The Emotional Roller Coaster of The Foster Parent Process

I am writing to you from my corner chair, enjoying my sunny view of downtown Fort Worth. I am sipping a cup freshly poured from my french press and soaking up the fondness that are my slow mornings I have come to cherish. 

Lately in my slow morning routine, I have begun wondering, or maybe dreaming about what it will be like when this time is spent changing diapers, or chasing around a toddler, or taking my spot in the school dropoff line.

I have already started loving the little humans that will live here temporarily. I wonder what their names will be, what their little faces will look like, and what it will be like learning how they need to be loved, what they need to feel safe. I am already grieving for them and what they are experiencing, likely right now as I am writing this. My heart feels open and soft, a million times bigger than it should be. It feels kind of natural, almost like this is just another extension of how I value showing up in this world. 

On the other hand, I look around my life and see everything I have ever wanted, finally free after what feels like a lifetime of fighting for it, and I can’t help but wonder…am I crazy for doing this?

I am writing this after a week of feeling better, grounded, and supported. But I was so shocked a few short weeks ago at how the emotional rollercoaster already started. I was not expecting how much grief would be triggered throughout the training process, or how hard the realization would hit me that quite everyone in my life would be affected by this. 

2-3 weeks ago I was absolutely wrecked with guilt, disappointment, and grief. It was hitting me from so many different angles, I felt like I just couldn’t stop crying.

I was hit with guilt that I was signing up everyone around me to do something hard, just because I was. It occurred to me for the first time how much my capacity would change, and how having a traumatized kid living with me might change my relationships with people. It started triggering my abandonment issues, and I started to wonder if I was going to find myself alone in the middle of this. 

I felt disappointed at how disconnected I felt from a lot of the people around me, and even though I knew it wasn’t rational, I started fearing that I had wasted so much of my life investing in people who weren't going to invest back into me.

I felt grief for a lot of reasons. For the past versions of my life that I had to walk away from, for the people who aren’t a part of my life anymore, for what it cost me to be happy and healthy. For the shock I still feel when I remember certain things I’ve been through or have been done to me. For having to write down the classifications and dates of every time I’ve experienced abuse, like it was some casual written math problem, as homework. For the things I can’t unsee, and the weight of other people’s secrets that I keep, and for all the times I’ve been a safe place for the people who were not safe places for me. And for being the kind of person who will never stop opening her heart up to people no matter what it costs, but understanding exactly what it costs, all too well. 

I cried early morning-before work over tea with a friend, I cried through my phone screen to many safe faces. I cried on a walk by the river with a neighbor, I cried when 4 of my family members attended a horrible 2 hour respite care training on zoom to support me. And in a living room, after the kids fought all night over who would sit in my lap and we put them to bed, I cried with the grief literally shaking out of me just because my friends took the time to ask me the hard questions. I feel like I cried all over Fort Worth those two weeks, my tears watering the safe spaces for my future placements to grow with me.

And in my most triggered state, one of the many sweet messages I received really stuck with me: “You’re dredging up a lot of emotions going through this process, and in a way every emotionally intelligent parent does and has lots to come to terms with when having kids. So these are all good things and signs of growth! 

So, what helped start to ground me was realizing that I could be doing probably anything major in life right now (getting married, having a bio kid, moving away, etc) and probably be experiencing a variety of these same emotions. And the point of healing isn’t to be unaffected or invincible, but to be able to self-regulate, feel without judgment, and move through it. And so, I did. (And hey, would it really be me if there wasn’t at least one menty b involved??)

Thank you to every single person who supported me emotionally through those couple of weeks, and to my family for sacrificing your time and resources to support me through this journey. It means more to me than I can say, and I pretty much cry about it once a day. (lol)

Anyway, even through all of that !! I finished all of my agency training except “Training 3” that I will have to make up the next time it comes around in October. My CPR training is scheduled for the 20th (Which my younger brother and big sister will be joining me at, which also makes me want to cry !! You can see the trend that pretty much everything in this whole process makes me want to cry lol) I’ve turned in about 95% of my paperwork and homework, and I’ve completed 7/9 of my online training courses. I will be getting my TB test this week, and after that I will get to schedule my Health and Fire Safety Home Study. To stay on track, I am hoping to complete all of this by the end of this month. (It's getting real!)

