Sorry this is going to be very long but I just want to share some of my experiences growing up with my parents and Islam.
I have never gotten along with my mother at all. I have always argued with her and can never come to agreements. From a very young age, my mother has hit me and my brother and tried to justify it. Every time she hit me, I hated every piece of her and everything she stood for. It's sad to say I feel this way about her but its true. I promised myself if I ever had kids I'd never hit them. I used to think it was my fault for all the times she hit me. She used to say "why do you not love me and always make me hit you when you don't listen to me". She always used to turn it around on me. She made sure I always wore tights in school to cover up all my bruises.
I remember not eating my food and she would grab me by my hair and pull me to the cooker where she burnt some of it. I came in school and I remember everyone asking what happened to my hair but I just kept silent. I remember another time my mum threatened to smack me with a large heated metal cooking spoon. She actually heated it for a long while but didn't hit me with it. She sat me on the worktop but the spoon was right next to me and I didn't realise. I moved my leg and and the spoon directly went through my pyjamas and into my skin. I remember screaming so much and a layer of my skin had completely mangled with my clothes. She took me to the hospital and my thigh was completely bandaged up and taken care of. I was only five. I know she wouldn't have done that on purpose but simply to make the threat to get me to eat my food yet it turned out all wrong. My drunken father came home that night from work and slapped me across the face for another reason but I all remember this so vividly. I don't think I'll ever forget these things.
Things really changed after we visited Saudi Arabia before high school. My dad stopped drinking and my parents both became so religious. At the age of 11 my mother forced me to wear a hijab even though it wasn't compulsory for me at that point and I really didn't want to. I never thought this would change who I was. I became a completely different person. Especially when I started high school. I used to be so outgoing, was extremely popular and had many friends. In high school my mental health plummeted and I suffered. I had complexity, panic attacks and I was ridden with severe anxiety. I was treated differently because I wore the hijab and I wanted nothing more than to take it off and simply be free and be the girl who I used to be. I was harassed by the same boys throughout the years for wearing the hijab. I had no one to talk to about these things. My friends weren't Asian and they weren't religious at all so I thought they wouldn't understand me.
I managed to talk to a councilor and I told her everything. She didn't understand me at all and thought that one meeting with my parents would sort out everything. Oh I was so wrong. I prayed and prayed, calling Allah for help but none of my prayers were answered. You'd think I would have left Islam by now but I still believed. I needed someone, I was so lost and I couldn't cope. I felt so suicidal thinking it was the only way out. I told myself things will change once I grow up. I have never been given the opportunities that my brother had been given. He was allowed to go out whenever he wanted, talk to whoever, go on school trips and basically what every human was entitled to. I remember missing out on so many things like DofE, NCS, school parties simply because I was a female and that is how they justified these things.
I went to a college which was quite far away from home. I gained a little independence. One time, I went out with my friends in the afternoon during our frees and I took off my hijab. I felt so brave because I knew the consequences if they had caught me.I had this confidence come out of nowhere. It was like a I was a completely new person and I enjoyed my time very much even though we only went to a cafe. If my mother had simply given me the choice of wearing it, maybe I would have worn it myself but the fact that it was forced upon me, made me hate it so much.
I got myself a boyfriend too and I lost my virginity. I told my boyfriend about my parents and it seem liked he understood but things didn't work out with him for other reasons so we parted. I am to admit, yes I'm not a good Muslim at all but I still believe in my faith. In my mother's eyes this was possibly the greatest sin if I had ever told her because she believes virginity to be extremely important and only my husband should be the one to take it. She has even banned me from using tampons because she believes it would have broken my hymen and I would no longer be "tight". I'm so sick of her beliefs and I just want her to stop. At some points I want to scream out and tell her to shut up so loud. My parents have changed the way I dress. I'm not allowed to wear skinny jeans (although I do but I get yelled for it so much), leggings, show my legs, show my figure in any way.
I don't have very many friends and I just finished my A levels. I haven't been allowed out since my summer started. I'm lonely and I crave company. I'm not sure if I'm going to university this year either because my exams didn't go great. I'm lost i don't know where my life is headed..