiled. I was never the sort to get all excited about pictures; I

never turned out great in them, and no girlfriend before really ever

asked me to take any, but with this one, I wanted as many as possible. I

was so intensely proud of the relationship, I wanted to shout it from

the mountain tops. Shauna got to the top of the stairs and leaned over

the railing right under and dead center of the sausage,I took the

picture, it was a great picture, and she was stunning. Our first

date/picture, all I can say is I was very proud.

Next was a little town named Andrew, this is where my father grew

up; as we drove into town over the old train tracks that are long

abandoned, nostalgia washed over me as memories of holidays and

summer’s at my Baba’s danced in my mind, and I looked at Shauna. She

was staring at me with a kind of blank stare, I asked her “everything

ok?”, she nodded and continued to stare. It made me a little

uncomfortable, but love is love.

People do weird things when in love, right?

We parked on the street next to the playground that had another

monument. This one was a giant duck; I never understood the

significance cause the Andrew Aces was their minor hockey team, but

oh well. Next to the playground was the mini-golf place that was older

than I.

I remember being a kid and going there with my dad and our cousin

and there was this windmill that you had to spin on the last hole, as kid

reflexes aren’t sharp so you would spin this windmill. It would always

catch you on the arm or side and leave a scratch; the thing terrified

me.

We passed the mini-golf and the path came to an open space with

intertwining railroad tracks, and in the middle, there was an old

Caboose of the train that had been made into an historical type of

equipment with a plaque in front.

I can't remember what the plaque said though I remembered the

Caboose was still that old red color that all of them were painted like

at the time, we held hands and walked along the tracks, I remember

she turned to me, looked into my eyes with those piercing beautiful

eyes and said: “You are the best thing that has happened to me in a
long time, I am not going to say what I want to say yet, but I know this

is meant to be.”

Euphoria came over me like a wave from the ocean; no one had ever

spoken to me like that in my whole life; I was so touched and proud of

this relationship that it felt as if I was Superman and she was Lois

Lane, I had never felt more loved in my life, not even by my parents

and that is saying very little because my parents were too selfish to

love me, it was one of the greatest moments of my life. I kissed her in

front of that Caboose with all of my soul.

I wanted her to know I had felt the same; we started back toward the

truck again, holding hands, we got in the truck and headed back to the

city, that night she had gone into a liquor store on the way home and

got some beer and tequila for the evening, seeing as it was my birthday.

My brother was living with me at the time; I seem to have been his

savior for most of his life, he lived with me for about ten years,

unfortunately he had a learning disability and was just weird in general,

that was ok. Between being his brother or his parent there was a fine

line, playing the role of his brother and choosing to be his parent was

something I shouldn’t have had to do.

We drank into the night, telling each other stories of our past and

funny tidbits that we both thought would amuse the other, flirting and

kissing. I noticed that as she got more inebriated; her dominance

started to become stronger as we went.

Now don't get me wrong, at the time, this wasn’t a bad thing; in the

sexual realm, I would be what you call a Sub, for a second evening, our

souls intertwined as our passion and lust for one another became a

pleasure.

Shauna had this way when she was on top that just turned me on to no

end, the way she moved and the taste and smell of her was just

addictive, the one thing she would always say “sex was never an issue,”

after some of the best sex I had ever had, we had a smoke, and I held

her tight while she wrapped her feet inside mine.

When she fell asleep, I remember laying there propped up on my palm

laying next to her. I ran my fingers from her hip to her shoulder and

back over and over. Staring at her thinking I was the luckiest man on

earth, I knew inside that this was moving very fast.

Even though this felt way too good to be true, no matter what the

hardship, I knew that I needed to do everything in my power to make

this work; I went to sleep that night feeling blessed.

After that day, Shauna didn’t leave my condo for two months; the

insanity that came after this point, I would never have wished on my

worst enemy. The two months went by like a blur; now I remember

Shauna and I worked together; I was her server. She was my manager

at this point which I would understand later to be the idealization

(love-bombing) phase of the relationship.

I was getting pre-close and close shifts five nights a week because

Shauna would mostly close the restaurant, and of course, I would want

to be there till the end because she would come home with me after to

my house and stay the night.

Once in a while, she would go home briefly on her hour break on the

double, but she never truly went home. About two months in, we had

just had sex, and I asked her,” Shauna, I know you have been here

every night. I love that you are here but what about your place? We

never go there, and I remember that you had pets, a cat and a dog. Do

you think it might be a good idea to go to your place once in a while?”.

I will never forget the first time I saw her face turn to like a scornful

how dare you type look that quickly vanished as fast as it had come,

her reply was, “ Well, why don't we fix that” she sat up in bed staring

at me with those piercing eyes and her hair being as curly as it was

looked like a lion’s mane.

Still, sexy in all senses of the word “Jesse I am falling madly in love

with you, I never want to go home because I feel like my home is with

you, you are my end-game, and I never want to be without you, why

don't I get rid of the apartment and come here and be with you, start

a life and never let it go.”

My brain calculated and was trying to understand the words that had

just come out of her mouth. Most people in that situation would have

been asking themselves questions here, weighing the red flags in just

her statement alone. Still, not everyone is being idolized and love

bombed to the point of what I call “Beer-goggled,”

I replied “I love you more than you will ever know you are my sun and

stars, I promise that I will always be there for you,” as this is

happening my heart is beating so fast that it could have ripped out of

my chest like Alien in a Sigourney Weaver movie!

At that very moment time seemed to pause for an eternity and then

continued, we again went to bed in our cuddle position, all set to get up

and go to her house in the morning, and that’s exactly what we did.

We arrived at her place around noon; as we walked into her apartment,

a stench that I could not describe nor know where it was coming from

filled my senses, “ OMG, what is that smell” as I went farther into the

apartment with a feeling of anxiety for no reason. There in the middle

of the floor was her cat, emaciated and quite dead; the cat had pretty

much died of starvation, and Frank, her dog, was not doing very great

himself either; Shauna gasped and cupped her mouth, honestly as I

look back now, I'm pretty sure it was an act.

She was the one that let the poor thing starve, like many of us know

narcissists have a way of convincing us and everyone around them the

wildest of the wild when it comes to lies and delusion.

I cleaned up the mess, grabbed some of her things, and Frank and that

was one of the last times other than to move her in with me I would

see that apartment.

Now, this should have been a major red-flag. But the love bomb,

idolization and feelings that I felt at the time were very real I thought

and that flag blew by me so fast I couldn't even tell you what color it

was.
 My Imperfections

We were two of a kind; if one person could not handle something, the

other could; we were a dynamic duo; I liked to think of us as Joker and

Harley Quinn cause who isn’t a little crazy.

My son Ryland was two when I introduced him to Shauna. The first

weekend he was with us, we took him to Build-a-Bear to make his teddy

bear; he was such a happy kid, and curious to no end, you could see it in

his eyes when he looked at something, he would in a way be studying it

like he saw something we never could! Ryland was my carbon copy and

meant everything to me.

His mother was someone of lust and not love; we tried to make it work,

but sadly, in the end it ceased to exist, by no means was I an angel, far

from it!

I have to disclose this piece of information eventually, I will never be

proud of it. To be completely honest, cocaine was my friend and I used

it to mask the pain inside more often than I feel is normal.

Maybe it was to cope with a terrible childhood or the adolescence,

which was no better; either way it destroyed part of that relationship,

but I did have one thing out of it, my beautiful son Ryland.

Ryland's mother served me with court papers a year and a half prior

and we had settled on me having him from Saturday mornings till

Monday mornings when I would drop him off at daycare. I was young

and didn’t understand the court stuff, scared me a lot actually, the

lawyer I had at the time did not fight for me one bit. Which later on I

cursed him for because she got every holiday, every birthday and every

Christmas morning, that stung.

Shauna did her best to get to know Ryland and try and be close with

him, but he seemed put off by her, some sixth sense I could not see!

Shauna in a way I think was jealous of Ryland because every time I

would have him, she felt as if he would go up onto a pedestal for those

two days and he would be the only thing I see. This was the farthest

from the truth, Ryland was my first born son and Shauna was my first

ever real love, to me in my heart they were equal, but you could see the

jealousy every time.

I have always felt very deep and intense emotions my whole life, every

negative event in a way it always seemed to hit me harder than most

people in this cruel world and luck always seemed to be just out of

reach.

When I would drop Ryland off Monday mornings, as I left the daycare

that large lump in my throat would start to swell and complete and

utter sadness would come over me as if I was seeing him for the last

time, Mondays were usually my day off and when I got home I would

fall into tears and the emptiness in my heart would sink my mind into

despair, and of course that’s when the addiction would whisper in my

ear “Just make a call, stop the pain, stop the pain at all costs!”

Again I will reiterate I was not proud of this, but it was how I coped,

some people drink, some people pop prescription pills, some people just
run for the hills and never look back, mine came to me through a friend

that was as white as the driven snow.

Every time this would happen Shauna would try to comfort me and

every time we discussed my son and the things that happened leading

up to the parting from his mother, she would always grab my face with

both her hands and make me stare into the piercing eyes of hers and

she would always say to me “Jesse I promise you, I am nothing like

your ex you’re the love of my life you are my endgame.

I would never ever make you do Mondays! I would never because I

know how much it hurts you to be away from your son,” then she would

kiss me in a way that made me more comfortable but emotional pain is

a demon all in itself. I never understood how to regulate that pain, so

every time I would grab the substance that would numb me and sit

there in the evenings and cut line after line, Shauna never said a word.

For some reason this was ok at the beginning, it was as if it didn’t

phase her a bit, I always thought I would catch an argument but it

never came. Now don’t get me wrong we did argue, of course we did, we

were a couple and she was good at it. They would start small over

something stupid I had said or a friend that was a girl would text me

innocently; Shauna would become angry, all the gloves would come off,

her best weapon was her words.

She knew just when to strike, she would call me names, her favorite

was “piece of shit” and I really hated that, I always made a point and

effort to not call names back, I would always try to de-escalate the

situation by leaving the room and I had done this in many relationships

before her.

The difference with Shauna was instead of being able to leave the

situation, she would stand or sit in front of the door so I couldn’t leave,

then continue to yell and call me names, which seemed to go on

forever. Pretty much until she poked a big reaction out of me until I

was yelling and she would change moods as if I became something scary

to her and the victim side would come out with the “how dare you” or

“why do you do this to me”.

I would become very confused very quickly because it would go from

mutual fault to me being the villain very quickly and again at the time I

never really understood the gravity of this red-flag, another one I

would choose to ignore because of the “love” I had for this woman, love

truly is blind.

Weeks would go by, we would do our routine work, Ryland, Monday’s,

this continued for quite some time, until one day, we were cuddling on
the couch and Shauna seemed to be fidgety and unfocused like a song

that is stuck in your head but you can't for the life of you remember

what it was called, I asked “What’s wrong my love, everything ok?”.

She snuggled into me for a moment and then looked up at me with this

vulnerability I had never seen on her before, tears in her eyes. I sat up

with concern “what’s wrong babe, what’s going on?”, she was wearing

this purple sweater with a pocket in the front of it and her hair was

down in lion mane form, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a

little stick that was white and had a pink tip to it, “Looks like you're

going to be a daddy for a second time” she said waiting anxiously for

my reaction, my mind seized up and fear crept up my spine, like 1000

pins crawling up my back, my heart bursting with Joy and Happiness,

but what came out of my mouth wasn’t what I wanted, “How?, are you

sure?, ok wow that is crazy'', honestly I was in shock and yes could

have done better than that.

I finally snapped out of bewilderment, walked over to Shauna and held

her close and tight, “that’s amazing my love, you will make a great mom

and I love you very much and everything will be alright!”

This was farthest from the truth, I had just turned 27 and in my head

all I could think was, I wasn’t ready for child number two. At that time

we decided that it would be a great idea that we should take the condo
across the hallway from us on the corner of the building, since it was

bigger.

Shauna would be on the lease and this is something she really wanted,

so we took that month to move from the condo to the other and by

October we were all moved into the new place, I finally felt like I had

purpose in life, a family I never had before, I cherished these

moment’s at the time because these would be the end of the idolization

phase.