After that, the biggest next step is my official Home Study which can take 2-4 hours. This is where they will inspect the home but also interview me. To stay on schedule to be officially licensed by the end of November with consideration of all my fall travel, I will need to complete this by the first or second week in October. 

So far my agency and my respite support are all on track to meet this licensing timeline goal and I am feeling really excited and grateful. And often scared too, but as my friend Katherine always says, “Do it afraid” so I tell myself that often these days. 

Thank you to the bottom of my heart for following along this crazy journey I put my own self on. You can always hit reply with any questions you have! 

As Noah Kahan says, “You’ve got all my love”

Faith 

Want to support me on my foster care journey? Here are some ways you can get involved. Also, feel free to subscribe to my newsletter for consistent updates regarding my foster care journey.

Many people have asked me how they can support me without going through the respite/babysitting process, here are my biggest needs:

• Day of Shoppers: I need a team of day of shoppers who will be able to go to the store and shop for essential needs. Most of the time placements come with very little notice, and the last thing you want to do is take them to the grocery store the day they arrive. I’ll need people who can go get essentials for me to get through the first 1-3 days, depending on the type of placement. (I.E. A 4 year old boy might need clothes, snacks, toys, overnight pull ups, or an infant girl might need diapers, wipes, clothes, etc.) It was suggested to have several of these because not everyone will be available every time, and it also shares the load when there are several people.

• Sign up to be notified for mealtrains. During the first few days the amount of appointments we have to get the placements within the first 72 hours can be overwhelming, so not having to worry about cooking is apparently a huge help! You can do this through filling out my connect form or contacting me directly.

Thank you!

Happy Pride Month

This one is a special one, and it's one that's been on my heart all month. 

Since my best friend, Austin, came out, Pride has become a very important time of year for me. 

When one of our loved ones, or anyone, comes out, we are faced with a choice. We can open our arms to them with love and support, or we can recite our one interpretation of doctrine at them and disguise our rejection of them as love. 

I have done both.

As many of you know, I grew up in many conservative evangelical environments. But the idea of queerness being wrong, or “sinful” always bothered me. I remember sitting in my car as a young teenager, with a friend who was like a little brother to me. He was gay and everyone knew he was gay, even as a kid. But I remember him telling me as we were both teenagers, that he would “have to marry a woman one day and have kids with her.” The idea of it made my soul ache and alarm bells were going off in my spirit. I think the only answer I had as a teen was “There has to be other options, that can’t be your life.”

One time when I was working in ministry, I was asked to counsel a woman who had started dating another woman. I was extremely uncomfortable and at the time, I didn’t fully understand why. I asked many times for support to the people I reported to, because ultimately, I was being asked to defend a belief system I didn’t really agree with, as a job duty. (At that point, this concept was regrettably a normal part of my life). But I remember this instance being extremely conflicting for me internally, especially because I knew I was being a hypocrite in many areas of my own life, and had no business telling this other human who they should love. I eventually told the woman that ultimately only she could make her life decisions, that she needed to be meeting with an actual licensed therapist as I was not one, and that I would always be her friend. But I also had to tell her that even though they would never tell her she couldn’t attend services, eventually she would be removed from membership and likely asked to step down from where she was serving. I was extremely unwell mentally and emotionally at that point of my life, traumatized and further from God than I have ever been, but I was not a good leader to her, and more than anything, I was not a good friend. I have many regrets that haunt me about that time of my life, but this is one of the biggest. I have since apologized and she has graciously forgiven me, and in truth, she has been a much better Christian to me, than me to her. 

When Austin and I became friends, I knew he was gay. He was not “out” but he was open about his “struggles.” We still talked about the girls he was going to ask out, debriefed about his dates, and I support his choice at the time but always told him I just wanted him to be happy. We also shared our internal conflicts about the belief systems we had at the time, and the God we knew and loved. We became close friends fast, and although we’ve really only been friends for about 4 years, he’s the kind of friend that makes it feel like we’ve known each other our whole lives.

