Loved Just As I Am

By Melissa McDaniel

   We don't get to pick the traumatic events that happen in our lives, but we do get to choose how we let them write our story. In her debut release, Loved Just As I Am, Licensed Clinical Mental

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shepherd Way Press
• Release date: Jun 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9798986136509

Melissa McDaniel

First time author Melissa McDaniel holds two degrees from Northwestern University. She taught secondary school English, theatre and public speaking before joining the Development and Alumni Relations Office at her alma mater. In 1989 she was named the executive director of the Northwestern University Alumni Association, a title she decorated with several national awards for excellence in writing and fundraising. McDaniel later relocated to Florida to pursue her writing. When she's not hiking the mountains of North Carolina or watching for manatees on the Santa Fe River, McDaniel can be found relaxing with her husband and two dogs at her Gainesville home.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Right now, as you are reading this, I am terrified.

I am terrified because you are reading this.

Here I am, a blonde-haired, blue-eyed white woman writing a book about faith, love, and race, and I am scared of what you will think of me for it. I’m even more scared that the message I so desperately want to share will get convoluted or lost because of the perspective I’m telling it from. There’s not a day that goes by in my life when race isn’t a central issue. My husband is Black. My daughter is biracial. I could never know what it feels like to live life or speak experience from their perspectives. I do not pretend to be an expert on race. I do not claim to be comprehensively woke. What I am is a person who is learning more every day just how complex being a human in this world is.

I could not share this story, but I learned a long time ago how much damage fear to speak about racial difference can cause, particularly in the context of faith and love. And yet these are exactly the arenas where we should be able to talk about difference of all kinds. To this day, in my community, there is a palpable aversion to giving voice to the topic of race. Growing up, I didn’t understand, but now I can recognize that collective Shhh, we don’t talk about that as shame. I feel that shame—shame that I don’t know the words to express the truth of racial discrimination, shame that I unintentionally carry cultural prejudices and biases that my conscious mind finds repugnant, and shame that I enjoy privileges that should be universal human rights for the simple reason that I was born white.

But I will not give in to that fear. I will not perpetuate that shame. So, I hope that you will forgive me if I don’t always get it right and will continue with me on this journey of growing compassion and healing.

Shame works like the zoom lens on a camera. When we are feeling shame, the camera is zoomed in tight and all we see is our flawed selves, alone and struggling.

~Brene Brown

Shame creates self-hate and keeps people from their purpose and from love. How can you love another if you don’t love yourself? You can’t give what you don’t have. Eventually, God taught me that self-love erodes shame. Loving became my purpose.

Love breaks down barriers. Everyone is here to live out their purpose, and love leads the way. But love includes the love of ourselves, and self-love begins in the mind. I’ve learned this over the course of my forty-plus trips around the sun, but there was a time when loving myself, and knowing I needed to be madly in love with myself before I could truly love someone else, was like a continuous round of tug-o-war in my mind. When I learned how to control my mind, I became my authentic self and returned to the childlike state where believing was all that I needed to find joy and love. I became everything I was meant to be.

Believing in something higher than yourself is the most important step. Anyone looking for God/love can find Him. My own experiences, what is true for me, my relationship with God, His love, and the way He works things according to His plans are central to this book.

This memoir is long overdue. In a nation founded on Christianity, we are showing each other more hate than ever. Unlike tons of books out there, Loved Just As I Am addresses some of the issues underlying this hate—racial issues, love problems, and isolation due to shame, to name a few. The theme throughout is the need to spread love to others through connection and empathy in order to overcome our enmity. So many people go through life feeling unloved or not good enough. This book is a small pebble thrown into an ocean, but even small pebbles make ripples that radiate outward.

This is not just a book on faith; it’s the story of my journey through shame and how it has, for better or worse, made me who I am today. This is also not just a Christian book. I want it to relate to any faith, and I believe that when people search, they will find Him or the Higher Power that resonates with them. I want people to see the humanness in Him as well.

God guided me through my loving, ideal childhood of wonderful parents, close family, Baptist church, and community—all who taught me what love meant.

All that changed at age eleven when I was sexually assaulted by a teammate on my older brother’s basketball team. The painful moments in a dark hotel room when I couldn’t find the air to cry for help marked the beginning of a long and heavy walkthrough shame.

Though I wouldn’t wish any traumatic experience on anyone, the reality is that it’s in those hard times that we grow. During those times when we are physically, emotionally, or spiritually unwell, God does not judge us, and He’s always right by our side. And during those tough times, it is completely OK to ask for help from Him and others who love you. Asking for help is not shameful, undignified, or a sign of weakness in any way, shape, or form. Maybe that help is to seek counseling, maybe that help is to see your doctor, maybe that help is to ask a trusted adult for help with the situation. You don’t have to struggle alone. I wish Younger Me would have known that.

God is always with us but sometimes we need a little extra support as well.

Shame took an even deeper hold on me when, as a fourteen-year-old, I began dating an older student at my school who just so happened to be Black. That resulted in an unplanned pregnancy which ended in my choice to terminate. While my parent’s God condemned sex before marriage as a sin, my God didn’t assign shame to me. While my parent’s God viewed abortion as the killing of innocent life and I needed to repent, my God let me know His love claims me innocent by grace because I believe in Him.

Back then, and even now, I see similarities first. So, when I started dating young men of different races or ethnicities, familiarity and physical attraction came first, and the color of their skin was secondary. The fact that we had a lot in common, they made me laugh and feel special, or I just enjoyed their company guided my decisions first and foremost.

I firmly believe that there is only one race: the human race.