Halloween is my favorite time of year, the fall is cooler and everyone

jumps to get into the spirit of decorations and Props that scare the

most hardened of children, I loved to dress up like the Joker from

Batman at Halloween time, it was the only time I could and not look like

a weirdo, Ryland would get picked up early and we would go to West

Edmonton Mall and walk around the shops that would give out candy,

they called it safe Halloween, all the kids would be dressed up in

costumes of whatever was popular that year, lucky for me superheroes

were the in thing that year, Ryland was dressed up as Superman, when
he got to my house I remember him being very sad. He had this frown

like something so tragic had happened. He is only two, almost three,

what could be making him so sad. “What's wrong buddy” I asked him.

Ryland, like always, was very quiet and just said “nothing Daddy”, I

shrugged looking at Shauna, Usually kids are excited and hyper for all

the candy they were about to receive, I didn’t understand it.

We had gone for a few hours, saw awesome people, dressed in

awesome costumes, Ryland even took a picture with two of the Disney

princesses, as I walked around the mall with my head held high as if I

was as tall as the Friendly Giant, just proud of my family and the

thought of a new one starting, it was everything I could have ever

hoped for.

We got home that night and I started the Bath for my son, ”Ryland,

come jump in the bath” I yelled down the hallway, he ran into the

bathroom and gave me a big running hug. As I got him undressed for

the bath, when I pulled his shirt over his head, he winced in pain.

“What’s wrong, are you ok?”

As I lifted his arm up, there was a quarter size burn under his arm and

a bruise next to his eye. “ Who did that to you!”

Ryland remained silent, I called his mother right away, all she had to

say was that it was a rug burn, I didn’t buy it, as I read my son a book
and held him close till he fell asleep, my heartache was for the unknown

thing that was happening to my boy and that swept over my mind that

drove fear to the center of my core.

The Transition

At this time Shauna and I are still working together, as the pregnancy

was going to become evident quite quickly, Shauna decided we should

come forward with management about our relationship because she felt

like she was lying to them, even though she was manipulating shifts to

give me pre-close and close shifts as well as pretty much making me a

favorite, which gave everyone there a bit of jealousy and envy in a way.

As Shauna came forward to management about our situation, they

found it would be a conflict of interest and decided to move Shauna to

another store on the west end of the city starting the following week.

We decided that getting a car would be best and that weekend we

went to a sleazy car place who ended up giving us a car loan on a 2016

Nissan Sentra.
It was a beautiful car, with a silver color, leather interior, I loved that

vehicle. I drove her and I back and forth for a month or so as she got

acquainted with the new job, I was pre-closing a shift at the

restaurant one evening, this know it all named Marshall, decided to

text me while I was driving home that evening and to my astonishment

this colleague of mine had started texting me “How bad of a father you

must be, your children would be better off without a father like you,

I feel sad for them”. I started texting back with a rage I had never

known in my life, no one talks about my children that way.

With the final message coming from this person I now loathed was a

text threatening to hurt my children, I picked up Shauna from work

and showed her the messages, She tried to calm me down the best she

could as I raged and wanted to beat Marshall within an inch of his life,

but the new baby was coming and maybe jail wasn’t a good idea.

Shauna’s suggestion was to go to management with the messages and

have them take care of it and her being a part of management, I

listened to her because I also cared about her thoughts and feelings in

the relationship, the next day I sat down with the general manager

and let them know what had transpired and all they could tell me was

“because this happened off property, there is nothing that we can do

about it”. I was pissed, “how could they do nothing?”, as I left the
restaurant with a hurt and angry feeling in my chest, there in the

parking lot was the one and only Marshall, as I walked to my car he

shouted something at me “Bitch!”. As I walked over to him, I wanted to

just lay him out right there and then, but remembered Shauna’s voice

“DON'T!”

We stood toe to toe and yelled at each other and as he came closer,

and I knew it was about to be the wrong thing for him to do at that

moment, I pushed him as hard as I could away from me, he got a bit

frightened and scurried inside the establishment.

The next day when I got to work, the general manager came and sat

me down at one of the booths and handed me a piece of paper, and said,

“I'm sorry, Jesse, we are terminating our employment due to the

altercation in the parking lot yesterday,” I looked up at the manager

with fire in my eyes, took the paper and left without saying a word. I

started crying in the car; how could they do this, he can threaten my

family, and I get fired for pushing him away from me because he got in

my face; there is something wrong here, as I started to drive, my

crying became waterfalls. The fear of having to tell Shauna I lost my

job was not a fight I was looking forward to; the name-calling and

emotional jabs she would do, is not something I looked forward to. I
was stopped at a red light and was thinking about what I was going to

say to Shauna.

When I thought we had started moving, I hit the gas and smacked the

car in front of me, I put it in park and got out of the car, tears still

streaming down my face from being fired, the man that got out of the

car to check saw the sorrow on my face, looked at his bumper and said

“not even a scratch, its ok I can see you're having a very hard day, no

worries” and he got into his car and drove away.

Thank God because that was the last thing Ineeded today, an

insurance claim too, I pulled up to Shauna’s work and went inside. She

could see I was upset, I told her what had happened at her former

workplace but all she could hear was that I didn't have a job. She

didn’t console me or say that she was sorry, all she said was “what are

we gonna do now!”, I left and went home feeling defeated on all fronts

that day.

Three days later Shauna also got fired from her job because I had

drove to her work after to tell her I was fired and because I had been

fired I wasn’t allowed to go in any of their establishments for 3

months which they failed to mention, but the theory is that because we

disclosed our relationship and management didn’t really like it, I think

they used this as a scapegoat to get rid of us because of a personal

vendetta at that point.

The blame and rage I had received from this action was immense,

Shauna decided to silent treatment me because of this and when she

did talk to me at this point it was not kind and she made sure I knew I

was a piece of shit, this is where the devalue stage of our relationship

began and hell followed with it. one night a week after that event, I

had got up in the middle of the night because I was thirsty, walked into

the kitchen and flicked the light on and very quickly almost as if the

Flash was in my kitchen I saw something scurry under the fridge which

pretty much made me jump. as I ripped apart the kitchen Shauna came

downstairs and asked what I was doing, “I swear I just saw something

scurry under the fridge”, she laughed at me and called me a liar and

told me that the drugs were obviously getting to me. Yes, I was still an

addict at that point, it wasn’t until one night Shauna woke up and there

was a cockroach sitting on her chest, as she screamed in terror of

course I woke up and asked what was wrong, well lets just say Shauna

believed me at that moment, but funny I never ever got an apology for

being called a liar.

The place we were living in to begin with was flawed, every time

someone in the upstairs would do their laundry, the toilet in our unit

would start vomiting soap suds to the point it would be a hot box of

soap. Even Frank, the dog at that time got locked in and when we

opened the door he was covered in soap and thankful to be let out of

that room.

We went to the landlord demanding reparation, there were

cockroaches everywhere and having war with laundry soap, we had had

enough and eventually after enough complaining they moved us free of

charge to a Townhouse in the west end, Callingwood the neighborhood I

grew up in which was awesome cause at the time most of my friends

were there and it was very exciting to be around people that I knew.

We moved as soon as possible and the place that we got placed in was

amazing, 2 floors, 3 bedrooms, big living room, fireplace, basement, and

a backyard, I was so proud of where we were at that point in time, and

with my second child coming into the world in 6 months it was needed.

As Christmas came we were invited to a Christmas party where I would

be meeting her family for the first time.

With Shauna being pregnant i was nervous because she wanted to tell

them at the party, I agreed because in a normal setting people would

congratulate you and be happy for the new bundle of joy, so my mind

fantasized about the family welcoming me in as one of their own,

supporting us through this time and just having something I never had,

a family.

On the day of the party we brought Ryland along with us because they

had a gift for him, as we arrived I was greeted by her mother, a short

and skinny woman with poofy black hair who seemed to eye me up and

down the minute i got there, judging me in a way right off the bat even

though we had never spoken before, the other family member that was

beside her was her aunt.

A taller and broader woman with a man’s caesar cut, I could tell that

she was a very strong woman who right off the bat did not like me and

I could tell just by her body language.

After Ryland was given his gift which was a firetruck I believe, we

nodded at each other to signal it was time to announce the great news

to the people I had just met, I was scared and and excited at the same

time, I just wanted everyone to share in our joy because I loved

Shauna with every being of my soul and I really hoped that they would

be accepting of what we were about to tell them.

As her family milled around and the kids ran around and played,

Shauna called to everyone in the room “Hey everyone we have a

Christmas surprise to tell you. We are going to have a baby!!”, instead

of congratulations and hugging and cheer, the whole room went silent

and now all eyes were on me, the silence was deafening and as this went

on for at least two or three minutes, my comfortability faded and fear

rose quite quickly until her manly aunt finally spoke up and said “ You

know I own a gun right?”

My demeanor changed from defensive to offensive when it came to

that comment because I was appalled by what she had said in front of

my son that they had just met, as I scooped up my child I turned to

Shauna “ I think it's time to go” I said, the people I wanted to feel

accepted by should have just shot me with that gun because i had

never known people to be so narrow minded and toxic to someone they

didn’t know.

When we got home I saw a side of Shauna I had never seen before,

she was furious but not at her family, but at me, i didn’t understand

how or why, as she yelled at me about blowing the night, again not

knowing how I had done that, I fought back with words the best I
could but Shauna knew exactly what to say to push those buttons that

no one could ever before and as we fought she dropped to the ground.

Shaking with her whole body. Screaming at me and calling me names,

grabbing at me like a scene out of The Walking Dead, the last thing she

said to me before I left the house to go for a drive and calm down this

nightmare of a situation, I will never forget it, she grabbed a knife and

put it to her throat and said “you make me want to kill myself”. That

was the first time I witnessed blame shifting, gaslighting and

narcissistic rage even though at the time I didn’t know what any of

those things were, I knew something was wrong but I chalked it up to

the pregnancy and hormones. As I drove, I cried because I didn’t know

what I had done wrong, yet I felt guilty for just being me at that

point, this happened more and more after this day.

On Aug 8 2017, my son was born. As I left the delivery room to

welcome my son into the world through Facebook, as I opened the app,

to my amazement, every picture I had on that account had been

slandered by her family, things like “loser, piece of shit, junkie”

outlined pictures of Ryland and my life, I had to delete pictures that

day I will never get back and that’s how my son came into the world,

slurs instead of congratulations, it hurt me so deeply I lost a bit of

myself that day.

 Minnesota and the Assault

Grayson was born, my second son and my pride and joy, Grayson from

day one was a big boy, one hundredth percentile right from day one. He

was a linebacker if you could describe him in any other way, and almost

never cried. Grayson would just lay there with such curiosity and

wonder with his large blue eyes, I forgot how much I missed the baby

stage, how they smelled and would just sleep on your chest or in your

arms was just wonderful, I had always loved cuddles.

Shauna and I were arguing a lot at this time with more and more manic

episodes, that would find her beating on my chest or flat out hitting

me across the face, we both didn’t have job’s and we were on

unemployment insurance, we were at our wits end with not knowing

where the income was going to come from. We both had been putting

out resumes for job’s everywhere, praying for something to just give

and our prayers or so I thought we answered.

Shauna had gotten an email from this company that was opening a

restaurant here in the city, they were a major company in the states

that wanted to see how they would fair up here in Canada.

As we discussed the pro’s and con’s of such an opportunity, the one

factor she had waited till last minute to mention was the stipulation

that worried me, with the offer of the position and the salary to boot,

the one factor was that she would have to fly to Minnesota for two

months where she would have to train for the new position, now you

would have to think that for someone who had just had her first child

that this wouldn’t be an easy decision, Grayson was only six months old

maybe seven at the time, but she had convinced me that this was the

best path we could possibly have, and the biggest part that she was

adamant about as she manipulated the situation to fit her own agenda

“Jesse, my love, I need to do this for me, I want this because it is

never about me” if that wasn’t the biggest gaslight of the year,

because to be honest it was always about her.

