Memoir Co-Writing Sample

This chapter came from an unpublished memoir from a prominent Christian female influencer. Her voice was shockingly honest, down-to-earth, Southern-leaning, and aimed at connecting with those from a difficult past.

Foundational Lie: It is better to be needed than loved.

I climbed into the car parked just outside Michelle’s house with a suitcase that held everything I actually owned, or at least cared enough about not to leave behind. It wasn’t much. As the car drove away, the anxiety I briefly tamed came roaring back into view. I kept looking over my shoulder through the back window to see if Michelle’s car would appear to chase me down. Shawn’s friends lived a couple towns over from Gadsden and I could only pray the distance was far enough to keep Michelle away.

I remember the car that took me. It smelled like cigarettes and had holes in the seats where the hot ash had fallen. It was an old Saturn that had manual windows where the plastic knobs had broken off the cranks. The ceiling liner had a slight sag to it and brown spots were splattered all over the upholstery. A local hip-hop station played in the background as we drove.

Shawn’s friends were nice enough, and even though I didn’t really know who they were, they took me in. They knew and respected Shawn, so when he sent out the message to coordinate my rescue, the network of relationships Shawn had built over the years came to my aid. It probably didn’t hurt that Michelle wasn’t the most beloved figure either to his group of friends. I wondered about the favors Shawn was calling in on my account and what it cost him to make these arrangements. We didn’t say much during the ride to their place, but the further away we drove, the freer I felt. Yet, I knew I wasn’t really safe, and I wasn’t really free.

Over the span of six months, I would repeat this ritual another 10 times. It looked like Shawn wasn’t the only one with favors that needed to be paid. Michelle had her ear close to the ground, and every few weeks, word would make its way around town that she found out where I was. I had been right; Michelle wasn’t going to let me get away that easily and she was going to do everything in her power to get me back. Every time it happened, I’d get another call from Shawn with new instructions and a new set of friends to crash with. I’d pack my suitcase. Hop into the car. Drive to a new address. Same story, different couch.

But Shawn wasn’t only concerned with where I was staying or whether or not I was safe. It wasn’t long before he was so involved in the process that it seemed like he had a hand in almost everything I did. Even though his behavior would come out as a red flag later, at the time just seemed like a genuine concern for my wellbeing. He needed a girl to save and I needed a hero to rescue me, so a deal was made. I forfeited my freedom, and he secured my safety, which, at this point, was a deal I had made many times before. He kept constant tabs on me and would check in every day to see what I had been up to.

While I bounced from house to house, the only constant in my life, outside of the small number of items I kept in my suitcase, was my relationship with Shawn. And even though he was in North Carolina, he was still my confidant, my listening ear, and the one who I could unload the day’s dirty laundry on. An added bonus to this season (if you can really call it a bonus) was there wasn’t any physical boundary that either of us could cross with each other now. All we had connecting us were our conversations over the phone and a growing dream of what a shared future might look like.

Instead of talking for hours about all our regrets or what we would do once we left his parent’s house, we started to dream about a future, our future. In my mind, I saw a house like the one on Hazel Street, where I grew up. I saw our future children. I envisioned dinners at the table with laughter and peace. I imagined a life with Shawn where we shared our love freely with each other and our children. I longed for that world.

It had been almost six months since I had left Michelle’s house, and yet the fear of her unexpected arrival never left my mind. By this point, life had returned to something that resembled normal. I had a job. I had a car I could use when I needed it. I had even started renting my own apartment. Even though there was some measure of predictability, I couldn’t shake the feeling that one day, Michelle would show up and drag me back into her world. That fear tainted every moment, and even at my happiest, I knew that it was only a matter of time.

One day, I came home from work and noticed an unfamiliar car parked near the apartment. As I talked myself out of the paranoia I was feeling, I went to unlock the front door of my apartment, but when I put the keys in the handle, it was already unlocked. By this time, I knew it was too late. If it was Michelle, she already knew I was there, and if I tried to run, she knew where I lived. It was time to stop running. I opened the door to the dark apartment with my heart pounding.

“Michelle!” I yelled into the apartment as I charged in. “You better come out right-“ Smack.

I felt the sting of the back of her hand across my face as one of her ring’s caught me just beneath my eyebrow. I fell to the floor in the doorway, grabbing my face as I fell, and Michelle immediately took her place, standing over me.

