Rebuilding: After Deconstruction

In January of last year I became pretty ill with an unexplained set of symptoms. My immune system was compromised and I was unable to function at my normal level. I was in and out of work, in bed a lot, and had no clear diagnosis to decide on a course of treatment. I also had a vague set of symptoms including chronic fatigue, nausea, and nerve pain. It took several months of doctor’s visits and trial and error to find out I was intolerant to a lot of different foods.

Over the course of the next few months I began avoiding those foods and introducing new ones that would strengthen my immune system and heal my body. As I began to feel better, there were moments where I felt better than I ever had before. I was startled to know that my previous baseline meant that I had actually been sick for a very long time. Had my body not crashed, I never would’ve realized how sick I had become, because I didn’t know anything else.

This experience provided a rich metaphor for the journey of deconstruction to rebuilding. It often takes a painful, and dramatic, deconstruction process, one filled with confusion, doubt, questioning, and fear to help us see ourselves as we really are, without thinly veiled disguises. Sometimes, it takes us being incapacitated, physically or emotionally, to understand where we’re really at in our lives.

It takes that realization, at in intellectual and emotional level, to motivate us to discover the rebuilding process. However, our ability to rebuild is directly proportionate to our awareness of what has happened to us. In my sickness, it took getting an accurate diagnosis to be able to figure out how to heal my body. In counseling, that accurate “diagnosis” of ourselves is complicated by the fact that it’s painful when we’re honest with ourselves and others about what’s going on. But it takes that kind of honesty to move towards rebuilding.

Rebuilding also requires the courage to take risks, and the willingness to be present with an enormous amount of emotional tension while we take those risks. Rebuilding may mean making dramatic life changes, like the one I had to make last year (eliminating a majority of foods in my diet). Other dramatic life changes could be switching jobs, going back to school, telling a loved one something so honest that it may create a rift.

This rebuilding process is not for the faint of heart. It’s a process that conjures up fears of inadequacy, failure, and worthlessness to name a few. In rebuilding we have to face these demons often and over again to be able to conquer them.

This type of rebuilding is one that requires the deepest level of emotional investment, the courage to take those risks, and the support to be able to weather the storms. The support that we choose in this process is vital to how well we come out of it on the other side.

For those of you who are experiencing deconstruction, or, “the dark night of the soul”, who and what have you chosen to walk alongside you through that process? Be intentional about that, because on the other side, the narrative you create for that experience will be influenced by who has cared for you.