Ever since I've made the decision to restart my two high school years to take the art course, I've grown kind of ashamed of myself. Seeing people my age already getting jobs and some study at uni makes me want to hide for still being stuck here. I feel a lot of insecurity when people ask me what I do now and most of it is because most of the people in primary expect me to have already graduated and moved on to something "greater", since I kind of had the image of being a "good student" back then. This has been confirmed a few times as I've been told by some that they thought I was smarter than this and that I should've continued with natural sciences. And there are also so many people that have been reacting to the "news" in surprise after hearing it from one person or another (obviously they might not all be bad).
Another even bigger decision in my opinion, in which I have been avoiding to talk about for so long, is the fact that I removed my hijab (hijab is a piece of cloth that women in Islam usually wear) after having worn it for 7 years. It was such a sensitive topic for me because most of the people around me wouldn’t see this as something good, in fact it’s quite shameful. I cried so much over it at the start, thinking I probably should put it back on to please others and make it easier for myself, in which isn’t right. Because firstly hijab isn’t to be worn if you don’t want to and secondly you shouldn’t be doing something for the sake of others. By doing this you’re lying to yourself, and others, when building up this façade, and in the religious part of view it wouldn’t be genuine either. Believe it or not, you can be religious even without the hijab. On the contrary, there are plenty of women who wears the hijab but aren't religious as well.
As for the people judging others for making decisions you disagree with, just because it’s unpleasing to your eyes, it doesn’t give you the right to spread a bunch of negativity regarding those people (I doubt you’re perfect yourself). I used to be so cautious of going out fearing I might stumble across people like that. But with loads of help and support from my sister and friends (and even people who just faced me with positivity), I managed to hang in there until I became somewhat stable.
I grew up in a muslim household with muslim parents, obviously, and they were really disappointed in me when I after so many years finally came clean with them when it came to the hijab. Truthfully, it wasn't really my own decision to start wearing it. I was somewhat pressured into wearing it since my older sister started wearing it when she was in 5th grade, which I guess made my parents expect me to wear it at an early age as well. Unfortunately I wasn't given the opportunity to freely choose myself. By "freely" I mean without pressure/forcefulness. Our mother even asked my older sister plenty of times if she was sure she wanted to wear it. On my part it was done differently and that's where they went wrong with it since it got the opposite effect of what they wanted. The thing is (and I'm sure you probably know already), by human nature, if you're pressured/forced into doing something or being a certain way, you tend to stray away from it. If they hadn't done it the way they did, I probably wouldn't have turned out to be such a shameful disappointment for them.
During the years of wearing the hijab, I've had people looking up to me and telling me I'm brave for being able to wear it. I felt a bit bad about it because I had to pretend everything was alright even though it wasn't. They even asked me for advice on how to learn to accept it as a part of oneself, but to be honest, I had no truthful advice to give because all I did was just suck it up and do what I was expected to do. One of them was so enthusiastic about starting to wear it, but at the same time she was scared people would judge her for it. But now a few years later when I went through with taking mine off, about a month or more after, I saw that she had started wearing hers with pride. I got really happy for her of course, but I felt ashamed of myself too because in the end, I wasn't who she saw me as.
Among all these feelings of shame for coming out as myself but not being the way people thought or wanted me to be, I still can’t help but being a bit proud of myself for having come this far. Even though there are so many things weighing me down, I can't help but to feel happy for managing to break out of this pattern I was caught up in. It's totally fine if you don't agree with my decisions, as long as you leave me alone. Also, not wearing the hijab anymore doesn't make me a bad person, and personality wise I'm still the same.
If you have read this far, thank you so much for hearing me out ;__;; And in case you want to know how it went on my first day, here is a bit of a summary for that:
The first day I was at school without it, I sat on the ground (outside of one of the school buildings) in a corner formed by bushes because I couldn't bring myself to go anywhere due to the overwhelming feelings of guilt of having done something "unacceptable". While sitting there, a person (whom I had talked to a few times before) came out of the school building and saw me, she recognized me and her reaction didn't change one bit. She just greeted me like she normally would and it made me so confused. She asked me if I was okay and I just nodded, said yes and tried to force a smile even though I was really unstable. Luckily she left me alone and I burst out crying, because somehow in my mind, I was expecting some sort of negative reaction since I was so used to people around me being like that. I called one of my closest friends to pick me up because I couldn't go anywhere myself, and she came and comforted me. She managed to calm me down through a lot of encouragement and reassurance that nothing bad would happen. When I had wiped my tears, we decided to just sit somewhere on the school yard for me to learn to get used to being there without the hijab. A few of our classmates happened to see us and I got a lot of compliments regarding my hair. I was surprised by the fact that no one even asked me why I stopped wearing the hijab, because most people I've been around in the past would've questioned me.
The amount of positivity I received made me teary. All this time I thought that even people outside of the religion would care and judge me for it, but it turned out it wasn't that way at all. It seemed as if taking off the hijab isn't a big deal to them, and this felt really comforting for me. Although the downside was that some didn't understand the fear that came with it, which became quite hurtful since it felt like they thought it was simple just "not to care" about other people's opinions. I guess it's different for each and everyone how much of an impact people around them can have on them. It's just important to know that for someone who has grown up in an environment where they're constantly pressured, watched and whispered about it's kind of hard "not to care" just like that. Although it was so hard for me back then, nowadays I lean a lot more towards the "I don't care" spectrum (with my dyed hair and piercings). Apparently I've changed so much to the point where people don't even recognize me anymore, which puts me in quite a weird position if I may say so myself XD
(sorry if my English is bad!)
