Hey Trustworthy, welcome to the forum!
Don't worry about the length of your post, it was an easy read and well written.
It sounds like you went through the same phases many of us have. I'm really glad to hear you were influenced by that question from an ex-Muslim! It's good to know our online presence can make that kind of difference.
I'm also glad to hear you were able to be truly honest with yourself about your belief. That is often not an easy thing to do, although maybe you had already primed yourself for that step.
It sucks about the situation with your mother. But it sounds like your family might not be too strict, am I reading that right? What if you simply stopped practicing but didn't necessarily come out as an apostate. Could your mother accept that? And more importantly, could
you accept that?
Thank you! I don't know whether I'm glad. Sometimes I wish I had never seen it so I could stay oblivious and just live my life blissfully ignorant. I know, one way or the other, my feelings and thoughts would have resurfaced and taken root anyway but still...
Being honest with myself was the hardest part so far. Even now I'm having a hard time being honest with myself. It feels like two worlds I cannot unite: my inner world of thoughts and feelings and the outer world of other people, their opinions and everything I've believed and done so far.
I don't know about the strictness of my family, I mean...they don't expect me to wear a niqaab or abaya, we listen to music and when family comes over, men and women sit together depending on whether our 'strict' aunt and uncle are present or not. But my dad does lecture us a lot about praying, about reading Qur'aan instead of books, he has been to Makkah and he goes to the masjid 5 times a day, etc etc. While I still wear a hijab, my sister doesn't anymore, she has a non-muslim boyfriend, doesn't live at home anymore, flirted with apostasy in some other ways too and that all wasn't taken too lightly. She never really came out as an apostate so I don't know. After a long period of not-talking and not-visiting, she finally came back to us and my mom welcomed her back with open arms but she does not accept her way of life. I think for me it would be even harder because I'm 'the good one', like I said.
I tried imagining myself just pretending (fasting Ramadan and occassionally going to Masjid) but that felt untrue to myself. If I do that, how am I to be me? Especially wearing the hijab is difficult because I know my intentions are all wrong. And how am I to attract a partner for life with the same ideals as I have, with my appearance sending of all the wrong signals?
And if I stop wearing my hijab, stop fasting etc I should come up with a darn good excuse. To be honest, I'm fed up with lying. But if that will keep my mom from hurting, I might give it a try. As long as I can be me.
Topic: Introducing myself