Right before she left I had planned a romantic night for the two of us,

got my mom to babysit and I had a friend of mine acting in a play at

Jubilations dinner theater and that night I thought would be the

perfect night to show Shauna how much she really meant to me, we got
all dressed up and headed out into the cab, thankfully we hadn’t argued

that day at all, “what a perfect night” I thought to myself.

When we arrived the ladies at the front counter took our coats and we

walked into the huge auditorium, the tables sat spaced out which gave

the illusion of a private dining experience, we were shown to our table,

which i had made sure was in the front row, I ordered us a bottle of

Merlot, we both loved a good dry red, another thing i loved about this

woman.

Dan, a friend of mine, who was one of the actors in the play, came by

to say hi before it started, as he left he gave me the wink because

earlier that day i gave him a call and planned something very special

tonight. The play started and our dinner was served to us, they were

serving a chicken dish and a prime rib, finally the intermission came on

and Dan came out of the back of the stage with a microphone in his

hands, interacting with the audience so they felt acknowledged, I

pretended to go to the bathroom but instead slipped behind stage

quickly before she noticed. As Dan brought Shauna up on stage, to

Shauna’s surprise I came out of the back with flowers in one hand and

a box in the other, as I stood in front of her and took in everything

about her, she was in black heels that night with a very nice and

accentuating black skirt, her shirt was one of the criss cross in the

back type, that was floral in the front and cut off with no sleeves, she

had straightened her hair and left it down that evening but left that

curl in her hair just enough, that it made her shine that evening, to me

she was the most beautiful woman on the planet and she was all I ever

saw.

As i stood in front of her, Dan gave my the microphone and in front of

everyone in the auditorium I professed my undying love for this woman,

got down on one knee and asked her to be my wife, she smiled that big

for the audience smile she had, and graciously said “yes!!!”

I went home that night again feeling like a kid on Christmas, all i ever

wanted was a family of my own and this was the start of my dream

coming to fruition, two days later Shauna left for Minnesota and left

me alone with a six month old baby, she had promised that her mother

and friends would come to help me so I wasn’t too frightened, seeing as

I never had done a child fulltime before because Ryland only came on

the weekends.
Before I left I had done some research and men apparently will wake

up in the nighttime to car alarm, glass breaking but the one sound that

won't compute to a man is a baby crying.

To that effect for the first 10 days before i got us into a routine, i

stayed awake for 10 days straight, no one from her friends or family

were there to help, not one call at all, I called my mom crying even

though i didn’t talk to her “ Mom please come over, I haven’t slept in 10

days and i am hallucinating in my townhouse, I need you to come watch

the baby please” I begged, she came right over,

Shauna never even asked me if I was alright and I thought that very

odd as to how she was my fiancé. after that i would wake up every

morning and Shauna would call via Skype and video with Grayson and I

before she would start her shift for the day, it was at night that

things would get weird, some days she would not call me and i would get

so worried because she was in a place so far away, and then one night

she had gone to the bar with some of her colleagues and where that

would be an ok thing, but i found things deleted from her Facebook and

email which rang alarm bells right away.

Going out with guys on a trip that was for business, hmmm i don't know

about you but didn’t sit right with me, when asked about it, she said

she had left her phone at the hotel but what i thought was she had

cheated on me that night but i could never prove it. The night I

proposed, I had given her my grandmother’s wedding ring, who had a

man propose to her, who was a very rich man and was from Scotland

and actually owned a real life castle, the right was valued at about

100,000$, beautiful ring and big stone.

When she finally came home from the trip, to my horror the day

before she went and pawned the ring to pay for the trip and had lied to

me about where she got the money to cover it from, I raced to the

pawnshop to find out the status of my ring, they had told me that

after 2 months if you don't call or inquire they put it out for sale and

they did just that and it sold very fast, My Grandmother’s wedding ring

was gone and Shauna had lied to me again, once again my soul had

become enveloped with sadness and hurt but once again I pushed it

down and away for the love i had for this woman, I would replace it

with a ring from wish and hope my family didn’t notice.

Shauna started doing 13 hr shifts and this was five days a week, there

was one time she left at six in the morning and didn’t come home till

two in the morning the next day, no call or text, at this point I started

to get paranoid because something was not right.

One morning I went to the store to grab a pop and on my way back i

heard a loud crack come from my back and I hit the floor and couldn’t

move, my lower back was on fire and I was scared because I didn’t

know what was happening, I crawled home on my hands and knees two

blocks and Shauna ran out to get me, after a week or so in bed, she had

taken me to a chiropractor where the doctor had told me that two of

my ribs were displaced and I would most likely have pain for the rest

of my life, he prescribed OxyContin and if anyone knows what it's like

to use these, i became a zombie and couldn’t function.

The reason for my back was that a couple years before I had been

driving in my 97 Chevy Tahoe and I was coming back into the city from

Alberta Beach when a lady came into my lane and with my truck if I

would have hit her dead on, i definitely would have killed her so I cut

hard on the wheel and went down into the ditch and when a driveway

comes out to the highway, it creates a ramp on both sides, I hit that

ramp going 100km/h and all I remember is zero gravity and then the

ground coming at me very fast and then I was out.

I woke up to the RCMP pulling me out of the truck, everyone was ok,

and I only had a few scrapes and seemed fine; 2 years later my back

would pop out and that was not a good thing.

One day Shauna had gone to a friends house for the day and leave me

to rest, the Oxy was kicking my ass and I couldn’t function and she

knew this, when she got home she had sat down next to me on the bed

and pulled out something from her purse “Jesse I want you to stop

using those pills cause you cant be the man I need you to be, this will

help you take away your pain and you will be able to function again”, she

had a baggie in her hand and it was a crystal like substance and she

handed to me and told me it was ok. I had never done Meth before, i

didn’t really like it but she was right i could function and my pain would

leave for a short while, I wasn’t proud of this and I never did it in the

house and never during the day, only at night when the kids went to

sleep and never when Ryland was over but for a while this is how I

coped with the pain and i was in love and just wanted Shauna to love me

back and if she wanted me to do this then i would.

When eventually I wanted to quit. she would call her friend and buy it

for me and shove it in my face to keep me under the influence. what i

understand now is it was a way to segregate and control me, to push me

away from my friends and family so that eventually I would have no

one.

One night we had been arguing over nothing just Shauna having one of

her fits, it started in the bedroom upstairs and like i had said before i

would try to leave the situation to de-escalate the fight and i was going

down the stairs and Shauna jumped at my back either trying to make

me fall down the stairs or break my neck, when i finally had gotten her

off my back, she started to hit me in the face like usual, this time she

had dragged her nails across my face and left 4 cuts that were pretty

deep from my forehead. Shauna had never hurt me that bad before

and her face and eyes that day were like nothing i had ever seen

before, eye’s completely black and face twisted in a rage that i can't

articulate, that was the first time in my life i had ever hit a woman,

I slapped her back one time out of reaction, this is what they call

reactive abuse, where someone is pushed so far that they react in the

worst ways. the moment i did that i felt terrible and regretted it

instantly but Shauna all of a sudden changed again into this victimhood

mentality as if i had done something so terrible that i had become the

demon this time, she ran up the stairs and locked herself in the

bathroom and called the police, i couldn’t believe this she had hurt me,

hit and scratched me and i defended myself and now i was the bad guy,

i sat on the steps on the front door and waited for the Police to arrive

with a heaviness in my heart.

When the police arrived, I told them my side and she did the same,

what they said was “alright young man, i think what needs to be done is

you go and sleep at a hotel for the night or somewhere else and do not

come back until the morning, you can come back home after 8 am”. I

agreed with the officer and they drove me to the Klondiker on 150thst

and stony plain road. I stayed the night and didn’t go home till around

10am.

As i walked into the townhouse, i was angry and upset about what had

just transpired, i had taken off my shirt from the night before and was

changing cause our laundry had been left out on the couch from the

night before, i had been home maybe 3 minutes when my front door

had been kicked in and in rushed 2 police officers, they slammed me to

the floor hard and cuffed me. “What did I do, you told me I could come

home in the morning, stop, I haven't done anything wrong!! I screamed

at them, they picked me up and took me out to the police car, smashing

my face on the door before pushing me inside, sitting in the back of

the cop car, i was shirtless and confused looking at the condo and

wondering if maybe i was still sleeping in the motel and this was just a

nightmare, as the officers came out of the townhouse followed by

Shauna.

They stood on the steps talking to her. She was holding our son and

looking at me in the back seat while talking to the police. I pleaded

from the back seat ”Shauna, don't do this, I love you, I have done

nothing wrong”. when i had gotten home, Shauna had called the Police

and told them i had come home to assault them again and they had to

come quick in fear of her child, they arrested me for an assault i never

committed, as the police drove away from the townhouse they unrolled

every window and it was November and cold and i froze, it was

thanksgiving long weekend, I was in holding cells for 4 days because of

the long weekend, and to this day i will never eat a pizza sub again

cause that would be my Thanksgiving dinner that holiday.

 The thought of loneliness

As I sat there in the cells and contemplated what had just happened,

I couldn’t understand how someone that said that they had loved me,
could have lied about one of the most terrible things that anyone could

lie about.

I ate my pizza sub and wondered what her and my child were doing, I

cried almost every night I was in there because I missed them so much

and obviously had been incarcerated, when my name was finally called

and I was brought up in front of the judge was on a TV screen, I was

disheveled. I was dismantled and I had only felt remorse for what I

had done. It's kind of funny in the face of such a tragedy that I felt

bad about what I had done and all I was doing was defending myself. It

was funny that she didn’t care what she had done at all. As the judge

ran over my charges assault and battery I remember just feeling sad

and wanting this nightmare to be over but I knew it was far from over

as they let me out on bail, my new lawyer who had asked for $1,200

just for the bail, i was already broke, the conditions were as follows is

that I was not allowed to go home, I was not allowed to talk to Shawna,

I was not allowed to see my son and if I had come anywhere near the

place that I call home, that I would be arrested if i did.

My mother picked me up that day and I asked her if I could stay with

her and she said “no, I'm sorry it’s not possible”, so I called around to

the people that I thought in my life were my friends and nobody would

answer. I felt alone at that moment that everything that I’d ever done
for everyone I ever knew in my life simply just abandoned me that day,

and then out of a miracle someone answered, someone I will hold very

dear to me, to this day. My friend Kelsey, even though it was only for

one night that was one night more I didn’t have to spend on the street,

she had set me up in one of her rooms, and I slept for the first time in

days, in the morning I had to start figuring out what i was really going

to do because I had nowhere to go.

While this was happening Shauna had gone to a women's shelter and

told them I was a monster, that I beat her all the time, that I was a

jealous and crazy individual. While she was in this shelter, she would

go to these group classes and play up her victimhood. I remember

going to my father’s work and I never ever talked to my father. My

father was not a very nice man and screwed me over more than one

time.

I walked into his work and I asked him “Dad I’ve never asked you for

anything in my life, not one thing, I need a week on your couch to

figure out my life”. His only reply was sorry “Jess i can’t do that” , so

utterly defeated I went to a hotel and paid for a month out of my

savings that I had been saving for for the wedding that had been

coming up in no less than a month, we had bought the hall, we had

bought the dress, we had the fake rings ready to go.

Then the nightmare happened, as I walked up to the hotel room at the

Best Western. I walked inside the room and something told me that I

needed to look in the drawer next to the bed, everybody knows that

there is always a Bible in the drawer, so I took out the Bible and I

opened the book and I still remember to this day the first thing I read

out of that book.

Jesus had walked up to a bunch of his apostles that we’re about to

Stone to death a woman, he said to them “thou that has never sinned

shall cast the first stone”, and the apostles looked at Jesus and they

started to walk away, as Jesus approached the woman, she looked up at

Jesus and said “why didn’t they kill me?” Jesus replied back “no one is

without sin now go and never sin again”. After I read this passage the

hairs in my arms stood up straight and I knew this was a sign of

someone saying that I had screwed up and to never screw up again.

That day I was saved and I believed in the Holy Father more than I

ever had in my life that day. I have gone to church every Sunday since

that day.