“You thought you could get away with this? You thought you could play me by getting with my brother? Well, what do you think now?!” The kicks came quick and knocked the air straight out of me. I cried out a breathless groan in pain. Another kick came, this time toward my head.

“I swear, leave me again, and I promise you won’t live to see what happens!” Michelle bellowed.

I curled up to protect my ribs and face from whatever came next. I grimaced, groaned, and waited for a fist or a foot, but instead, I heard a whimper.

“I just wanted you to love me...” she sobbed. “Why did you leave me? How could you do that to me…? If you leave me again… I don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t know if I’ll make it…” Tears streamed down her face.

Looking up between my fingers, tears, and blood, I no longer saw a monster ready to rip me limb from limb, but I saw someone broken, barely keeping the pieces together. Michelle stepped back and crumbled to the ground, weeping as she went down.

__

The next day, I knew I wasn’t safe there any longer. Michelle’s mom texted me, scared out of her mind that Michelle was one weak moment away from taking my life, or worse, mine and hers. My fears were now all validated. I called Shawn and told him everything that happened, and even after being free from her for six months, the weight of Michelle’s grasp felt tighter than ever. If I stayed with Michelle, how much longer would it be until she flew off the rails again? If I left for good to be with Shawn, would we ever be safe? What was my next move? Where could we ever go? I had to escape, this time for good.

As I talked it through with Shawn, it dawned on me that there was only one place left in Gadsden where Michelle wouldn’t mess with me, but the thought of ever going back there made me sick. I couldn’t believe I was even considering going back to live with my parents. I told Shawn that I wouldn’t go without him.

“You’d have to come back. I won’t go back to that house without you.” The panic I felt started slipping into my voice. “If I go back to my parents, I won’t be safe unless you’re there. Dan won’t stop.”

I knew it was a long shot. Shawn had finally secured a solid job and was making more money than he ever thought as an ex-con. But then, Shawn said the words I wanted to hear but didn’t expect, “Ok, ok. Just calm down. I’ll come back.”

Over the next week, I packed up that same stupid suitcase again, hopped in the car, and drove back to the yellow house I had promised myself never to go back to again. Dan and my mom had cleared out the back room for me and Shawn and as I settled in, I couldn’t help but think about finally starting a life with Shawn. All the hopes I had conjured while he was in North Carolina seemed so close now. Sure, we weren’t in the right house yet, but once Shawn got back, everything was finally going to be ok. We could finally be together in a real, safe relationship full of real love.

But in the days leading up to Shawn coming back to Alabama, the fantasy I built up in my mind of what a family would look like with Shawn became less and less attractive. The funny thing is, when a fantasy is further away, it looks immaculate. With that much distance, it looks like everything you thought you ever wanted, an airbrushed version of some future you’re hoping for. You can’t (or don’t want to) see the cracks in the image you’ve painted. But when the fantasy comes near and what you thought you wanted is quickly on its way, it’s common to realize we just liked looking at the fantasy more than we wanted it to actually come true.

Dan took me to pick up Shawn from the airport. And instead of the sense of excitement I was hoping I’d feel, all I felt was the nagging sensation that I was about to be let down again. The more we drove, the more uncomfortable I felt at the thought of actually seeing Shawn again. I couldn’t place my finger on it, but it didn’t feel right. I didn’t feel right. The fantasy was too close, and the imperfections weren’t hidden anymore.

Shawn appeared out of the terminal, and I ran up to hug him but instead was greeted with the smell of alcohol on his breath and a brisk “Hey.” The car ride home was tense and quiet. We pulled up to the yellow house on the hill, and as Shawn got out, I looked at him standing in that neighborhood and realized that he fit in here. He wasn’t an outsider to this world. He wasn’t someone who could pull me out, but I wasn’t someone who was ready to accept that yet. I helped Shawn with one of his bags and showed him to the back room, which would be our small space together. He took a quick glance around, threw his bag near the bed, and collapsed onto it, telling me to get him a beer with his face buried in a pillow.

__

Looking back, I don’t know why I expected anything different. The signs were all there in brightly lit colors for me to clearly see, but when you don’t want to see what’s there, all you have to do is not look. So, I didn’t. But even though I didn’t want to see the problems in our relationship, eventually, you can’t avoid the problems anymore, and you’re forced to make a decision.