For me, I was on my own journey of coming out when we met, I was going through the very long and painful process of accepting the truth I had known for a long time, which was that I was never going to be what that environment wanted me to be. And all the things they were so afraid of…all the actual beautiful parts of me that God made, were the best parts of me and deserved to be celebrated and free. As Austin learned to love his authentic self, it gave me the freedom to learn how to love my authentic self, too.

The thing is, when you are in an environment where there is only one valid way to interpret things, only one version of who you are allowed to be, when “die to self” becomes a way to gaslight your own God given intuition to know, feel, believe, experience, and interpret love and spirituality, there will always be victims. 

We know that the Bible has historically been used to oppress, and culture has repeatedly shaped our interpretations, leaving them often rooted in hierarchy and power versus the actual teachings of Jesus. 

We know that the Bible was written at a time when women were quite literally property. The bible often describes the culture at the time, even as law. I can’t even go down the list of vile awful ways women were treated in bible times. But when you look at Jesus’ life on earth, he spent much of his time elevating women back to where he created them to be. He spent much of his time including women into his own ministry, and yet, here we are in 2024, still teaching that women can’t preach because despite Jesus himself, our culture has taught us that patriarchal structures are what's “biblical” (Funny that Jesus didn’t participate in the patriarchal household system, and in fact, because he was a single man, he wouldn’t be allowed to pastor, let alone lead a home group in many evangelical churches today. These ironies constantly kill me!)

The Bible was also the main source that white christian’s used to own black people as slaves. It was also the tool they used in our own American history uprooting and tourmenting Nativate Americans. Because when you believe your one interpretation is superior, and that you are the only holder of “truth” that belief system leads us to things like murdering, stealing land, and all other forms of taking agency from others. It was also us white christians who stole their children from them, ripping black and brown families apart since the founding of our country. A bible in one hand, and a gun in the other. (Sound familiar?)

I hope we all agree that this is the epitome of taking God's name in vain, actual abominations of absolute evil, but can also recognize that there is a clear pattern of misinterpreting God’s word as a tool for oppression. And just like with the rejection of the LGBTQ+ community now, those were all cultural norms at the time. There were verses to justify it, religious people to debate it, and an ideal that conforming and controlling others somehow pleased or glorified god.

When I was leaving evangelicalism, I heard a lot of fear around how culture “in the world” would shape me if I wasn’t rooted in evangelicalism, and the “dangerous trajectory” I was on. I knew at the time, I KNEW the things I was saying sounded crazy to the people around me. I knew they were afraid of me and afraid of the things I was saying. But the fear…so much fear. It's the main reason I couldn’t do it anymore. If we REALLY believe the gospel, really believe what we say we believe, why the hell was everyone around me so afraid of people not doing exactly what they think we should be doing? There are 1471308471380 interpretations of the same scripture, but if I don’t believe there is no gray area, and your one interpretation is the ONLY truth, I’m the scary one? 

When Austin called me and officially “came out” to me, he was also leaving evangelicalism. I will never forget what he said to me. He said, “Faith, I’ve tried everything. I’ve done everything they’ve told me to do, everything they’ve asked of me. I’ve done everything. It doesn’t work. If I keep doing this, I am going to die. Besides dying there is only one other option to try. I’m going to be me. I am going to just be gay.”

Before Austin came out, he would often have periods of time where he would disappear. Between his battle with depression, shame cycles, “addiction” and more, he would sometimes disappear and then a few weeks later, resurface. Since coming out, Austin has been consistent, steady, and present. He is objectively a much healthier version of himself in every way, including all “addiction” have magically disappeared. I have never seen him happier or more himself. He is truly living his BEST life in every way and fills me with SO MUCH joy and PRIDE. There is not a single person on this planet that could convince me that the transformation I’ve seen with my own eyes doesn’t fill any good God with joy, too. 

Watching this transformation has truly changed me. I cannot for the life of me fathom telling someone that because of your specific interpretation of religion, you believe they should spend the rest of their life wishing they were dead instead of being LGBTQ+. Because at the end of the day, that is what is being asked of them.

