Hello. I am one of the girls who write on this platform and face oppression from their dad. People in my circle are so religious that they don’t see anything else besides religion. They don’t care if people are happy or not. The only important thing is looking pious!

I was only 12 and celebrating my birthday. My aunts and cousins gifted me headscarves. I was 12. Only 12. That forced me to cover my hair. Nobody told me to become a hijabi but gifting someone headscarves only is the same thing as saying they had to wear it. I become a hijabi at 12 at and age when I should have been running around feeling the wind on my hair. Years have passed, when I saw the girls who wear what they want freely I wanted to be like them. I wanted to feel free. I wanted to feel like my true self. Every day I fell asleep dreaming about it. Closing my eyes and thinking about the day I achieved my dream felt so good.

I decided to tell my dad about it, I tried to do it for a whole month. I just couldn’t tell him. One day I gathered my courage and asked my dad to come to my room to talk. When he reacted like I had killed somebody my whole world shattered. Maybe he didn’t shout or hit me, but his words scarred me. He said a lot of things that didn’t make sense like: “You are mentally unstable; you sit in your room all day devil creeps into your heart.” He said all those things because I wanted to stop wearing hijab. If a father truly loves his daughter he would set aside his ideologies, religion and opinions and love his daughter unconditionally. I realized my father didn’t really love me. He doesn’t love me he loves the daughter who lives the life he wanted. He loves his daughter who wears what he wants, goes to the school he wants, does what he wants. He doesn’t love the daughter who plays that role trying to maintain the peace at home. My father is so narrow minded that he will destroy everything from the things I hang up on my walls to the lyrics I wrote on my walls. They expect me to respect a human like this. I act like I respect him but deep down I really hate him. I hate the man who ruined my childhood. While his God orders to be merciful he sees traumatizing his daughter as true religion. While his God says, “abstain from hate!” he says “We should burn them!” when he sees non-veiled women in the streets. My relatives are coming at me for what I am wearing even though I am a hijabi and I am sure I will never please them no matter what I wear because their hearts are evil. Their gods forbid them to gossip and say bad things behind people’s backs. But all of them see religion as only wearing the hijab. They never learn not to say hurtful things or not to break people’s hearts.

I don’t want to live under oppression anymore. I don’t want to dream about feeling the wind in my hair when I go to bed anymore. I want to be myself. I am only 16 and I can’t handle all of these. I don’t want to be a people pleaser; I want to be happy. I need help because I am dying day by day. I want to cry and scream but I even fear doing it.

(Image: Marie Muravski)