Amonth had gone by with the texts starting to come more frequent

from Shauna at this time, after about 2 weeks of silent treatment the

women's shelter had given her an apartment and money to start over.
I remember she met me downtown one day at the library so that I

could see Grayson and I played with him until I had no more time left,

I looked at her and I said “I love you” but she replied with silence,

eventually she started to tell me that she loved me again and that if I

got help I could have my family back, she had told me that I was a

narcissist and that I had problems, mental problems.

I remember one day I was in chapters and I bought a help book on

narcissism. I was on the bus and reading it and as I came to the second

chapter, there’s a big stop sign right in the middle of the book. what it

said to me was that if you are reading this book or have bought this

book, then you are not a narcissist, a narcissist would never pick up a

self-help book ever in their life and at that moment it dawned on me,

there was something not right here, that like I thought about the

delusion of everything that had just happened in these past few

months, that not everything was as it seemed.

Shauna moved into her new apartment and had moved everything from

the condo to her new place or so I thought she told me, I could come

and live with her again, even though we had the no contact order, with

a no contact order if anybody found out that I was living there, not

only would I be in trouble but she would be as well. which didn’t really

seem to phase her at the time, she said that she was going to write a
letter saying that she wasn’t going to press charges but they never

happened.

I would always ask her “so did you email the lawyer today?” she would

assure me she had but nothing would ever go to my lawyer, I remember

sitting in the apartment and cuz it was her apartment she became very

controlling about the situation. She would tell me where to sit, what to

do, what to say and if I didn’t comply the fits and crisis mode would

ensue. Then my phone rang one day and it was my lawyer and he said

“Jesse, happy day, the crown prosecutor has just informed me that

she’s dropping all charges due to false allegations and we will be

charging Shawna with arresting you under false pretense”.

I told my lawyer to tell them “that was not needed and that I loved her

very much and did not wish to see her in trouble”, I just wanted this

nightmare to be behind us so we could continue our life, even though

she was still being the same controlling person, the person that I don’t

recognize. I still loved this woman with all my heart and also she was

the mother of my child, because of all this she lost her job at her work

and again we were back to square one.

It got worse and worse in her apartment, I started to notice that she

had been on her phone a lot, it was pretty much attached to her hand.

One night I went into her phone and even though the messages were
deleted I could see the log of the files that were deleted. She had

been talking to her ex Donnie for about 6 months at that point,

deleting everything along the way, again I felt defeated and like I

could do nothing right at all!

Even though I’ve been trying my hardest and doing everything I

possibly could to keep this family together, she would sabotage it any

chance she got. I didn’t understand this because we had a baby

together, she told me she loved me and that I was her endgame, she

would still tell me this everyday. I went for coffee with Dan one day,

the same one from the jubilation theater and told him about everything

that had been going on and he proposed a solution for me, he told me

that when he was married, he had bought a house with his husband and

that they are now divorced, that he let this house sit for 2 years and

there was no floors, no walls. The backyard had been overgrown by 2

years, the fence had been busted down where they built the new condo

next door, this bright vibrant modern condo. He took me to the place

and I looked at it and I saw the potential for something great, a start

for a family home, he told me that if I wanted it, I could have it at a

very cheap price and that he would put me on the mortgage and I could

live there and anything that I fixed up would go towards the mortgage.

so for the next three weeks as I was being abused emotionally and

psychologically by Shauna.
I bought flooring, drywall, fence posts and made a home for our family.

As I finished the last board on the fence, I thought to myself that

this should impress her, that she would be proud of me and that this

would fix whatever thought process of abuse there was in her head; to

maybe finish this bizarre happening.

I went back to the apartment after finishing the house that I was so

proud to have renovated and refinished, I walked over to Shauna and

grabbed both of her hands and looked deeply into those piercing eyes

and said “I have bought us a house”

I had made us a home, as of that day I had decided I was moving into

that house, I said to her “if you would like to come be a family with me,

break the lease and move with me today and let’s move forward with

our life, instead of having this atrocity hangover our heads like a

pendulum.”

With that she agreed, she did break her lease and she did move in with

me and we started the life that I thought I wanted to have. Now don’t

get me wrong Shauna could not change, she was a product of design,

everything that happened was by a script and it went something like

this. idolization phase, devalue phase, discard and Hoover.

The cycle defaulted because that day was pretty much me discarding

her saying that I was moving away and if she didn’t come she would be
left behind. My thoughts were that I actually discarded her that day

and I’m sure she would make me pay for that greatly.

We got into the new house and you know everything went back to

normal, I had bought a car again, we had a little green Taurus, I was

happy to have because we hadn’t had one since our car from before,

the Nissan Sentra was repossessed because of all the money that I

had given Shawna for the car, she never paid.

I was working at Boston pizza up in the North end, I had come outside

after my shift to find a man boxing in my car and asking me for the

keys. He told me why, that we hadn’t paid in 2 months, it dawned on me

that all the money that I was giving Shauna, was going somewhere else

and that left a $10,000 black mark on my credit which is still there to

this day.

So we had this car, life was good Grayson had had his second birthday

at this time, we had it in a park. I remember going the Sunday, early

and putting balloons in the trees and on the fences and anticipating the

day my son turned two, it was funny because that was the first time my

mom and dad had been in the same place together in probably 16 years,

it was very awkward and her mother who you know at this moment

hated me because of the lies that have been put forth, glared at me

and my mother all day, while Shawna and I tried to keep a straight
face. Grayson had a blast, he played in the park and with his new toys

and Ryland as well had been there, after the assault had happened,

Ryland’s mother started to make up excuses for not bringing him to see

me, something about he had plans or they had plans or he just didn’t

want to come, which I found odd because of the court order.

I didn’t think that he had a choice but in this crazy mixed up world,

especially where I live, women get away with murder when it comes to

law and anytime a father wants anything to do with his children, it

never works out the way they think.

That year 2019 Ryland had only been at my house three times and

Grayson’s birthday was one of them. I remember the next weekend he

came, he had been in my house for about 20 minutes and he would keep

telling me “Daddy, I don’t feel very good, I want to go home”. I kept

saying “well, I’ll get you some Tums buddy, you’ll be okay”. and he just

kept saying it over and over again, so I called his mother, his mother

came and as he got into the car, I looked at him one last time with

anger because I missed him so much and I hated when he left. I had

barely seen him for the past year because of all the things that have

been happening and I said “are you sure you want to go buddy, we have

a lot planned, we have a big weekend planned”. he said “yes daddy”,

instead of saying goodbye or I love you, I turned around mad and went

back into the house and that was the last time I would ever see my son.

The same time as this was happening, I had found out that we were

pregnant with our second child, Ivy. This one was planned. We had

discussed that maybe another baby would help the relationship in some

way or maybe it was just me being delusional.

I would go to pick up Ryland every weekend after that from his home,

his mother just wouldn’t answer the door, wouldn’t answer her text

messages and would completely ghost me from his life.

I found out soon after that that Shawna had called my other son’s

mother and told her that “Ryland was not welcome in our house until he

respected me verbally.”

I found out later; that she had done this behind my back, so for 4

months I tried to see my son to no avail. By January 2020 the baby was

due in a month and I had decided to switch my focus to the child that

was about to be born, as a good parent would.

Knowing that I would take her to court very soon after that because

apart from our court order saying I have him every weekend, there was

no enforcement clause added to this order from my stupid lawyer.

Yes I was still using at this time with the acceptance of Shauna though

I was weaning down because I did not want to be on this drug anymore

and my daughter was about to be born.

Due to the loss of Ryland in my life as well I was becoming quite

depressed, I missed my son very much and I didn’t know how to cope

with it.

Ivy was born February 8th 2020, Covid-19 had started and I was told

that we weren’t allowed to be in the delivery room with Shauna, only

one person.

She didn’t like the idea of my mother staying with Grayson while we

went because they had exchanged words when the assault had

happened.

I didn’t feel comfortable with her mother staying with Grayson

because I didn’t like her words throughout our relationship so I told

Shawna you and your mother go give birth to Ivy and I will stay with

Grayson at home so we can protect him from this new disease.

No one truly knew anything about Covid-19 this point, especially when it

came to children.
When she left and returned home on the 9th of February with our

daughter, who I held high, she was a tiny thing.

Bright eyes and the first daughter in my family in a long time. I was

proud although weirded out in a way because I had never taken care of

a girl before and I really felt weird changing her. She was my

daughter and I knew at that moment that I would have to buy my first

shotgun and no boy would ever hurt my little pumpkin, just joking about

the shotgun lol.

The Star's Aligned

After everything started to settle down with the welcome of the new

baby, things went sort of back to normal yet again but the fighting

continued, though our life seemed ok for the most part; Shauna and I

were straightforward when it came to what we did together or just

what our daily lives were like, especially with Covid-19 spreading across

the earth like a brush fire. I was under the impression we both loved

video games; well, I thought so anyway; the favorite game of choice

was Kingdom Hearts 1,2,3. If you don't know what this is; It's a love

story about a boy named Sora and Kairi the girl; they were best

friends.

One day their island became very dark, and monsters called the

Heartless showed up and tried to take Kairi away. Still, Sora fought

back with a sword-shaped key; in the end, it didn't matter, and the

heartless took Kairi away from Sora, and that's when Sora met Donald

and Goofy, yes from Disney.

For three games and many worlds, which were from all Disney movies,

Sora looked for Kairi and wouldn't stop until he found her, now I tell

you this story because I always felt that Sora and Kairi were a lot like

Shauna and I.
I would look for Shauna, the one I loved all the time, and bring that

person into light out of the darkness, and I would always strive for

this; I loved Shauna more than anyone could ever understand.

She also had a thing for Key's in jewelry and such, for Christmas that

had just passed, I bought her this beautiful necklace made of white

gold shaped into a key with tiny cubic zirconia outlining the back of the

key. And to match, I had found a replica of Kairi's keyboard from the

game to hang on the wall so that she knew I would never give up on her;

she was my Kairi, and I loved her so.

As we got into March of 2020, spring was coming. The snow was

melting, which was fantastic because we had fixed up the house's

inside the previous year but hadn't done much outside. I was excited

to go and make the back and front of the house ours; Shauna had

mentioned that she wanted a garden, and I thought that was a great

idea, so I went and got some tools, like a shovel and a hoe and whatnot

and turned up all the soil on the left side of the house.

We planted sunflowers, peas, peppers, habanero's, and pumpkins but

thought they were cucumbers. The fire pit in the backyard was terrific

as well; I loved going out there and just sitting next to the fire; I had

always wanted a fire pit and was glad to own one.

Except for one evening when the mask slipped; if anyone reading this

book doesn't know the terminology when referring to a Covert

Narcissist or any Narcissist for that matter: Although narcissists

project an image of self-confidence as well as self-absorption. The

traditional psychological understanding of their central defining trait is

that it forms the hard core surface around a fragile and vulnerable

inner, marshmallow-like, sense of self. This is the “mask” of narcissism.

The solid and resilient façade disguises the weak and insecure true self

that seeks to be approved and admired.

However, researchers now see selfishness as multi-faceted. A bit of

the right kind of narcissism can make someone a great leader. Too

much of the wrong kind, the kind that lives behind the mask and you

have leaders with the potential to disregard public scorn no matter how

far they deviate from social conventions.

One night we were sitting down by the fire pit, and she was sitting

across from me; we were roasting marshmallows and mine had started

to burn; instead of blowing it out, I had flicked it instead, and it flew

off the stick, and the burning hot marshmallow ended up landing right

on her hand and burned it quite bad.

Now, most people would know this wasn't on purpose and an accident in

all senses of the word, as it hit her hand and I stood up and went over
to her and asked if she was ok, rage had crept upon her demeanor, and

her face twisted into an evil angry disposition.

She sat there and yelled at me in a cruel and hurtful way; I was stupid

and an idiot, and why and how could she ever be with someone like me?

I hated when she would become this person; I was not too fond of it

because I didn't understand it; I would become very depressed usually

after these episodes.

