Hello, I want to bare my soul to you.
I’m a 14 years old girl in the 10th grade. I started to wear a headscarf nearly four years ago. In the Quran course I went to after I had finished 4th grade, people always told me to cover my hair or burn in hell. Then I believed these things and covered my hair at that age. After that, I started a secondary school that gives religious education just because my mother wanted it. I was more brainwashed there. There wasn’t a problem for me till the 7th grade, but then I started to think that religion is bullshit. I didn’t believe it anymore. The headscarf wasn’t meaning anything to me. I told my mother that I didn’t want to cover my hair. She didn’t accept it. Then I express my thoughts to my uncle, and he supported me. This was the thing that I’m most lucky in my life. He talked with my mother about this situation to help me. My father didn’t interfere with my clothing. But my mother was always putting pressure on me to wear a surcoat.
I used to go shopping with my father, and he was always buying what I want even it was short. After a while, my mother started to not talk with me because of this. She sometimes didn’t let me come home when my father was in the upstate. Because of the pressure on me and the stress caused by this, I often mischief; I started smoking, and I cut my hair with anger. Now I’m recovering myself slowly. When my hair grows, I will tell my father that I don’t want to wear a headscarf, and I hope I will start high school and open a new page in my life even though my mother will write me off when I do this.
(Image: Alexandra Levasseur)