God, did you really create me as a slave?
Unfortunately, this is not a success story.
I was born in an extremely conservative family, which had gotten into a cult long before I was born. Although they don’t do everything right, criticize everyone they think are wrong. I’ve spent my life from a city to another with my family’s sectarian friends and their kids in small buildings. In a giant balloon, we were protected from the people who are different from us. When I got into high school and moved to a big city, I became like a fish out of water. It was like I don’t know anything; I didn’t even understand human relations.
The balloon has finally popped.
High school, with many things, has taught me the importance of reading and searching. My father didn’t want me to read, but this didn’t stop me from buying books with all the money I had and reading them with my friends. Eventually, I started questioning religion. The questioning was terrifying for me. I remembered the things I was told: “If you question, you become blind. Don’t question. It’s because of the Devil.” I was so scared that I decided to wear a headscarf when I was in second grade. Because only this way, the Devil was far away. Until I got to the university, I haven’t read the Qur’an; and I wasn’t able to pray either. I was at university, again with my family in the same city. Meanwhile, I started to have mental problems. Again, like I was told when I was a child, I began to read Qur’an.
People always say that Nisa sura is a blessing for women; every time I read it, I used to say, “God, did you really create me as a slave?”. This blessing was an insult, a chain. God didn’t address us; instead said, “Tell your wives/daughters.” I was a wife or a daughter of a man before I was a human. There was something really wrong with that. Would God really do that? After a while, the news of ISIS’ terrorist attacks spread. We’ve lost many people. I had lost my faith. When I told my mother about it, she threatened me of kicking me out of the house and destroying my education. I have cowered. I have dreadfully cowered. There was nothing I could do, there was no one to shelter me. I was dependent on them, and they knew that. I said that I had 3 more years and I could handle it but I couldn’t. Only the ones who had gone through this can understand.
After a year, when I told my father, the answer was no different. I am threatened silently as a psychopath would do. Of destroying my education, of forcing to get married, of burning my books…
After the threats, I start my new day with good morning kisses, but the day is not good for me. There is not much I can do. I am scared, and I am waiting to graduate and to be appointed. Yes, this is not a success story, but I wanted to share it anyways. Not to blight your hopes, to voice the ones who have to endure like me.
We are strong together. Together, no one can harm us. They cannot cover our feelings.
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