I always felt never good enough, like I was a ghost that didn't deserve

what I thought was the best thing in my life. It always destroyed me

inside.

As the spring came on we spent most of our time outside; Ivy being our

cute little bundle of joy, Grayson is 2 at this point. I have to say the

terrible twos are real, but my boy was still my bud, and I loved my

family and was so proud to be where I was in life.

Covid-19 had gotten bad, and people were told to stay indoors, which

was very hard, especially when things could be volatile. I had slowly

become depressed again, I hadn't seen my son Ryland for six months at

this time, and this did get to me on a very extreme level, where yes,

sometimes I would stay in bed for the whole day. It was covid, and

there wasn't anywhere to go, I did my best not to be sad all the time.
I had bought a playset, one of the wooden ones that you put together

yourself, it had a slide and swing and rings, it was great. It took me two

days to build, but once I had finished the playset. Grayson saw it for

the first time, I had never seen him that happy and excited. He played

with that swing set every day up until the end.

As mothers day came upon us, I wanted to do something special this

year; her birthday was July 25th. I had that covered already, I had

won tickets to Banff Springs Hotel for three nights, and I was getting

my mom to babysit and stay with the kids for the weekend, so I was

already going to take her on a romantic weekend.

However, I still wanted to do something special for Mother's day. I

had been searching around for some time and came upon this elegant

idea; my son was born at 3:00 am on Aug 08, 2017; a company I found

on the internet could print the exact constellation overhead of the

night's sky when Grayson was born, we put it on a black canvas, and

underneath the star map, I put the words “The night you became a

mother, the stars were aligned, and Grayson Richard Busdegan came

into this world, I love you, happy mothers day.”

I was so proud of the idea; how unique and thoughtful. Mother's day

morning came, and I got up early with the kid's so she could sleep in,

made breakfast, her favorite, my cheezy specialty eggs. I made sure

coffee was fresh; when she finally woke up, I was so excited to give

her the gift; she sat at the kitchen table and unwrapped the picture,

and instead of wow or awe baby, she looked at it, said “thank you” with

an unenthusiastic tone and put it aside to eat breakfast.

My heart imploded a little; I thought that this was one of the most

romantic things I had ever done; I put so much effort into this idea,

she acted like it didn't even matter. I found a way to commemorate

the day she became a mother on Mother's day, and she shrugged it off

like there was no big deal; I never understood how she could have been

like that.

My heart ripped and festered underneath my chest, but I couldn't be

upset or mad, or anything cause it was her day; I didn't want to take

away from that.

We went about our day, and I tried to help more than I would normally

so she had a somewhat relaxing day. We settled in for the night; most

times we would play videogames or something but tonight I wanted to

sit and talk and learn again like at the beginning.

I looked over at her; as usual, she had her phone glued to her hand,

texting good knows who. I asked, “Shauna, you have conversations with

people on text all day long, would you like to talk to me like that, I feel

as if you like talking to everyone else rather than me?” her reply to
this was “you make me wanna kill myself!” I looked at her with shock,

red hot pain right to the feels, “why would you say something like

that?”

“Because you make me want to kill myself,” she says and looks at me

with eyes as black and dead as I had ever seen them; like I was looking

at someone I didn't recognize, this was the second time I saw the

mask slip.

It was terrible; I tried to apologize for most of that night and tried to

make her see that I didn't mean anything bad by it, but Shauna was

now in victim blame shift mode and I was the monster that evening.

The days went by, things started to get weirder and weirder; she got

picked up by one of her girlfriends one morning and said she was taking

the children with her for the day, so I could have some time to myself

and she left.

I noticed she had left her Facebook open, she was cautious about

concealing or deleting what I wasn't supposed to see, I knew this very

well.

Around 4 pm, she got a message on her Facebook from the friend that

she was supposed to be out with, and it read “On my way back," what

did she mean, she was supposed to be with her friend? I started to
panic, and all the worst things imaginable went through my head; where

did she go, where were my kids? Why would her friend be coming back?

When Shauna had gotten home with the kids, I did what I probably

should not have and blew up, “where were you and what was with that

strange text on your Facebook?”

“You were with your friend,” I said “why would she be on her way back

if you were with her?” of course she gaslighted me with "no honey, I

knew you had my Facebook open, I was letting you know that I was

coming home, stop babe, I love you, you are the only one." She stroked

my face with her hand and said the line she always said to me “you're

my endgame.”

Later on, I would find out that her friend had dropped her off at a

man's house, took the kids for the day while Shauna cheated on me.

Then I went back to pick her up so she could come back to sleep in our

bed, when I found out I felt very dirty.

More time went on, and her mother had started to show up more and

more often; they would go for these long walks sometimes for an hour

or two. My Spidey sense started to tingle, and my guts twisted as if it

were trying to warn me that something terrible was about to happen

but nothing I imagined.

Those spidey senses were ever so right, even though I was too blindly

in love with Shauna to see it; that night Shauna came onto me for once,

and we had some of the best sex in a long time that night; I look back

and know the reason now.

I woke up the next day, June 13th 2021; I was in such a good mood

that day, I got up and started to play with Grayson and Ivy so that

Shauna could do her Yoga; we played monster where we went room to

room with a nerf gun looking for the monster, my son was so cute

because he would do this sneak, sneak thing like they used to do on

Scooby-doo, I laughed every time.

As Shauna finished her Yoga and started on lunch, I noticed that she

was reticent that day; I left her alone just in case she was in some

mood.

She called us for lunch; I sat down at the table and before I started

eating, I looked at her and said, “I love you, you know,” all of a sudden;

her demeanor went very cold and rigid. She stood there looking at me

for a second, then out of nowhere, she threw up her hands and said, “

that's it, I'm done!"

She grabbed my phone, changed the sim card to hers, and headed for

the bedroom, I lost all color in my face.

A cold sweat crept over my spine; she went into the bedroom and

grabbed a bag she had tucked into the back of the closet. I stood up

from the table and asked “what's wrong, what did I do?”

She grabbed Ivy and Grayson, I lost all feeling in my legs and started

weeping, “what happened why are you doing this why are you leaving I

love you!?” I begged on my hands and knees literally for her not to go;

she opened the door, looked back at me and said “Goodbye, Jesse!”

I will never forget the pain I felt that day, the confusion, betrayal and

loneliness I felt all in one moment.

It would have stopped the angels above singing to look down for just a

moment because my pain that day was that historical.

The Demon staring back at me

Shauna left me in pieces to pick up every single one alone and put

myself back together; I hadn't been apart from my family in 3 years

since the assault; there was confusion and anger behind this, and I

couldn't comprehend what I had done wrong. I loved her and our

children so much that I had now started to second guess myself and

the reality of my being, she and the kids were my whole world, and that

had just collapsed around me for unknown reasons.

After two days of despondence laying in bed being inside my head

driving myself mad with the thoughts of: what she could be doing and

what I had done to deserve this atrocity.

My phone buzzed, Shauna was calling me; I shot up in bed and looked at

the phone as if I were in a dream; what I had tried to manifest and

project to the universe was happening. I answered, there was my love

on the other end of the video call, but it wasn't the Shauna I knew, her

way of being was distant and cold, and her face had no emotion, almost

as if she had been replaced by this uncaring being staring back at me

on the video.

“Babe, what is happening where are you? Where are the kids?” I said

with a shaky voice “I'm not going to tell you where we are; I'm safe,
and that's all that matters, you are unsafe, and we need to protect

ourselves." Hurt, pain, sadness, and confusion washed over me.

Tears started to stream from my eyes, her face and demeanor didn't

change at all. No empathy for the one she called her love, her

“endgame” was non-existent, “what do you mean, I haven't done

anything, why would you have to protect yourself!” I exclaimed

“Your unsafe Jesse!” She says with no emotion. “You have hurt me for

the last time you're a drug addict and I don't want the kids around

you”. Now I was mad, and that's exactly what she wanted!

I shouted, “ What the hell are you talking about, I quit! You know that

you’re the one that got me on them in the first place!” The last thing I

said was “What you are doing is hurting me, don't you care.”

She didn't move, she was silent for an oddly long amount of time, and

her eyes seemed as black as a demon, with the smirk on her face that I

never really understood but noticed would come when I was hurting;

she hung up the phone.

My heart burst again as if a nuclear explosion went off inside my body.

I cried harder than I ever had before; the neighbors probably

wondered what the hell was going on; I laid in bed as if in a catatonic

state and did not know how much time had gone by, I had no one to call,

and no one came to see if I was ok, I was completely alone. Shauna

would call me once a day after the kids went to bed, it never lasted

very long, and her way of being stayed as this demon void of empathy

for the situation; I eventually learned she had gone to Airbnb. She told

me that we were still a couple and that we would work it out over time,

that she would not be coming back to the house that I built for our

family, that she would be getting a condo and living apart, I still didn't

understand, and I was still crying every day.

After a month of this mistreatment, I got up and started to fix

myself; Shauna had convinced me that I was a monster and needed to

be better for my family and took it to hook and sinker. I started

seeing a therapist named Theresa Robinson; she was very kind and

understanding.

Still stern on the fact that I was not going to be despondent any

longer, I had never gone to therapy before and didn't know what to

expect; I thank her very much for my life; without her, I would have
never gotten through what was about to happen. I had mentioned

before that Shauna had taken my phone and replaced it with her old

broken one; I had got up one morning and decided to get another phone

because I was tired of it; I had gone to the Walmart about ten blocks

away, it took me about an hour to go there and back. The day

previously, I had changed the locks, just in case she wanted just to

come to clean me out, and low and behold, as I was coming down the

alley to my backyard, I could see my back door wide open through the

fence, I raced inside. I saw Shauna and her Minions scooping up

everything they could, “What the hell, Get the fuck out of my house!".

They had broken in through a window; one of her guy friends stepped

up to me as if he would try and fight me; it would not have gone his

way, and I am glad that Shauna's sister stopped him because I didn't

want to hurt anyone.

As the police showed up, they had told me that I had to let them take

her stuff and that they would not be able to come again to do so; as

they left, I could see that the game was rigged and us being together

still like she had said was a farce, and I was playing a game I fully

didn't understand.
The next night a friend I didn't want to be over come over to see if I

was ok, she was an addict, and Shauna hated this person; she sat on my

floor and talked to me but could tell she was not doing ok; her face was

concave and sickly, I entertained the presence for a short time and

then lied saying I had to go to bed so she would leave, what I didn't

know was that Shauna had neighbors spying on me.

Hence, the next evening when Shauna called me this time, she was mad

and ever hateful “You had Tiff over last night, did you fuck her, you

did, didn't you, you don't care about our family, and I will use this to

make me stronger,” I tried to explain to her what happened and that I

never wanted her to come over in the first place.

Still, she wouldn't listen. You could tell when I talked; her eyes would

gloss over like she would tune me out and not care. “Shouldn't I get

something? I've been doing everything for this family, bettering

myself for you, therapy, new job, giving you space like you ask when do

I get something, I can't see you or the kids, and this has been a

nightmare for me, don't you love me, because I still love you. I don't

want to hurt anymore,” I begged her with every ounce of my soul, “I

won't take these threats, Jesse,” and she hung up the phone.
I was confused and dazed; was I saying things I didn't know I was even

saying, what threat? was she so delusional that she heard words that I

had never even spoken, I woke up early that morning, nightmares had

plagued me since they had left. I would wake up in cold sweats, and not

know why. I went on to the computer and noticed I had an email waiting

in my notifications, I went into my inbox and opened the email, and

again that fear and anxiety hit me like a brick wall right in the face,

there in this email was a file, and in that file was Screenshots of

Shauna's Facebook messenger conversations. My mind went from

confused to sad and finally rage; as I read her betrayal in front of me,

I could see at that moment that the past six years of my life had been

a complete lie. The messages were sexual; one conversation read, “so I

could be a stepdad?” Mike asked, “well, there is a step dad position

open,” replied Shauna. Another was from a man married named Asela,

where she had told him, “I could relax like that, over and over and over

again.” As well as messages that told them I was a monster and a

terrible person, that I didn't do anything, and that I never cared

about my children or her.