At this point in my life, I cannot fathom continuing to defend american christianity as every month we hear another story about how a pastor has sexually abused a child or a woman, but somehow we aren’t capable of considering that maybe, maybe we got it wrong again when it comes to our anti-gay theology, and maybe that doctrine, yet again, was actually influenced by culture and NOT by Jesus’ teaching. (which by the way…Jesus himself didn’t say one thing about LGBTQ+ people…)

I have never felt more connected to God’s character, his love, and his heart/intentions than when I started loving people for who they are, instead of trying to conform them to who I believed they were supposed to be. I truly wish everyone could experience the freedom to truly love people, because nothing is more worthwhile in this life.

If you are unsure what to believe, I hope you’ll consider three things. 

1. Jesus didn’t spend his time on earth trying to convince people how right he was. I’m really not sure why american christianity is so obsessed with it. Jesus asked questions, he listened, and he loved people. He hung out with all the people that the religious people hated. If he were alive today, he would be at Gay Pride Parade, he would be having dinner with a transwoman, he would be at the border feeding the immigrants trying to cross our borders, he would be at parties with the people who wouldn’t dare step foot through the doors of our churches. Would you still love and follow him?

2. If you have been led to believe there is only one interpretation of the bible and what it means, you have been lied to. It's simply, objectively not true. If that were true, there wouldn’t be multiple denominations. If something you’ve been led to believe doesn’t make sense or match up with who you know God to be, please listen to your intuition. There is only one thing in religion that truly scares me at this point in my life, and it's any religious leader who believes they’ve got it all figured out.

3. Please consider deconstructing the things you’ve been taught that are “loving”. It is not, under any circumstance or belief system, loving to tell someone you believe they should spend the rest of their life wanting to die. It is not loving to make friendship conditional on your religious beliefs. It is not loving to only love people when they live the way you think they should live. These things are actually so harmful, and real love, true pure love doesn’t harm. 

It is up to us to stand up to the narratives we’ve been fed, it is up to us to see the humanity in people and stop trying to make them fit into our hypothetical doctrines. It is up to us to stop letting men who are also victims to a broken society provide our only definition of “godly” …and I hope you will. Because it is beautiful out here in the “world” where most of us are simply enjoying the life God gave us, loving people, and finally feeling safe in our bodies. 

Happy Pride to you all, it is a joy to celebrate this special month. If you are queer and you share your life with me, please know that I am proud of you and honored to be a safe person in your corner. 

If you’re reading this, and I wasn’t a safe person for you in the past, I am deeply, deeply sorry. Please know that I am rooting for you, loud and proud now.

And Happy Pride to my best friend, Austin. Your bravery, resilience, kindness, and generosity are a few of my favorite things about you. Thank you for coming out. Thank you for living authentically. Thank you for not giving up on yourself or your happiness. You inspire me everyday. 

-Faith, a regrettable heterosexual 

P.S. If sexuality was a choice you know I would NOT have chosen men. Please pray for me regarding my unfortunate attraction to men no matter how many of them on this planet utterly traumatize me!

Deeper Well.

“You can’t just sit there and put everyone’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love.”

This is a quote from one of my favorite books from highschool, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Funny enough, I went on for years doing just as the quote says not to. 

When I was 18 years old, two months shy of graduating High School, my dad had a massive stroke. He didn’t die, but the version of him I knew did die that day. My mother’s priorities shifted to keeping him alive, and life as we all knew it, at least that version of life, died that day too. 

There is no one to blame and it's nobody’s fault, but this started in me a trauma response in my brain from abandonment. Over the years, the abandonment wound grew with more experiences and new faces, until eventually a flip switched in me. 

I learned how to be the hyper-independent in codependent relationships, putting me in the position to make myself feel “irreplaceable” to the people around me. Earning their love with every need I could meet, not even needing to be asked. I just knew. I knew exactly what each person in my life needed, and I knew how to meet it. And to be honest, it worked. And to be honest, I was great at it. 

And while we are being honest, there are many people who are mourning that unhealthy version of me now. The version of me who met all their needs and never asked for anything in return. She settled for crumbs, and treated those crumbs like a feast. She was praised for how well she inserted herself, never needing much in return, and how very useful she was. 

