“Shards of Her” is a Taiwanese drama that revolves around the lives of such individuals who are tied up by the traumatic experiences of their past. Li Chen-Hsi is a successful headhunter who is well-known for her professional life, and she is currently in a loving relationship with a man named Li Hao-Ming. The duo has been together for more than three years, but Chen-Hsi keeps cutting him off. Somehow, there are secrets from her past that hinder her current state of mind. But Chen-Hsi doesn’t want to share her feelings with anyone, and she even isolates herself from any social connections. Even though she is the ace of her company, Chen-Hsi never attends any social gatherings or business parties. For years, she avoided any group projects and proved her potential individually. Hao-ming was a soft-spoken and loving man, he always loved her, and currently, he was looking forward to proposing to her for marriage. But Chen-Hsi had no intention of meeting or interacting with him. She wanted to end her relationship, and despite stating the reason for the sudden rift in her behaviour Hao-Ming was certain that it was connected to her past. As Hao-ming tries to hold on to her, Chen-Hsi tends to neglect him even more.
Chen-Hsi is greeted by unpleasant situations at work, where her boss’ brother Danny tries to sexually harass Chen-Hsi to claim Chen-Hsi’s position in the company. She had to put up with his behaviour since he was related to the company’s owner. One night, Danny lured her into the office and attempted to rape her. Fortunately, Chen-Hsi managed to escape but met with a terrible accident. This accident caused her to bifurcate her life into two different realities. Well, Chen-Hsi was raped by her physics teacher, Hsieh Chih-Chung. Even her parents couldn’t protect her from him. She tried to open up to her parents, but her father neglected her and questioned her. Chen-Hsi’s father wanted to know if she denied his requests, but he failed to understand a major thing. She had always been a cheerful girl, and Chen-Hsi needed support to protect herself in a situation like this.
Chen-Hsi’s parents contacted Mr. Hsieh and his wife, but they denied all the allegations and blamed the entire thing on Chen-Hsi. She was heartbroken by this revelation and couldn’t escape the painful memories of her past. Chen-Hsi began to imagine a different reality in which her father and brother were alive, and they avenged her. But in reality, Chen-Hsi couldn’t mend the broken relationship with her family, and she decided to leave her hometown to set up her career in the city. Since then, Chen-Hsi has broken all connections with her family. In her imaginative reality, Chen-Hsi’s family understood her pain and stood by her side without questioning her innocence. She developed a dissociative disorder in which she traveled to different places without realizing it and often ended up in the middle of the road.
Because of her painful past, Chen-Hsi couldn’t keep track of her memories, and she often drifted into a distracted zone where she forgot about her whereabouts. There were times when Hao-ming convinced her to meet a therapist, but she often neglected his words. A part of her wanted Hao-ming to be with her, but she also wanted him to be happy without having to deal with her painful memories. In the current timeline, Chen-Hsi has stuck with her disassociation again, as she imagines everything without a kernel of reality. She waited at the police station after the truck accident. But her mind started disassociating again. She got back to her senses once she realized that Danny was responsible for revoking her memories, but this time she was going to fight back! In her previous hallucination, Mr. Hsieh was strangled by her brother Chen-ye, and both her friend Yen Sheng-Hua and her father helped him to avenge Chen-Hsi’s pain.
But in reality, Mr. Hsiesh was alive and suffered from paralysis, whereas none of them supported her. Sheng-Hua was a victim of rape too, but Mr. Hsieh granted her free tuition, so she had no choice but to ignore Chen-Hsi. This time, Chen-Hsi requested Sheng-Hua to support her as she was Danny’s wife, who abused her every day and cheated on her with other women. Chen-Hsi’s boss planned on firing her since she posed a great threat to the company’s reputation. But the only way to prove her innocence was through Danny’s phone. While he was trying to sexually harass Chen-Hsi, Danny recorded a video with his camera. Sheng-Hua managed to steal the memory card and handed it over to Chen-Hsi. She wanted to be free from all the pain since she had dedicated her entire life to her husband.
The police finally arrived and arrested him for sexual harassment. Now Chen-Hsi decided to travel back to her hometown to reconcile with her mother, and she took the first step of therapy by forgiving her family. In the other reality, Chen-Hsi imagined Hao-ming as a police officer who helped her solve the case. Meanwhile, Hao-Ming decided to contact her ex-boyfriend, Chiang Yuan. He explained all the details and the true reason behind Chen-Hsi’s behaviour. In reality, Chen-Hsi never wanted to hurt Hao-ming with her past experiences. Chiang decided to hand over the password to Chen-Hsi’s secret blog, and Hao-Ming got to know about her feelings. Things were finally getting back on track. Hao-Ming began therapy while Hao-Ming supported her by taking classes, which gave him an extensive course about dealing with people who suffered from sexual harassment.
The series ends on a good note. Initially, Hao-ming was planning on proposing to her for marriage, but she returned the ring and explained that she had imagined him as Hsiao-Liu, the police officer since he was the only person who heard and understood her in the past. In reality, Hao-ming was the one person who saved her from all the problems. She apologized to him for giving him a hard time, but Chen-Hsi also stated her preferences since she needed more time to accept her past. But Hao-ming turned out to be very supportive and promised to help her out every time she suffered from disassociation again. Here, Chen-Hsi finally accepted him, and she understood that Hao-ming would never leave her side. So, the duo will surely manage to create a future together, but for now, Chen-Hsi is finally on her way to stepping out of the darkness!