What was written there will haunt me till the end of my days because I

loved her more than my own life. I could never have done or said the

things she did, especially when she told me we were still together; I
went and threw up in the bathroom and then sat there on the bathroom

floor crying; I went right back into a sad state.

When I could finally pick myself up off the bathroom floor, I went

straight to the computer and started calling over and over and over; I

hit a point that made me into something I could not recognize, I had

become crazy at that point, but pain can do things to you that you will

never really understand.

When she finally answered the phone, and I got out the words asking

her, “how could you do this to our family and me? I loved you; how could

you?”

She denied all of the allegations, telling me that it was a joke which we

all know wasn't. Then she blocked me, ghosted me. The worst

punishment in the narcissist's arsenal, the silent treatment when you

catch a covert narcissist in an act that deems them in a light that is

not that of a victim.

Still, in a bad way, this is called a narcissistic injury, and to the Narc,

it's shattering to their Ego, which brings shame, and when you have

them feel shame, they will want to destroy you.

The silent treatment continued for a month, I could not see my

children, and I did not know where they were. To a dad, especially one

that had been the stay at home dad for years before this, it is

unfathomable the pain and trauma endured by this; I had gotten a new

job to pass the time and maybe show Shauna I was taking some

initiative.

I started working at a security company as one of there techs. fixing

their equipment over the phone, instructing customers how to get

there panels to stop beeping.

At the end of July, I had been on a call with my therapist Theresa

Robinson; We were talking about Shauna and some of the events that

had gone on in the relationship when she stopped the conversation and

said these words to me that I will never forget as long as I live,

“Jesse, do you know who you have been living with for six years?" I

replied, “ what do you mean?. ”you don't know what Shauna is, Jesse?,

again I replied “No, what are you talking about?”. Theresa sat there

for a moment and then sat up in her chair and, with a large Sigh,

replied, “ Jesse, Shauna is what they call a Covert Narcissist on the

sociopathic level, True rare level 10, boss level Narcissist."

I stared at her puzzled for a moment trying to compute what she had

just said, “What the hell is that” I questioned “Go and look up Dr.

Ramani on youtube and in our next session, we will talk about it; how

about that.” and with that, she ended the session, and my 72-hour

research binge began; I literally could not sleep as this newfound

knowledge seeped into my brain; once it all started making more and

more sense video after video, article after article, everything right

there the whole time for anyone to see but if you were not looking for

it or if you had never known what it was or wasn’t told by someone else

what Narcissism was, you would have no idea how deep the rabbit hole

really did go and how much trauma and manipulation and abuse I had

been subjected too.

It was like the top of my head exploded. Just like the four cycles of

Narcissism, The Love bomb phase or idealization phase, which is where

they put you up on a pedestal and worship you and tell you like two

weeks into the relationship they want to marry you and that you are

there endgame, which in turn makes you have sort of a beer-goggle

effect, almost like a Jedi mind trick.

Then the Devalue phase comes after a few months which entails

emotional, psychological, and physical abuse. Gaslighting, Blame-shifting

and victimhood mentality, and Reactive abuse. Then once she or

whoever is done with you or you become too pathetic for them even to

care about anymore, they will then start searching for a new *supply,

after which they will dump you or technically discard you like you are

garbage.

You will be left wondering what the hell just happened, and when that

supply leaves them because of their treatment, they will then in turn

come back to hoover you like a vacuum, back into the same cycle

starting from the beginning. I wish this nightmare had never started. I

had no idea what I truly had gotten myself into .

The Setup

Not a word from Shauna in days. I worried about the kids and where

they might be, where Grayson might think his dad be, what was he

asking his mother about me and why this was happening?

This would go through my mind every day, all day and never stopped; I

also thought of Shauna and could not understand how or why she could

do this to our family; right before she left, we were going to get
married, I dreamt of that day often before she left. Shauna in a white

dress and looking like a goddess sent to me from heaven, like the first

night I had with her, the perfect person for me, but now after what I

had discovered. I knew that it was all a lie. The past six years of my

life were wasted, all an act to be a part of some psychological game

only she understood and benefited from.

I felt very robbed of the best years of my life, the prime years where

you are supposed to get married and have kids and a life, now gone as if

I never really mattered in the first place, just a piece of garbage that

is thrown away when done with.

I felt cheap and used, I literally waited for my heart to give out from

the stress of it all, but it never did, I just kept thumping away. How

could I live without them? My beautiful children were everything to

me, Shauna, the love of my life, the thought of her being with someone

else made me mad with every opinion on the matter; one night, I got

very low. Grabbed a bottle of my favourite rum (Kraken), called a

friend for a piece of equipment and asked him not to ask what it was

for; he met me on 118 avenues near the Portuguese Bakery and handed

it to me inside of a toque, inside of a Safeway bag. "You know what you

are doing" he looked at me wide-eyed.

I’m sure the look on my face was that of defeat and pain, and he

definitely was concerned. I didn't say anything, just turned and walked

away. I sat in front of the fire watching the flames dance, almost as if

taunting me.

I pounded back the bottle as if it were my last night on earth. I sat

there for a long time, remembering my life, Picturing Shauna as I

remembered her, not this demon that has taken my soul from me. My

vision became very blurred. I grabbed the instrument I had gotten

from my friend and held it in my hands; the weight was greater than

expected. I admired it because I had never actually held a real one in

my life, the barrel black as coal, the trigger easy to pull, loaded in all

six chambers; I thought of my children one last time.

“I love you” with that put the barrel in my mouth and pulled the

trigger…..Nothing happened. I dropped the gun; I thought I was dead

for a second and then realized the bullet never fired, Jammed or was a

dud, not sure, I puked hard and then blacked out.

I woke up on the lawn in the morning feeling very hungover and very

disgusted with myself. God must have had another plan for me. I got

up, dust myself off and started this new life that I deserved and not

the determent that had been the life that I had just lived. First things

first, I was going to do the thing that Shauna told me I would never
finish and would never reach my dream. I enrolled in the Graphic design

course that I always wanted to do. It was a college in the states under

the name PCDI, it was online courses that I could finish at my own

pace, but I wanted it done in 3 months.

I also picked up a deck of tarot cards. For o, one I was desperate to

know what was going to be the possible outcome to Shauna and me, as

well it kept my focus on something other than the parental alienation

going on mixed with a broken heart from my one true love, I got to say

it was challenging.

it was July, and my instincts were telling me that Shauna was not

coming back. I made some calls and found a very cheap lawyer, Daryll

really did not like me and told me right off the get-go that he really

did not believe me, and really who would, this day and age, society does

not see a woman as the abuser.

They are the victim, and the men are always the monster, Guilty of

everything until proven innocent and then still, most of the time, stays

the monster anyway. Daryll and I drafted up my first order to serve to

Shauna.
My lawyer got a hold of hers so that we could give her the claims, and

her lawyer on the other end says, “you haven't got our claims yet; we

filed two weeks ago.”

My lawyer was furious “ My client has not been served anything. This

is ridiculous." her lawyer sent of disclosure. When it first came in, I

knew why I hadn't been served; Shauna had only put my name on it, no

address, email or phone number what so ever; her lawyer was hoping I

would just miss the first court date and give Shauna a win by default,

and she was going for sole custody. The claims were as follows:

When I first saw these claims, the shock of them skipped my heart

like a stone skipping on the surface of the water of a lake; I was

beside myself with grief over the words said on the piece of paper

sitting in front of me.

How could she say such things? I was the stay-at-home parent for

years while she worked, Extremely Limited Time?

I had been sober for half a year now, and for her to use this against

me, She started it and enabled it; the betrayal behind this one little

page of text was far greater than anyone I had ever even read about.
We got into court in the middle of July, I remember standing outside

the court room waiting for our turn, and she walks through the double

doors to the floor; our court was on. I was in my suit; I had been

working out for about two months. At this point, I was looking good,

and my hair was great that day.

Shauna had this strut when she was on a tear, and she was dressed in

a very sharp business casual set, grey dress pants with a nice black

blazer; the only real shock to this whole thing where her hair had been

coloured for the first time in many years, Neon bright red and she

knew I loved red hair. She coloured it red just to drive me mad. Even

though her mask that day was off and her cold and calculated way were

shining like a beacon of death, she still was the most beautiful woman

in the world to me, even though she was about to lie and destroy

everything about who we were, I missed her more than ever and wished

this would just end.

As we entered the courtroom, my anxiety was through the roof to the

point I was pretty much shaking because I knew her being a woman had

the upper hand in court immediately. I knew they would not even

consider the belief that she was anything other than an innocent victim

that she portrayed. Now with Covert Narcissism, they are always the

victim; they will never admit they did anything wrong, they will blame-
shift and twist every little thing to your advantage, and BEWARE!!!

When they leave you, they will start the smear campaign, and it will

hurt.

The court had to listen to her allegations for the safety of the

children, and being a man, they thought I was guilty before proven

innocent; our next court date would be at the end of August, and until

then, I would have to do Urine drug tests every Tuesday, as well as I,

would get 4 hours in the park with them on Saturdays and Sundays

until that date. The drug tests would be covered by my dime; go figure.

So for the next nine weeks, I would go to a place on the west end of

the city and pee in a cup; of course, the drug tests were negative

because what she was claiming was ridiculous; the most ridiculous of it

all was the park that Shauna had picked for the supervised visits, It

was a concrete park with no shade, no bathrooms and a small pavilion,

the park was modern and extensive, but because the courts were told I

was incompetent as a father, I was not allowed any help I had to hold

my daughter not even one year old yet and run around with a thre3-

year-old for 4 hours, not an easy thing.

While I had my time, Shauna would sit in the car in the parking lot with

her mother, writing notes and waiting for me to screw up so she could

pounce on it like a lion hunting a gazelle, her sister and her fiancé would
circle the park-like I was some kidnapper going to scoop my children

and run as fast as I could with them under my arms, it was pretty

ridiculous.

This went on for nine weeks; after my time at the park was finished, I

would go home defeated and drained and missing all of them more and

more, thankfully I had someone to help me through time when the

visits started, an old friend of mine came to me and asked if I could

help a girl Named Brii for a while, I had an extra room, and she was

coming out of an abusive relationship and needed a place to stay for a

bit.

The first week she came to stay with me, I was thrown back cause I

did not expect such a beautiful woman. She was skinny and tall, and her

blonde hair gave her features a very bright way about her, she was

rough though, very street and knew the ins and outs of certain things.

over the 9 weeks of torture and drug tests Brii was my rock and kept

me sane, i had been alone for so long even though i was with Shauna

that it was a nice change of pace, we would stay up long nights talking

about the shitty things our ex's did to us and she would give me shit

every single time i even had a thought about wanting Shauna back and

really did care about me and how badly Shauna had treated me, I had
wished i had listened to her, Brii was like a sister to me and i was very

glad to have met her when i did, after nine tests and 16 visits in the

park, we were back in court for the interim before the JDR/mediation

that we needed to do.

Standing in front of the judge that day in September i did not expect

anything, but this time i wasnt shaking or scared, I had done

everything i could at this point. Shauna asked the judge “ I would like

to request less time with there father”, the judge snapped back “give

me one good reason why i should take these children away from there

father”, Shauna replied “he is unsafe”.

A look of scorn came over the judges face, he held up all my evidence

and the urine tests i took all summer and said “ I dont think so, try

again” and started reaming out Shauna right in front of everyone in the

court room, Shauna turned around to her sister and shrugged knowing

that her lies had come to a halt and no one was believing it anymore, I

was awarded unsupervised visits and she would have to suck it up

because she knew i would not agree in mediation and it would go to trial

and if the judge here could see it, so could they and she knew she

would lose in trial. I went home ecstatic at the news. how could this get

any better. and that's when my phone vibrated with a notification that

i had got a text message.

it was Shauna “I think we should talk” read the message, it was the

first time she had talked to me in 4 months of silent treatment, this

excited me and scared me at the same time, cause i really did still love

the woman.

The Love Bomb

Staring at the phone i couldn't believe my eyes, Shauna text me for

the first time in months, i almost dropped the phone.