It was until one day, I woke up in more codependent relationships than I could possibly keep up with, recognizing a pattern, and wondering how I ended up there? I had collected so many people that needed me, that felt entitled to me, I felt chronically suffocated and emotionally distraught. I was in so many relationships that I had identified as unhealthy, was absolutely gutted by how I was being treated in them, but was also terrified to move.

I had to take a look in the mirror and take responsibility for what my part in it was, and then I remembered…“You can’t just sit there and put everyone’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love.”

The scariest thing I ever did was step out of that pattern. I looked so many people in the eye and said “I can’t be this version of myself anymore, it's killing me. Will you still love me even if I let go of the version of myself that has been trying to earn your love?”

I had to apologize to my codependent partners, I had subconsciously been manipulating them not to abandon me. Not giving them the option to stay or go, not even giving them the option to love me for the right reasons. I remember telling someone specifically that I had to start showing up in the world authentically, and letting each person choose for themselves if they wanted to love me or not. 

It seems so simple, but when you have an abandonment wound, it is the most vulnerable thing. 

I think anytime you shift from a state of unhealthy to healthy, it is vulnerable.

For me, this was another way of life, no matter how unhealthy it might have been, my perceived safety was dead again. 

Today, talking with a friend, I had this analogy pop into my head. It was really more of an image, it was me or it was you, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, only it was like this one scene was a picture of all of life. And every person who “left” was like a physical weight unlocking, falling off, so that we could evolve just a little bit higher, take up a little more space. It was a picture of painful relief, grief and gratefulness all at once. 

Though in my core, I feel like exactly the same person, the last two years in many ways I have transformed into somebody totally new. Somehow coming home to myself and evolving beyond all of me at the same time. 

A huge part of that has been allowing all the relationships in my life their own autonomy, not just in reality but also in my own cognitive perception, every single person has the freedom and right to leave my life at any time. Why they choose to leave may or may not have anything to do with me, but it's not my job to try to understand it if they don’t have the care to explain it to me before they go. And whether a person chooses to stay or go, does not alter how I choose to show up in the world.

I no longer look at my relationships as something I have to keep at all costs. In fact, I have seen how much better life is when you are not in relationship with people who you have to convince you are worth loving. Learning to let people go has been one of the most peaceful, satisfying lessons. The waves of sweet relief and deep grief have become a healthy flow in my life.

On the flipside, I do believe it is a privilege to be a part of my life, to have access to me, and to be loved by me. I hold myself to a very high standard in how I treat all humans in the world, but especially the people closest to me. Through healing my abandonment wound, I have gained the self respect to hold the people in my life to some of those same standards. I have taken the time to define my non-negotiables when it comes to my relationships, and how to let others decide for themselves if they want to meet them or not. (Though I have to be honest, I’ve never had to even ask those closest to me…the ones who show me true love every day. The ones who have redefined what love even means.) And through this self respect, I am no longer afraid to hold people accountable to how they treat me, and if need be, walk away. 

I am responsible for my own life, and only mine, and it's my job only to make decisions for my life, and that's true for everyone else too about their own life. 

I have taken the time over the years to learn how to receive love and how to give it, in pure and healthy ways. I have taken the time to forgive, honor, and cherish the version of myself that kept herself safe, even in ways that weren’t healthy and caused me pain. I’ve taken the time to practice empathy to the ones that loved an unhealthy version of me so deeply, who aren’t able to see the healthy version of me as good…how it must have felt like betrayal when I was no longer willing to give them the version of me that felt like a home to them. I feel so deeply for them what they lost in my own growth and healing, and also what they lost when they couldn’t figure out how to love this version of me too. 

But there is nothing and no one in the world I could trade this version of me for. The one who gets to be fully free, so sure of the people around me, who I get to love freely because I’m no longer subconsciously convincing them to keep me. Life is so beautiful, peaceful, full, and I made friends with my grief, always giving it a place to rest when it passes through, because I know its a part of rising, evolving, and growing.

So remember, “You can’t just sit there and put everyone’s lives ahead of yours and think that counts as love.” You have to actively participate in this life, learning how to both give and receive love from people, in all our messy ways. And the painful truth is that outgrowing some people along the way is a part of living, an unfortunate necessary part if you choose to grow. It comes with grief, but it also expands your capacity for love as you transform into more of who you were created to be.