My adult life has not been easy either. I’ve made mistakes and bad decisions time and time again. As you will read in the coming chapters, issues like addiction, infidelity, and racial bias have given me wisdom that I truly would rather not ever need to have. But through it all, through all of my mistakes, missteps, times of selfishness, and ego, He has never left my side.

My scars continue to teach me how to help heal others. I truly feel that He wants me to share this experience with others to show that we are meant to share our pain and suffering with humanity and what we have learned through our experiences for His purpose.

If you too feel consumed by shame…

If you too lack self-love and assault yourself for your shortcomings…

If you too seek a higher power to guide your journey, I hope this book will inspire you to give yourself up to God’s love and let Him guide your path toward self-love as He did mine.

When you understand how to love yourself, love can pour out of you. Self-love erodes shame. Loving is your purpose and leads you to purpose.

My story follows my path from shame and self-hate to confidence and self-love. For me, believing in something higher than myself was the most important step. Even Thomas, one of Jesus’s disciples, was a skeptic who refused to believe until Jesus showed him his wounds.

Through my unquestionable belief in God, I learned that some of our wounds are visible and others are hidden in our minds, that pain and suffering are a part of our shared humanity.

During my early years in life, I was my own worst enemy. Even though I knew better, I continued to abuse myself with self-defeating thoughts. Thinking I wasn’t perfect or good enough, I kept myself small. To transcend such pain, I had to love myself; my scars were there so God could use them for His good.

I also have learned that everything is interconnected. When we choose to look for the good, learn from our experiences, own our story, listen from within, control our inner critic, and give love, we learn to love ourselves.

Once I tamed the chaos in my brain nearly a decade ago, I found purpose and my authentic self. Only then was I able to return to my childlike state where believing was all I needed to find joy and love, where I could imagine a world without judgment, selfishness, hatred, jealousy, gossip, or slander.

None of us has the power to change anyone else, but the person who we can change is the one looking back at us in the mirror. And that’s what I committed to doing because I knew I had a responsibility to humanity to change myself, to become everything I was meant to be. The world needed and welcomed my talents, creativity, and love, and I must choose to be a better version of myself. Self-love is our savior and yet it is the one thing overlooked by so many. Perhaps the divisiveness in the world today comes from a society projecting its own self-hatred onto others.

As of the writing of this book, I have flourished in my chosen profession as a licensed therapist in private practice for over 17 years. Having resolved my traumatic issues, I’ve been able to enjoy a level of resiliency that has given me the humility, compassion, empathy, and insight to guide others through identifying and resolving their own issues. Within my practice, I educate individuals, couples, and families on the necessity of self-growth by living a balanced life physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. As primarily a cognitive behavioral therapist, I teach cognitive restructuring to support people in changing the way they think and behave.

The thought came to me one night as I was writing the story of my life that I could offer words of encouragement, advice, and wisdom to others in a unique way, but it didn’t need to end there. I know there are many of us who wish we could go back in time to counsel and support our younger selves. As I reread the pages of my life story, older, wiser, adult me wishes I could write a letter to Younger Me and offer insight, comfort, counsel. I feel like this would not only be cathartic, but as an adult, parent, wife, and therapist, I’ve gained such wisdom, insight, and hindsight that I pray it can help those who read this book as well.

So, at the end of certain chapters, I’d like to share the hypothetical Dear Younger Me letter that I would send to my younger self during those tough times and dark moments. I will share these letters as if I was sitting across the table from my younger self sharing what my older self knows now.

I encourage you to do the same. If you could reach back in time and comfort your younger self, give your younger self a verbal hug, give your adolescent self some guidance on the next steps through a very tough time, what would you say?

For me, some of these letters might just say:

Dear Younger Me, it’s not your fault.

Dear Younger Me, please be kinder to yourself.

Dear Younger Me, listen to that nagging feeling in your gut because it’s right.

Dear Younger Me, I’m so proud that you are steadfast in your curiosity and respectful of other people. Please continue to consider, hear, and learn about marginalized individuals and groups. Please keep standing up for all human beings with love.

Dear Younger Me, I just want you to know how much I love and admire your ability to reflect and look within yourself. Never lose that gift.

Dear Younger Me, though it is hard, always take ownership of your behavior and life.

Dear Younger Me, give your parents a break. They were hard on you and mistrusting of you because of fear. They weren’t trying to belittle you, even though that’s how it felt sometimes. They were doing their best to protect you.

And so much more.

I am incredibly proud of how my story has morphed into something beautiful to share. My issue with perfectionism is always waiting in the wings though, and it pops out at times leaving me questioning or unable to make final decisions, overthinking, avoiding, or procrastinating. It’s like my brain reverts to old habits and thinks, If you say it in the most perfect way, they will get it.

But I know that is irrational because He speaks to one’s spirit often through any means. And if we don’t want to hear something, we won’t anyway. Just do your best is not always a great slogan to use with perfectionist people because the best is perfection. However, there are so many things I don’t care to be perfect at. This book is a testament to my love for Him and to show everyone how much He loves them in all their imperfection.

Please now join me on my imperfect journey from shame to self-love.

I love all who love me.

Those who search will surely find me.

~Proverbs 8:17 New Living Translation

1

MY BEGINNINGS

I am from Belmont, North Carolina. I tell you this first, because my hometown is as much of a character in this story as any person I have ever crossed paths with. I thoroughly believe that our geography, and its history, influences how we see and navigate the world.

Belmont emerged as one of the first suburban cities outside Charlotte, North Carolina. We are a southern textile town dating back to the Civil War. The first railroad track was laid in 1871 with a watering stop along the line known as Garibaldi, named after John Garibaldi, who built a watering pump tower