Did she miss me, was she finally realizing that i was the man she really

thought i needed to be now, as much as she could have said can you

believe the only word on the screen was "HI" can you believe that. My

lawyer at the time had gotten back my cellphone from Shauna,

remember the one she took when she left in June, my lawyer had asked

her lawyer to give back the phone it took two months to get this phone

back and seeing as i am a computer whiz, I knew that if i got a hold of a

certain program that i would be able to deep dive the phones firmware

and pull every single text message she ever deleted off of it, and i did.
To my horror and to this day i still haven't read every single message

because it is too painful, but a lot of what i saw was beyond ok. When i

thought about the 6 years of our life i had to think about it in two

different ways, in one side of it i had to understand that i knew

nothing about narcissism until after the 6 years and on the other side i

had to put into account that now that i knew what narcissism was that

she would never change, nothing i ever did would be good enough and

the 4 cycles Idealization, Devalue, Discard and Hoover this would be

my life if i thought i had a chance to return to this woman i held so

close to my heart.

I have never been able to get certain texts that ive seen out of my

head, one of these are when Shauna was pregnant, she had been talking

behind my back to a ex boyfriend and had texted him “Don't make me

send you sexy Prego photos and you will hate yourself for finding a

pregnant chick sexy” that one definitely hurt because I loved Shauna

when she was pregnant, I thought she was so beautiful that way and

now it was tainted because even with my child inside of her, she was

still cheating.

2,676 messages between her and her ex boyfriend, and she called me a

monster, for every message i read a piece of my heart dropped away

one by one until i felt empty inside, that's all i could think about when i

saw that one word that she had text me “HI".

I replied cautiously “Hey didn't expect to hear from you, what's up?",

“I miss you, and understand that you have been doing a lot to fix

yourself, i think we should talk”, as her text came back my heart was

pounding, i had been praying every night for her to speak to me, i

missed her voice and her smell and most of all her cuddles.

Despite all that had happened my loyalty had never faltered, i dont

know what it is about the narcissist but every time you try to date or

see someone else it seems as if you are committing some sort of

betrayal or something that you should not be doing and of course your

fight or flight reaction kicks in and you just dont wanna even be in that

situation anymore just in case the narcissist wants to come back, Its

maddening.

We Started talking very slowly, ever so often i would try and ask why

she did it or find out some insight into what had happened but it was

always redirected or blame-shift, she did try to get me to own up to

the whole relationship being her fault and Brii my roommate had been

overhearing most of these conversations and she really thought i was

an idiot, she would always say “Jesse you are dumb if you think she is

gonna take you back and not have the same thing happen to you all over

again” but i chose to ignore her, at this point i just wanted this

nightmare to end and my family back.

Right after my birthday Shauna made a deal with me, and to make a

deal with the devil is never a smart idea, She said “I love you Jess, you

know your my endgame, i will take you back and love you again under two

stipulations. one being that you move out of the house and into a

apartment i found across the street from us, so we can co parent

together and work on our relationship and two is you have to go to

rehab and if you do that i will give you 50/50 custody on paper, how

about that?”.

I thought about it for a night, the conclusion on this is that i figured

that if her and I didn't work out then at least i would have on paper

that she could not do this again, she had taken my kids, ghosted me and

i never thought i would ever be speaking to her again.

I agreed to the deal and started packing up my house immediately I

want to be in the house as of October 1st 2020. Shauna and I had gone

back to facetiming everyday at that point, she was back to normal and
laughing and smiling and all the things I had remembered it was, and at

the end of September, she called me and said “I want you to come over

tonight, I want to make you dinner and then we can talk”.

I was so excited i hadn't seen everyone in so long, since June as i came

to there new address, when we pulled up, she had moved into a

townhouse with a little yard in the front, as i got out of the cab again

my anxiety and heart were racing so fast that i could have blasted off

to the moon. pure adrenaline racing as I knocked on the front dooring

out everyday, got to tell you i really looked good, i made my way in a cab

to there new address, when we pulled up, she had moved into a

townhouse with a little yard in the front, as i got out of the cab again

my anxiety and heart were racing so fast that i could have blasted off

to the moon.

pure adrenaline racing as I knocked on the front door, it opened very

slowly with Shauna waiting on the other side to greet me and say

welcome like that past five months never happened, i came inside her

townhouse very cautiously almost as if i thought it was a setup and

some big dudes were waiting on the other side ready to traum me out,

but no it was just her and the kids and the smell of her cooking, it

really felt like home.

We ate dinner at her new table and chairs, I was really afraid to talk

about anything so i kept it very short and sweet as to not mess up this

opportunity that she had given me, after dinner we sat on her couch

and drank a glass of wine, he and i always loved Merlot.

We sat up late talking about old times and discussing the kids, telling

me about all the things i had missed while i was made to be absent, and

then again like it was our first date all over again, She leaned in and

kissed me with that kiss that was so hypnotising that i melted into the

couch and into oblivion all over again like it never had mattered, i had

been working out the whole time she was away, i picked her up with

ease which i think shocked her cause i couldn't do that before.

I put her down on the couch kissing her with those lips that i deemed

god like, ripped off her clothes and for the first time in months we

made love again and I could never have been happier to be back in the

embrace i prayed for everyday. After we finished we were laying there

naked and Shauna started to cry, “what's wrong” i asked, “ I missed

you so much” she said.

I wish I wasn't so naïve, i would have noticed how crocodile they really

were. The next few days consisted of packing and moving to the

apartment, i really didn't want to leave the house behind after i had

literally done so much work on it and put in so much money, but my

family came first and material possession didn't matter., as i

consolidated and took my last looks at the place i called home. I waved

goodbye to the little starter home and got into the U-Haul, excited

about my new journey.

The two bedroom apartment that Shauna had helped me find, was

modern and bright, the floors had just been put in, a grey hardwood,

and right across the street, four hundred meters away. I moved in mid

October and started the things that Shauna wanted me to do, like the

out-patient rehab she wanted me to do, AHS had a program that was

from nine AM and ended at three PM, I would start work at six, work

for two hours then go to rehab and then go back to work for another 6

hours after.

It was long days but I loved my family and would do anything for them,

I was keeping up my end of the bargain, shocker that she wasn't. She

had told me the minute I enrolled, that I would have that 50/50 on

paper, the rehab was 3 weeks long and still I had seen no 50/50

parenting order.

I had asked her day after day if she had talked to her lawyer, which

she would reply “yes, I emailed him my love, dont worry.” I didn't see

that paper till the day before our JRD/Mediation and after I had done

the course, we still needed to go through mediation, Nov 06 2020 we

both went to the court date together. Even though we went together

she acted like we weren't together, keeping her distance from me, the

night before she had showed me the order everything was as it

seemed, it said pretty much that we needed to communicate at all

times, and we had joint decision making on everything, the only

stipulation was that she could ask me for three hair follicle tests a

year at 406$ a pop on my own dime, and i asked that she had proof to

be able to ask me, and also there be a police enforcement clause,

everything seemed on the up and up and when we walked into court all

we had to do was sign it and call it a day.

I wish to this day I looked at that order again before i signed it, might

have saved me a lots of heart break again. November and December

went pretty smooth, other then me having to be a secret because

apparently her family would disown her if they knew, we were together,

which i didnt really buy but i loved my kids and didnt want them to be

without family as i knew how that had felt.

We would argue about it and i just wanted her to be proud to be with

me, but it wasnt that, she was a Narcassist and i knew that now, this

was all a game to her and supply was the prize she was after. after the

christmas season and new years which we spent in each others arms,
telling each other that we were each others endgames and nothing

could take that from us.

As january came things seemed to change, Shauna started to get

distant again and was giving me more time with the kids, she had said

earlier in December that she didnt love herself and that she wanted

some me time to find herself, because how could she love her family if

she didnt love herself. every weekend she seemed to find some reason

to fight with me about something and it ended up her telling me to go

home, this happened every saturday in January and i would not hear

from her till Monday.

on January 31st 2021 the kids were staying the night at my house and i

had not seen Shauna in person in 4 weeks, always some excuse not to

come over or vise versa. That night she called and said she was coming

over, when she showed up all she wanted was sex, this time was not

magical or anything like every other time, this was short and sweet and

she was on her way out the door, “Why dont you wanna spend the night

with me? I thought you loved me why wouldn't you stay?” all she had

was that little smirk on her face and left without saying a word, I felt

used and not worth anything, like a piece of garbage she could throw

away at any minute, i tried to text her that evening with no reply, i

knew what was going on but i obviously was not caring cause i just
wanted it to not be true. In the morning i got the kids ready for the

day, made breakfast and let them play while i lamented going over

there and seeing Shauna after what had transpired the night before.

We walked across the street and up the steps to her condo, and there

she was. The woman that I was madly in love with. The mother of my

children, whom I would have taken a bullet to the face for, was looming

in the entrance of her domicile a smirk that was all to familiar.

“Good morning my love,” I said to her as she stood there smirking, “why

didn’t you stay last night? You only stayed for two hours and left.

Why don’t you want to be around me anymore? You told me you loved

me. I moved here so we could fix things and be a family!” I pleaded

with her. Her words back were a lie if I had ever heard one.

“I’ve told you this many times Jesse,” she responded in a scathing tone

still smirking. “I need a couple of weeks to find myself and to love

myself again. If I can’t be happy with myself, how can I love my

family.” She said bluntly and followed the kids inside leaving me hurt

and alone for the umpteenth time felt dismissed and lied too, a tear

rolling down my cheek as I trudged back across the street more

downtrodden than ever before. It wasn’t that she wanted to find

herself it was that she had already found someone else. Not a new love

mind you, but rather what is commonly know as the “new supply”.
Someone to focus her energy and toxicity on as I was slowly phased

out. As I entered my apartment to start my job for the day, I knew

my efforts had been in vain and the end of what had started out as

everything I had ever wanted was coming to an excruciating painful

end. Painful because even after everything I had been put through, I

still loved her and the thought of raising our kids together.

As I slumped down in my chair and turned on my computer to begin

work for the day my phone alerted me of e new text message.

“This Is a formal request from Shauna *****, you are back on drugs

and your time with your children is suspended until such time as you can

provide and pass a hair follicle drug test,” I reminisced about the first

time i met Shauna, right up until that very moment that i sat at he

kitchen table, as i sat at that table i knew i was alone again, tears

streaming down my face, i pulled out my phone and filmed myself saying

all the things i felt in my body, uploaded it into an app and pressed

done, that Tiktok that day changed my life forever, and not sure if it

was for the positive or the negative but all i knew is i was done being

her dirty little secret.

THE SILENCE OF BETRAYAL

The Tiktok App was very new to me; I had made a video of me pouring

out my soul; I honestly didn't think twenty people would see the video;

I made the video and went to sleep with pain in my heart and a lump in

my throat.

As I woke up the next day and checked the video of me telling the

truth behind my toxic relationship and to my surprise, the video had

gone viral, 184,000 views, a fear shot down my spine; Shauna would not

be happy that many people had seen the truth that I had put out there.

I knew I would pay for that in the end. For over a week, I would text

trying to get her to talk or let me see my children; with the order we

had, I was supposed to be able to see my children on Wednesday's over

facetime, I tried the one time, and she told me I missed my window,

even though it was in-between the time frame still, I asked if I could

make it up tomorrow. She replied, “yes, Jesse, you can make up the

time tomorrow" what would one more day hurt.

The next day I made sure I called right on the minute when it turned

to 5 pm; the Facebook messenger that she insisted we called on rang

and rang, but no one would answer; I got a ding on my phone from a

notification. “What do you want” Shauna texted, “you said I could make

up my phone time today!” and all she replied was, “I'm sorry, I don't
remember agreeing to that,” as if it were up to her to decide which

part of the order mattered or not, the games had begun and again just

like the June before she knew where to drive the dagger to make my

heart ache with sadness and despair.