In the words of Kacey Musgraves, “I’ve found a deeper well.” And I can say, there is so much life waiting for you.

Yes Woman

I’m writing to you from a coffee shop in South Berkeley.

The barista who took my order told me she loved my style, and the one who handed me my drink told me that my outfit was cute. I’m wearing my thigh highs paired with my over-the-knee black boots, a bright green oversized sweater, and a denim mini skirt. My hair is curled and I put on a soft layer of my Lana Del Ray branded lipstick. 

I’ve been romanticizing this day in my head since the moment we booked this trip. I gave myself a single day off, while my sister, who I’m traveling with, is still in her business meetings. I knew I would wear a cute outfit, drink an excellent cup of coffee, and finally make time to write. And I know, perhaps more than anymore, that when you say “Yes”...almost anything can happen next.

My sister Hannah was the first one who crowned me with the term “Yes Woman” and I’ve kept it close to my heart all these years. 

I am a Yes Woman. The word “Yes” is a powerful word, it's both easy and hard to say, depending on the context. Sometimes we say it when we shouldn’t or when we don’t mean it, but that's called something else. That's called people pleasing, and I’ve held that title before too, but that's one I've left behind. 

I’ve learned the hard way to always take a moment to check in with myself before saying “Yes” to make sure my yes is coming from the right place. “No” is also a powerful word, and knowing when to use it is an important part of being a Yes Woman. I’m told often that I say yes more than most people would, probably more than I should, but I can only say yes because of how many times in my life, leading me up to this season of my life, I’ve also been brave enough to say no. I view both words as an opportunity, but “yes” is a word we get to say, “no” is one we have to say.

In December, I left off telling you about defining success in my life.

One thing about me, I am almost always considering my future self, thinking about what she wants, how she’ll feel, how she’ll feel about ME now and the choices I am making for her. I never make any kind of big life decision without considering her. I think this came from going through Lyme treatment, every choice I made, all the misery I endured was for her to live this life. My current life. I am living all her dreams, I thank that past version of me every single day for what she did for me, what she gave me. I can’t help but think about what other dreams my other future versions might have…the spirit of ”Anything is Possible” flows in my blood now, where the Lyme used to live.

So, I always thought I was going to die young, but now, it seems I’ll live a long long time. And at some point a couple of years ago, through a lot of life transitions and future altering choices, I thought about my future self on her deathbed. Old and gray, reflecting on her life, these years I’m living now, and all the ones I’ve yet to live, what would she be proud of? What would she want to hear about her impact from the people she loved most, as they were saying their goodbyes?

I am a Yes Woman. I said “Yes” to this life, to keep living it, to the way I live it now. And it led me to beautiful places, to beautiful people, and when I say yes it is a good I put in the world that always finds its way back to me. 

And at the end of my days, I hope what I’ve achieved continues to look a lot like that. 

And that people felt safe to call when they needed to, and they knew they would be helped, knew they’d have a place to go, knew they’d have arms to hold them. 

I know how I want to spend my time, my resources. I know the impact I want to make, my abilities to do so, and the adventures it will lead me on. I know I’ll feel the whole spectrum of this human life, carry grief that isn’t mine sometimes, be a part of things I never would have had access to otherwise, and make friends with new people every single day.

I’ll let people into my life, and some of them will betray me, hurt me, leave me, but I won't regret them, because I was pure and true to myself, to my values. 

And saying yes, it doesn’t hold me back, it propels me forward, even sometimes when I’m not ready to go, it evolves me. Saying yes brings spiritual awakenings, community, and the shattering of old narratives that aren't true, that are keeping you stagnant.

I’ve learned what I need, I’ve learned how to take care of me, how to let those around me love me the way I need to be loved. I let them fill me up, I let my cup overflow, not sometimes, but all the time. I walk around this life knowing my cup deserves to be overflowing, I expect it to. And so I give. Generously, though strategically, I let my cup overflow to whoever is next to me, wherever I am. And I move through the world free and open, ready to receive whatever it has for me, never afraid of running out of what's mine. 

I can’t imagine a richer life. 

