Well I've been lurking for a while now so I thought I should really stop being so rude and introduce myself!
I guess my story's a bit of an odd one seeing that I left Islam without really acknowledging that I had done so almost 10 years ago. I'm a half arab half british female, 26 years old and truly messed in the head from my fundamental islamic upbringing.
It started out all rosy according to my dear mum. My parents met in an '80's nightclub in London. He, like many Arab men do, let his hair down when he came to the UK from Jordan for university. He drank, had lady friends and wore quite un-modest looking short shorts. My parents got married after a few years of fornication and they eventually had me and my two sisters. My dad changed, blonde haired blue eyed western looking girls were not really what he expected or wanted. He would spend the next 17 years of my life ensuring that we were shielded from all the evils of un-islamic society. My kind, loving christian grandparents were 'zionists' so we were stopped from seeing them. We were forbidden from talking to other kids outside of school, reading, TV anything that 90s kids were doing...we weren't.
My father was both mentally and physically abusive toward my mother, after a few years in the UK he decided to move us all to Qatar on the pretence that we would be able to lead normal lives, leave the house, speak to other people and generally do normal things. This didn't happen. Locked up in a house with his controlling mum and him, we were sent to a predominantly arabic speaking school where we were laughed at, stared at and ridiculed for being white hijabis with a funny (some would say proper) English accent. After a few years abroad, my dad went away to Jordan, only to return with a young girl - only a few years older than my elder sister...a new wife. He told my mum that this woman would mean that he could have proper arab muslim children...possibly even a son (INSHA' ALLAH) and there was nothing she could do because it was legal. He threatened that if she tried to divorce him, he would kill her (after 20 odd years of his abuse she had no doubt that he would indeed kill her), or that he would have her deported and would marry us girls off. So my mum stayed. My dad divorced his wife and got a new one because the first one was a crazy bitch who did black magic on us all apparently (normal consensus would of course be that my sisters, mum and I were all suffering severe depression due to his insanity). Second wife number 2 was actually sweet, I felt quite sorry for her having to put up with the whole situation.
As I said before, we were all depressed. I attempted to OD on paracetamol but failed. I think this was a wake up call for my mum. We all snuck out on the pretence that we were going on holiday to the UK and never came back. He never tried to contact us and we never contacted him. Despite the fact that islam was forced on us kids and my mum, we dropped it...we never had a conversation about it...we just all stopped praying, stopped wearing our hijabs and blended into UK life...
I am not in a terrible predicament like many of the CEMB members, I've had the easy way out of islam and I understand that I've been tremendously lucky to have the support of my mother and sisters. Even so, I still feel scarred by my upbringing and this forum has brought me more comfort in the past month or so than I have found (sober) in a very long time.
Over the last few months I have been experiencing increasing guilt toward my rejection of Islam. I've been effectively brainwashing myself into believing again (I truly am my own worst enemy). I need to be around rational human beings who understand! Hence why I am here!
Apologies for the ramble and how disorganised my thoughts are - I'm not the best at articulating myself so I thank you for reading!
Topic: Newbie! Here's my story.