After Shawn moved into the yellow house, our relationship quickly started to fall apart. He was distant, and I was disappointed, and the fantasy I held onto only mocked the reality I was living in. I had envisioned a loving partnership, a happy family. Instead, I woke up next to an unmotivated man who seemed to resent me more and more each day. I placed an expectation onto Shawn that Shawn could’ve never lived up to, even if he’d wanted to. But more than my disappointment, the foundation that our relationship was built on had unknowingly crumbled beneath our feet.

What brought us together was my need for protection and his ability to meet that need by protecting me. Yet now, the threats from Michelle and even Dan were now minimal. I was safe and protected, and the more we settled into a life where we found ourselves needing each other less and less, the more we found ourselves growing further apart. Yet, I wasn’t ready to give up my protector. I wasn’t ready to loosen myself from the toxic co-dependency I desperately felt I needed. So, I gave our relationship a new foundation, a new reason to need each other; I got pregnant. I believed that if I had a kid with Shawn, he would see a new opportunity to protect me, to provide for me, to fulfill a role that only he could fill. He would feel needed, and he would stay.

When the pregnancy test finally showed a positive result, I couldn’t wait to tell Shawn. I surprised him with the news, but instead of the excited reaction I was hoping for, all I got in return was Shawn’s disbelief that he would have to pay for another kid to feed. The fight that followed was a thing to behold. I had gotten pregnant for him! How dare he be anything except ecstatic at the thought of starting a new family together!

Only, there was another problem. Shawn was still married. Up to this point, over the entire course of our relationship, he hid the fact that he never divorced his first wife. And as I screamed at him out of my utter frustration at his disinterest and disbelief over our firstborn child, the truth finally came out.

“I never divorced Shannon! She knew I could never pay the child support for our three kids, and so she never bothered to divorce me.” Shawn paused as we exchanged our disbelief. “We’re still married.”

The truth of Shawn’s admission cascaded down over me in waves. How had I never seen this? How did I not know? How could I have never asked? I was stunned into silence and couldn’t begin to comprehend what all this meant.

“Ashley, I never meant for you to find out. I was eventually going to divorce her!”

“How long were you going to lie to me? How long did you think I would go along?” I snapped back out of my silence, and there was a feeling of betrayal and rage in me I had never felt before. “Get the ______ out of my house.”

The fantasy had finally come close enough. I touched a picture I had built up in my mind, and the picture fell apart in front of my face. I was devastated.

For the next few days I was consumed with my disappointment, but also very aware of what Shawn’s absence meant for me. I would have to strike out on my own and would have to provide for myself and my soon-to-be-born child without Shawn’s help. At the very least, this meant I needed my own car. My mom had this old, red Saturn in the front yard that had sat there and broken down for more than a little while. I asked her if I could buy it from her if I fixed it up and she agreed without hesitating. I paid her the cost of the car and ordered the parts it needed online. Dan made his living as a mechanic, so all I had to do was order the parts, and he would fix it for me. Easy enough, right?

Within a few days, the car parts arrived at the front door. Dan fixed the car that weekend and, after putting in the new parts, fired up the engine. At that moment, it seemed like I might not need Shawn after all. I had a car. I had a job. I had a place to stay. Even being in the mess I was in, the promise of the new (to me) car seemed like the beginning of a fresh start. I squealed with happiness as it started, but my mom seemed ticked that it actually ran and stormed back into the house. The next day I asked where the title to the car was and my mom told me she lost the title.

“But the car isn’t mine unless it’s in my name, Mom!” I said, more than a little peeved at her lack of administrative organization.

“Why should I care? You paid me the money and should’ve checked if I had it before you bought that pile of crap. A deal made is a deal made. Consider this a lesson learned,” my mom said dispassionately.

“Wait. Are you seriously not going to give me back my money? What gives you the right to pull this kind of crap on your own daughter?!”

“It’s my car, and I’ll do with it as I dang, please! Oh, and by the way, this is my house, and if you don’t like my rules, then you can get out of here too!”