Now I’m on to the rest of my romantic day, saying yes to whatever adventures present themselves to me…and living. Really living. Thanks for stopping in for a few moments with me.

November and Success

At the beginning of November, I felt this restless pull.

It felt like I couldn’t keep my feet planted where they were even if I wanted to. I’d come too far, knew too much, my spirit wouldn’t let me stay in unhealth. 

For almost 2 years, my life has been a consistent theme of “moving on” and “out growing” things. A lot of my healing has been needed because of staying with people and places too long. I spent the last year of my 20’s breaking cycles. Breaking cycles, to your brain, feels much like withdrawal from addiction. It physically hurts, it's actively rewiring your neuropathways against everything that feels safe, normal, depriving yourself of your coping and defense mechanisms, for a chance to heal.

I’ve been thinking a lot about something my therapist said in our last session together before I “graduated” from EMDR. She told me, “I’m confident you’ll never let anyone treat you that way ever again.” 

The beginning of November, I looked at a path ahead of me filled with moral injury, and I knew. I knew I could never betray my values, never betray myself again, never allow someone to redefine my self respect. 

And so I chose a different path, and in turn, a new path was chosen for me. And it is exactly where I needed to be. 

I have come a long way these last two years. I’ve ran, walked, crawled, whatever it took to forgive myself, to trust myself again, to come home to myself and define who I am. And I am so proud of who I am and where I’ve ended up. 

And so, I could no longer entertain the idea of coexisting in any place that asked me to leave my values at the door. I’ve come too far for that. 

I don’t want to spend any more of my time, any more of my life in spaces who ask me to “care less”. Caring is one of my biggest super powers. It's a part of who I am. I will nurture it always.

And in the moment I realized the repercussions of choosing this, I looked across the table from me and saw someone miserable. And in that moment I thought, “I am happy, even now. This should be a bad moment in my life, but I am at peace with myself…I am happy, and free, and confident. And I’d rather be in my seat than theirs, any day of the week. I know I am good, and kind, and loving, and full of integrity, and I’m confident in where that will lead me next.”

When I caught myself thinking this, I also found myself filled with gratitude. Because I know, always, that I am going to be okay. I found a peaceful home, a healthy nervous system, a well-built sturdy life, and now a steadiness lives inside me. It stays with me everywhere I go. 

And no amount of money, status, title, or lifestyle could ever make me trade it. 

Before November, and all its transitions, I had someone tell me that “truly successful people only care about themselves” they told me that my care for other people was “immature” and I would only truly be successful if I only cared about myself. Now, there might be some truth in this, as in, if success was defined by how much money I can gain and keep in my own pockets. But one of the driving forces that pushed me to this transition was defining for myself what “success” looked like in my life. 

I’ll share more on that next time. Thanks for reading, and Happy December. 

Deconstruction.

Is there anything more fitting than another white millennial female blogging about deconstruction? In a post evangelical world, after almost 10 years of therapy, it was the obvious next step. (At least I have a sense of humor.)

To some, “deconstruction” is a dirty word, but the truth is, I’ve been deconstructing since I was 18 years old.

I was 18 years old, 2 months shy of graduating highschool, when I became a single woman without her “fathers headship.” At that point in my life, it was not even my choice, simply the reality I found myself in, and I quickly realized that “The Church” didn’t have a place for a woman in my position. They didn’t have a category for a woman like me. 

It has been an unlearning and a relearning ever since, never once about the validity of God himself. Instead, the healthy questioning of what men in power within patriarchal spaces had taught me to believe about him. 

I believe deconstruction is a holy pursuit, a spiritual awakening, courageous, and beautiful. 

It has been made clear to me that to some I am no longer a “godly woman.”  I could never quite be tamed enough to meet the standard, who I am and my trajectory is something to be feared now. 

All I know is that I did try everything. I did everything I was supposed to do to be the conservative evangelical “godly woman.” Surely I deserve an olympic medal for the mental gymnastics, the way I morphed myself into the ever changing mold, carrying on for years even though I could never make myself fit. Until one day I looked up, and found myself further away from God than I had ever been in my life.

I followed those I was told to follow. They told me I’d be safe, happy, healthy, holy, loved. I “submitted” myself to them, every piece of me, one by one until I could no longer recognize myself in the mirror anymore. When this felt wrong to me, I was reminded that “losing yourself is holy, and finding yourself is worldly.”

