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.