You must understand Narcissists, by definition, are inherently

unreasonable and manipulative. They also think they’re above the law,

which leads them to take risks. However, courts don’t like it when a

parent uses the children as pawns to get back at an ex. When Shauna

would start the silent treatment, it was her greatest weapon in an

already vast arsenal, and she knew that it drove me crazy; the only

thing with the silent treatment was that we had children, so doing this

wasn't only affecting me it was affecting our children, and people saw

this.

Tiktok became a daily thing as I waited out the childish tantrum that

was ripping apart our lives at the moment until I went to Shauna's

page, and it wasn't there anymore. At first, I had thought she had

blocked me, but then her profile would have still been there; as I

searched, thinking maybe she just changed the profile name, a direct

message popped up; it was from someone named Jade. this is what the

message said “Hi Jesse, my name is Jade.

I saw your post and found your ex's Tiktok; she was posting a lot with

her kids; there was a point where I had seen you post a video in tears,

then moments later, she's posting one with a baby laughing loving life.

It annoyed me a lot, so I made a small Tiktok saying how it's sad that

so many women do this.

My mom is one of these horrible narcissistic women. It hit home, and I

made a Tiktok about it. I have a good few followers (120,000), and a

few of mine commented and asked where this was coming from, as most

of my content is me having fun with the animals.

I explained in the comments what you were going through, and she

enjoyed every second of it. I named her Tiktok in the comments, and a

bunch of my followers went and checked out her page. Some left

comments and concerns that she will emotionally hurt those kids by not

letting her kids see their dad. she replied to a comment saying, you

deserve it. At this point, I got furious and commented that no one

deserves this and that she was a shitty mother. She then blocked me.

A little bit later, someone commented on my Tiktok, asking why

they can't see her account; I replied, saying I had been blocked from

her account. Many of my followers commented, saying they reported

her because of her emotional abuse of the children. She was happy at

your pain and didn't care that it may hurt the kids also. Many of my
followers said they could see she was evil and didn't care about how

this would affect you and the kids, so they reported her.

I was blocked and couldn't see if she got her account back or not,

Anyway long story short, many people reported her because she

commented that she wasn't interested in what it would do to the kids.

After all, you deserved it.

This was way before we had even started talking., long story short, my

followers thought her Tiktok was insensitive considering your pain and

didn't like when she said you deserved it, so I reported her for

emotional abuse of the children; she got taken off of Tiktok for it.” As

I looked at what Jade had said to me about it, the pain in my chest was

no surprise, no matter how much she hurt me, it was always there like a

parasite coiled around my heart with long fangs dug in deep; I don't

know why I still loved her, really how could I, but it was there that

undying loyalty that took down the sturdiest of men.

Blind loyalty never worked out for the empath as it should; empaths

feel things deeper than normal people, almost like a heightened state

of emotional awareness. I kept doing Tiktok, going live talking about

whatever I could to understand what was happening; as people started

to get wind of my story, people felt sorry for me, which is not what I

wanted.

I told my story to Tiktok so that the smear campaign, which is a tactic

of the Narcissist to get everyone that you call friend or family to turn

their backs on you and either walk away or become what they call flying

monkey's and join her little army of hate, just to hurt you some more.

I did not want this happening this time, so the truth would set me free.

This time, a play-by-play account of what was going on so that Shauna

couldn't damage me anymore. Now the parenting order says that we

had to communicate and co-parent, and Shauna was not complying; when

she claims drugs, she can ask for three hair follicle tests a year

because of the allegations she had put forward; they cost four

hundred and eight dollars each, I didn't make a lot and my other baby

mom was garnishing my wage by forty percent a check so it would have

taken some time to get one.

I didn't want to be away from my children again. Five days after she

took our children away and ghosted me, I did something that I wish I

hadn't done; I took a risk, got a test from the internet, and used my

profession to fake the test.

This wasn't done because I was using but because I thought if she had

got this test and it was negative, she would just be appeased, and we

could go back to our life and love each other and honestly not be

without my loves, our children, I hated having that void in my soul when

they were gone.

when I gave her the test, of course, she had to do what she did best,

destroy all hope, “the test is fake Jesse, get me another one," as I

cried and typed, begging for her not to do this, again silence fell on

every word I typed like they were never typed at all.

Even though my time was suspended, Shauna made it, so the whole

order was voided, whether that was true or not, which it wasn't; I

couldn't even have my time on the phone; I fell into despair.

I started researching more and more into narcissism and made phone

calls to where my work got fed up with everything and put me on

medical leave to receive employment insurance. After that, great, I

thoughtless money, how much worse could it get.

I made a phone call to family court councilors on all the breaches, and

there were many at this point. going to family court councilors was to

make her go back to mediation; the thing was, it was an invitation, and

she had two weeks to reply to it before we could bypass that and go

straight back to court if it was that easy. so we emailed the offer and

waited; a week and a half had gone by with no answer, I had been on

Tiktok live this one evening, and a guy comes into my Live stream and

starts typing, “ Hey, I've been working up the courage to message you

for a while now, and I have to tell you something, I haven't been able

to sleep, eat…. ”.

I cut him off, “Whoa bud, take it to my DM's don't do this on my life,”

which he did; I think he was relieved by this because to do something

like that life would be social suicide.

As I talked to this man, he gave me much detail to the subject matter,

which I will not disclose here but suffice to say Shauna had been

having an affair for two years behind my back; I wanted to die, panic

and fear, and betrayal filled my veins; how could she, after everything

that happened, all the lies when it came to the cheating, the gaslighting

which made me look crazy, the smear campaigns to keep her charade

going.
I felt robbed of the good years of my life I will never get back. as he

went on and on about what they had done, my brain started to turn,

which kicked in my panic and anxiety; I hung up the phone on the man; I

couldn't hear anymore without getting sick on everything.

I raced through my computer files and found an item, moments before

I had taken a screenshot of this guy; as I opened photoshop and pasted

his picture there, the item I had found in the bowels of my computer

was a picture of my lovely daughter Ivy, I placed both pictures side by

side, “please no, please no, please God no!”.

That day will give me trauma for life; I sat there studying the pictures

in front of me to find some flaw that I could pick out and ease my

mind, but no, why would anything happen the way it should? Ivy looked

exactly like the other man.

She was the spitting image of the man that told me of her affair and

betrayal; this emptied the last part of my soul from my body; I will

never be able to put into words the emotional turmoil I went through

that day, really only God knew.

Shauna only had 48 hours left to reply to mediation; I text her many

times that day, pleading again with her to talk with me, that I knew

about the man she committed adultery with and that she could fix all

of this with a phone call. Still, it didn't matter, she had her new supply,

and I did not matter one bit to her anymore.

when the silence of betrayal was deafening to the point my ears hurt

from the sound of my begging her to stop this, the next day came, and

with it, more trouble. I had been working at the security company still,

that morning on a phone call for work, a knock on my door startled me,

who could it be, I wasn't expecting anyone.

I opened the door very slowly; two female officers were standing

there, “Jesse Busdegan? can we come in please”. I let them in and sat

down at the kitchen table, "what is this about" I asked, “I'm sorry,

Shauna has issued an EPO, and we are here to serve it to you,” again

tears started to stream down my face, “do you see what she is doing

now” I asked the woman police officer, seeing as I recognized her from

a previous engagement when she had first left and started breaching

the order, I had called them to enforce. Still, they would not because

it didn't say Police enforcement.

It said Peace officer, which Shauna and her lawyer planned out, yet

another game and notch for her tally. Now you will have to understand

here in Canada; an EPO is an emergency protection order; these are

granted when there has been Domestic Violence; the other party is

scared of them; I was not given any evidence or reason to obtain this

because we hadn't talked in two months.

I had to wait a few days to get the transcripts for the EPO; in the

meantime, I had gotten another hair follicle test, it was negative, and

to the court order means I get my kids back immediately but found

out, and this was planned mind you, that the EPO because of the court

it falls under, is higher than my parenting order.

What this means is that the EPO superseded my parenting order. If

this were granted for a year, she would not ever have to go back into

court to face the judge on her breaches and that she could keep the

kids away forever because she could renew it over again for the next

18 years, and I would not have been about to do a thing. Shocked as

the officers that I had sent to her house with the hair follicle test

came back and said, “sorry, we can't help you, take it back to court,”

even after I had the peace officer part amended as a typo, apparently

not even the police would help me.

I could not believe she would do such a thing, that she could be this

evil; I ended up getting the transcripts and again almost had a heart

attack at what was said because of how vile it was.

She had explained to the justice of the peace that she was afraid for

her life because three years ago I had beat her up and tried to kill her,

omitting the fact the charges were dropped due to misleading

information and that she couldn't even take out the garbage she was so

scared, I was stalking her, and she didn't know where I was, you and I

both know she moved me across the street and that she bold-faced

lied to them, she claimed her victimhood and the best part about it was

it wasn't even granted in Edmonton, it was granted in Calgary, four

hours away, another breach because she can't leave the city without

my consent.

To clarify, the EPO voided our parenting order and kept me from even

calling on Wednesdays to speak to my children; this is called the silver

bullet defense, and women use this in court to swing family law there a

way when losing, it's dirty, and bias and unjust I was so angry at what

she put. I again was destroyed mentally, emotionally, and utterly

bewildered on how she could do me so dirty.

I couldn't afford a lawyer, so I had to represent myself;

simultaneously, on TikTok, the smear campaign started again till

literally, I had to delete my account from the people who believed her

without any proof. I was alone and without social interaction and

getting ready for the EPO oral hearing, like a mini-trial.

before I left TikTok, I put everything possible, from pictures to little

notes from Christmas and everything in the like to show how much of a

liar she was; I just wanted to be believed; June 25, 2021, was the EPO

oral hearing, I had done my research and watched YouTube for a

reference on trials, I walked into court that day confident and

determined, thirty minutes before the trial, I had called the crown

prosecutors office to get the reason the assault was dropped because

I knew that's what she was going to bring up.

I hadn't seen her or the kids not once in five months; she walked into

court with her mask off that day, cold and calculated, wearing that

blazer and grey pants, and had turned her hair back to brunette. she

did look lovely, but this time, my heart didn't hurt; this time, the love I

had that would always be there was ok with this and only because I

worked on myself, with self-love and determination to get my children

away from this demon.

She sat on the stand and swore under oath to tell the whole truth and

nothing but the truth; she started with the assault and moved on to

me, stalking her and harassing her, playing everything up to the best of

her ability.

When it was my turn to cross-examine her, I was shaking at that point;

it is not every day you get to have answers from a narcissist and maybe

some closure in the end. All i had to ask was this “ Ms. ******, can you

please tell the court why you decided to omit and lie on the stand,

saying i assaulted you and instead all charges were dropped due to

false information and before you lie, in my hand is the evidence from

the crown prosecutors office telling this truth”, she knew she was

screwed she said nothing.

she didn’t answer most of my questions, when it came down to the

conclusion that day, the judge dropped the EPO because she knew

Shauna was lying, The judge told her that she and i needed to start

communicating for the children's sake, which she just silent treated

the judge and i, she had a narcissistic injury that day and i knew the

rage would follow but she was already mad because two days before

the court i finally filed for full custody and to explain her breaches,

she would have to explain why she did what she had done and honestly i
don’t think she has an explanation, not like she can say “sorry im a

sociopathic covert narcissist, its in my nature”.

She never really did love me. It was an illusion, a game to her; even

though I loved her more than I understood, I would never let that go

away or be overshadowed by the hurt in my soul, no matter what

relationship she would get into after me, they would all be the same as

mine all over again, she would never grow or change and that made me

sad. I will always love you, Shauna, but I love my children more; I'm

coming, My love; daddy is coming to get you.

After that day, Jesse took her back to court, got the kids, and

everything did work out in the end; I hope everyone enjoyed this

journey with me; Jesse went on to become a life coach for narcissistic
abuse survivors and helps people every day through there trauma. I

hope everyone enjoyed this journey with me; These things happened to

me, and now they have happened to you in a way through emotion and

visualization. I hope this book helps someone in a toxic relationship

that can see, just like me, and will find the strength to get out before

it is too late; I would never wish any of this on anyone and hope to god

these people are accounted for there actions in the future to come,

change needs to happen, and I hope this book will start that very

change.

The End