So I kept going. I kept following until I couldn’t remember the last time I felt safe to enjoy Jesus, the one I was supposed to be doing it all for. I could not recognize myself, I could not recognize God, I was living in a constant state of anxiety, depression, and even dissociated from my body so I could continue to stay. Still, I was “difficult.” I felt absolutely insane. I felt so crazy it was easy to believe that I was difficult, that I was the problem.

I spent years hitting my head against the wall, picking myself apart, being told I was loved unconditionally, while the conditions were in fact like a crown of thorns on my head that I was supposed to pretend hadn't been placed on my head. And my face was covered in blood, and I was bruised from head to toe, and nobody seemed to noticed as long as I behaved. And I bore it. I thought it was my job to do so. I bore it beautifully. Until I couldn’t anymore.

What a betrayal this was to them, for me to be so utterly broken and so desperately desperate for Jesus, that I had to give it all up, everything I had built my life around, for a chance to be right with God again. To break the codependency, to feel safe in my body again, and to trust in what God was telling me more than the voices of those around me were saying. I was somehow brave enough (or maybe just desperate enough) to risk being wrong, to risk being misunderstood and unloved. To risk being left, for a chance to come home to myself again.

I’ve never in my life made a holier decision. I’ve never in my life been a godlier woman. 

I wish I could describe the level of devastation that comes from spending years of your life changing yourself to be loved, believing the people you’re told to believe, altering yourself each time they tell you to, only to realize years later, after completing striping yourself of everything you once loved about yourself, that you were never the problem. When you look around after giving quite literally all you had, and realizing it was never going to be enough. You were set up to fail from the beginning, there was never a category for you in the broken system.

I have spent the last 2 years of my life forgiving myself for that level of self abandonment, building and learning how to trust my own self again. I’ve spent the last 3 years of my life breaking cycles, unlearning and healing from a whole life of bad theology, and correcting the hyper-independant trauma responses in myself that contributed to building so many codependent relationships.

The people who have always loved me for me, and not just what I provided for them, have remained some of my closest friends; our relationships unwavered by what secondary theologies I no longer subscribe to. I have also developed many new friendships that have only affirmed to me that I was never asking for too much. I was not being difficult.

Healing out loud, sharing what God is showing me, has always been a part of my life. When I hit a certain point in my deconstruction process, I was asked to stop sharing publicly. For two years, as I’ve designated all my resources to healing, I still allowed a part of me to be dictated by control and fear. Finally, finally, I am not afraid anymore. There is nothing else I can lose, nothing else that could be said or taken. Nothing else I could give or prove. I am just here, open, honest, and raw, finally unafraid to use my voice again.

But I am free. And the world outside isn’t evil after all, it isn’t scary. It's filled with kindness, and peace. It's filled with faith that doesn’t harm. It's filled with regulated nervous systems and life changing friendships with people who make you feel so easy to love. It's filled with light, and loving who you are, and not hiding to fit in or be accepted. It's filled with freedom to live, freedom to enjoy, freedom to love and to know and learn and grow. It's so full, my heart could burst, and every day I take in all my deep breaths, grateful I’m no longer gasping for air. My hands and feet finally doing the work they were created to do.

In the words of queen Taylor Swift: “From sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes, I gave my blood, sweat, and tears for this. I hosted parties and starved my body, like I'd be saved by a perfect kiss. The jokes weren't funny, I took the money, my friends from home don't know what to say. I looked around in a blood-soaked gown, and I saw something they can't take away. There were pages turned with the bridges burned, everything you lose is a step you take.”

And still, I grieve with that 18 year old girl, that version of me that realized for the first time that something was wrong about the “truth” she had been told. I grieve with her now while writing this, and I know that my God grieves with her too. And wherever you are in your deconstruction journey, I want you to know that there is space for all your grief, but there is also so much joy waiting for you.

Thanks for reading, if you made it this far.

P.S. I highly recommend seeing a licensed therapist if you are deconstructing your faith. Talk therapy and EMDR were necessary in my recovery, and such helpful tools.