I walked back to that smelly back room and slammed the door as hard as I could manage. I wouldn’t stay in that house. I couldn’t stay in that house. But if I didn’t have a car, what was I going to do? Within a week, I had been betrayed by Shawn and now my own mom, all the while growing more pregnant by the day. I felt like I was strapped to a ticking bomb, waiting for it to eventually explode. I was stuck again with no good option in front of me. But I knew I couldn’t do it on my own, so I picked up the phone and called the only person who I hoped still cared enough about me to do anything.

“Shawn, I can’t stay here any longer. I need you. Come get me now.”

Shawn showed up with a U-Haul and a plan. He told me about the Outer Banks in North Carolina, told me about the job he had waiting for him, and knew about a place we could rent for cheap. It might not be the house on Hazel Street, but I thought at least it would be better than anything we would find here. The U-Haul was packed with old furniture and everything we owned. Shawn closed the door to the trailer, and we climbed into the cab, setting off to a future that didn’t exist until that day. I looked back in the mirror as we left the yellow house behind. We were leaving Gadsden, and we weren’t going back. I could never go back.

Foundational Lie – If I am needed, then I am loved

The unease I felt when we picked Shawn up from the airport never really left me. And what I didn’t know at the time was why I felt that way. All I knew was that I had this unshakeable feeling that something wasn’t right, yet I couldn’t put a name to it. But, in time, I would come to understand exactly what was going on.

Until that point in my life, if you had asked me what it meant to be loved I wouldn’t really have known what to tell you. I might’ve said something about someone feeling a certain way towards you. Maybe providing for you. And if you pressed me, I might’ve even remembered a Bible lesson or two I picked up as a little girl and told you something about God. Yet, no matter what answer I gave you, the reality was that I had no idea the answer to that question. Nothing proves that to me more than what I labeled as love from others and what I labeled as love to others.

When you grow up in a world like mine, what passes for love is often a shadow of the thing we really want. It might look like love, it might even sound like love, but if you were to shine a light on it, you would see it for what it really is. During those months in Michelle’s house, I thought I had fallen in love with Shawn and that he had fallen in love with me. Everything I knew to look for was there: someone strong who could protect me, listen to me and provide for me. He could meet my needs, but I could also meet his. I gave his life purpose and direction by being the person he could protect and provide for. I needed him; he needed me, and it seemed like he would do anything for me, even if that meant traveling across the country to keep me safe. It looked a lot like love (or at least what I thought love should look like).

But, if you boiled all those experiences down and asked them what it meant to be loved, they would say this: if I am needed, then I am loved. Somewhere along the way, I internalized a version of love that told me if I was needed by someone, or if I needed someone, then that was all I needed to know what love was. The love I knew was little more than a contract agreed upon by two parties, an agreement of what we would do for each other in the name of love.

Yet, what I didn’t know then, but what was starting to form in me during the ride to the airport that day, was a realization of a need that would take the next couple of years to understand: I needed to be loved. I needed to know what real, actual, true love was, and I needed to know what that meant beyond the labels I had lived with for so long. Even on the way to pick up the man I thought I loved, something inside of me told me that whatever was waiting for me at the airport wasn’t really love, just a shadow that looked like love.

All the while, I thought I was finally finding true love, but all I had done was create an environment that would meet both our needs, and once those needs were met, our “love” quickly faded away. What we were left with was a relationship without a foundation, now crushed under the weight of our unmet expectations. And believing the lie that what it meant to be loved was to be needed, I came up with a new reason for Shawn to need me and for me to need Shawn, a reason that would stick around for as long as I needed it, and a reason that would also conveniently need me: a baby. My solution to the problem of not receiving actual, true love was to make a baby with someone who didn’t (and couldn’t) love me! If Shawn needed a reason to love me, then I would give him a reason.

You know what the worst part was? It actually worked. As soon as there was another need for Shawn and me to meet for each other, the relationship seemed to pick up right where it left off, even if he was still technically married. The unease that I felt never left, but when you’ve got a baby on the way, let’s be honest, there’s not much time (or energy) to worry yourself over things like love. I had found a reason; I had made a need, and that’s all I needed then. And if having a baby didn’t work, I would create other circumstances that made Shawn stay.

But friends, love doesn’t need a reason. Love doesn’t ask for a reason. Love doesn’t create a reason. Love simply loves. Love is irrational in this way and stands in contrast to a culture that tells us we exist to just meet the needs of someone else. Love is lavish and extravagant in this way, going above and beyond what is necessary. Love certainly meets needs, but it doesn’t stop there; love goes beyond the need and goes beyond simply being needed.

When I felt like my relationship with Shawn was threatened, it was too much for me to bear, so I did whatever I needed to do to keep him around. I was classically co-dependent. I would self-sabotage whatever I needed so that I could be needed by Shawn. But what I didn’t understand was how as long as this was my foundation for what a loving relationship was, I would never be able to maintain that relationship without that foundation. To me, relationships based on true love weren’t possible, so I settled for simply being needed and called it love.

God Doesn’t Need Us, Yet Loves Us Still

In 1 John 4:9-11, John (the apostle, not the Baptist) answers the question of what it means to be loved. He says this:

9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

(1 John 4:9-11 NIV)

In this relationship, God doesn’t need anything from us. He isn’t asking us to do something so we can get His love, and He doesn’t make up a reason for us to need Him (that’s a need we made all on our own!). In all reality, God is perfectly content within Himself and has no need that He can’t meet Himself. So, why would He love us if He doesn’t need us? Because He has chosen to simply love us. There’s no other reason than that! God has decided to love us not because He had some reason to love us but because He is love itself (1 John 4:8).

Notice how John doesn’t say, “Love is God,” but instead, he makes it clear, “God is love.” He does this because he wants us to know that it’s God who tells us what (and who!) love actually is. If it were flipped, we would end up thinking that all our wrong ideas about love were true about God. We would decide what God was like based on whatever we’ve labeled as love. But God, using John as His messenger, wants to undo all the wrong things we’ve labeled as love by telling us once and for all what it means to be loved. “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (1 John 1:10)

God’s love for us isn’t built on anything we bring to the table. It isn’t based on what we’ve done or haven’t done. God loves out of the abundance of who He is. His love doesn’t need a reason. It doesn’t ask for a reason. It doesn’t create a reason. He loves us because He is love. Does His love meet our needs? Absolutely! Because of our sin, we are in desperate need of a Savior to be the “atoning sacrifice for our sins.” But does God love us just enough to save us? Does He love us just enough to forgive us? No, His love goes beyond just meeting our need to be forgiven. He lavishes His love on us extravagantly, without ever thinking about if He’ll ever run out, because He can’t run out. This love, God’s love, goes beyond the need and comes after our heart.

It’s this kind of love that goes beyond our needs and now becomes the new foundation on which our relationships are built. Read verse 11 again, “Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” Not only does God give us a new definition of love by the love He’s shown us, but He gives us a new foundation for the love we can share with others; a love that truly loves without a false label. Just as God has loved us in this extravagant way, not needing us but loving us still, He now invites us to love others in this same way. In God’s love, we can finally, really love others and finally know what it means to really be loved.

Stopping the Cycle

For most of my life, I couldn’t understand a love like this. I couldn’t fathom a love that didn’t involve some measure of co-dependency where I wasn’t needed just as much as they needed me. It didn’t make sense for someone to just love me because they did. But then Braiden was born.

When I held him in my arms for the first time as he cried, there was a love for him that went beyond understanding. It was a love that would do anything and go anywhere, a love that would protect and defend at all cost, a love that would sacrifice without expecting anything else in return. This was love, not that Braiden loved me, but that I loved Braiden and would do anything so that he could know my love. I knew from the moment I saw him that there was nothing he could do to ever make me love him less, and there was nothing he could do to make me love him more. My love for him was lavish and extravagant. Although I didn’t have the language for it then, I now know that this love was the first real moment I experienced a love that was real and true. Braiden absolutely needed me (and trust me, he still does!) but my love for him went beyond just meeting his needs and was after his heart.

Have you ever experienced a love like this? Or are you like I was, labeling things as love that are just cheap imitations of the real thing? What are the real foundations of your relationships? What do you think it means to be loved? For so many years, I was caught in a cycle of codependency but labeled it as love. It wasn’t until I experienced a love that went beyond my need that I knew that relationships could be based on anything else. But we don’t have to be needed to be truly loved. If God’s love teaches us anything, it’s that He didn’t need us but loved us still, so we are free from the burden of needing to be needed. We’re free to love others without conditions to be met or needs to be fulfilled. We can love because He loved. And this love is all we need.