- Feb 19, 2017
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When I first joined this forum, I told my story in a nutshell, but I've had so much growth since then that I felt that it was high time that I retell my story once again. This time, however, I'll take care to not rush through it.
I was born to two Muslim parents. My father was a convert from Catholicism while my mother was born into the religion. My parents did their best to teach me my religion growing up, and I remember learning verses of the Qur'an in Arabic. I also remember learning how to pray and things like that, but at the time it was just me imitating my parents. I didn't really understand too much of the religion just yet. All I knew was that there were certain rules I had to follow to get to Heaven, and if I didn't do as I was told, Satan would get me, I would go to Hell, and God as well as my parents would be mad at me. I distinctly remember being pretty afraid of God as a kid, and that only got worse as I got older. When I was Muslim, I remember learning that God would torture some people in their graves and heard graphic depictions of Hell and what that was like. Seldom did I hear about Heaven in any capacity, and I wonder if that was simply because my mother wanted to keep me in line? My father wasn't as strict as her at all, but that's beside the point.
At some point, my parents ended up divorcing and my father went on to re-marry again while I ended up living primarily with my mother. My mother was abusive and would constantly use religion to try and control me, and it got to the point where I obsessed over religion in an obsessive compulsive sort of way. If I didn't do things EXACTLY right, I would be tortured and sent to Hell and that was not an afterlife that I wanted.
I got super religious when I was in my teens, but I think it all really started after I got my first period. At that point, in Islam, I was considered an adult and could now be held personally accountable for my sins. It was a heavy burden to bear, and the prospect of this frightened me immensely. So I started praying every day, averting my gaze around men, wearing my hijab any time I went outside, trying not to interact with men, and more. It got to a point where I adopted a "Holier than thou" kind of behavior around my mother and even she thought I was overdoing it.
But, when I reached the age of about 16, that's when my world came crashing down. It was at this age that I finally discovered that I had been sexually abused as a child. Not only that, but that's when my personality began to switch like crazy. As I've stated in another post, I have a dissociative disorder that caused my personality to split at a young age. I always was aware of these other parts, but because of the turbulent environment I was living in with my mother, it made my symptoms that much worse and caused me to split even more. This made me think I might be possessed by demons or something (I grew up in a very superstitious household), so I tried to immerse myself into religion that much more to try and "cure" myself. But you can't just will away personality parts by listening to the Qur'an, I learned, so I suffered in silence, not knowing what was wrong with me, for a very long time. In the meantime, my other personality parts were finally looking at Islam and having doubts. They started asking questions and trying to look for rational or moral answers where there were none. Eventually, they would stray from the religion, although I stayed stubbornly in Islam because it was all I knew.
Eventually, things at home started to get really bad and one of my childlike personality parts frantically asked my grandparents if I could move in with them. They accepted me with open arms and, within a week of asking them, I was out of my mother's house for good.
When I moved in with my grandparents, I experienced a big culture shock. My grandparents are Catholic and I was Muslim. Also, they are Hispanic while I was raised by my mother's side of the family, for the most part, and they are all African American. So, there were a few factors contributing to the culture shock. But they were kind and let me continue to wear my hijab and practice my religion until, eventually, my other personality parts drifted away from outwardly presenting as Muslim. I still remember the first day I attended college without my hijab on. I got shocked looks from my classmates and my teachers all wondered what it felt like to not be wearing a hijab anymore, lol. It felt "naked" to say the least, but soon everyone got used to it. Everyone except me, the religious part.
I was still afraid of going to Hell and being tortured in my grave, so whenever I came forward, I would put the hijab back on, pray compulsively, and plead to God for forgiveness. But my moments of staying forward never lasted too long as soon everyone got tired of my religious antics and shoved me back into the head space... but soon, everyone noticed that something was missing from our lives. It was fun living free from Islam, but there was an emptiness that could be felt. Was it from me abandoning my mom's entire side of the family? Maybe... But in any case, it was too risky to contact them again, so I tried placating the feelings with buying things I didn't need. I wish I could take back every cent of that. I would be so rich right now.
Anyways, at some point, my other personality parts decided to look for another place of worship. We took an online religion quiz and, before we knew it, our first stop was a Unitarian church. It was a nice experience. People there were open-minded and welcoming. I still have friends from there online. I went there for a period of time before I realized that we still felt that sort of emptiness in our hearts. So we looked elsewhere for something with more structure. Our next stop was a Methodist church. That was a nice place to be too, but again something was missing. Then we started going to a Reform Jewish synagogue, which was also a nice experience. For the longest time, we thought maybe we wanted to be Jewish, but something was still missing.
Throughout this entire process of looking for a religion, my personality parts bounced back and forth between wanting to be any of the above religions that we looked at. It would stick for a time, but no matter what, there was always something missing, so we became known for going somewhere for a period of time and then abandoning the place for who knows how long. It made me seem crazy and unstable.
Throughout this entire journey of mine, however, my family was growing in their Catholic faith. Ever since shortly after I moved out, everyone started growing in the faith even more than they already were devoted to it. This was because shortly after I moved in, my family had to fight for custody of my sister because my mother had become a danger to her. It took months of fighting, and the entire time everyone just kept praying and doing all they could to help free my sister. Eventually, my grandparents were granted custody of my sister and the nightmare was over. But ever since then, my family became more Catholic than ever. Even my father reverted back to Catholicism, but I believe that was on account of the court case as well as the fact that he got really sick physically. I almost lost my father because of how sick he was and I tear up every time I think about it. But by the grace of God, my father was healed and he's still around today. I love him so much...
But back to my story, I was bouncing back and forth between religious beliefs. And at some point, I got the divine inspiration to check out the Catholic Church. At first, I avoided it like the plague. My grandparents took me to Mass before a bunch of times, but I was afraid of the Church to be truthful. I was afraid of leaving Islam because, once you leave Islam, they believe that you go to Hell, especially since you knew the "truth" and rejected it anyways. But then my grandparents sent me to a Catholic conference for teenagers along with my sister and something about that trip always stuck with me. I mean, I didn't pray with everyone else or do anything that would make me an official apostate to Islam, but something still was planted in me on that trip and I remember really wanting to go back after that, despite not being Catholic.
It took some years after that trip before I finally got that divine inspiration to check out the Church for myself, and when I did check it out at first, I was excited. By this point, even I realized that Islam was not for me and so I too was on the search for a new religion. But I was skeptical about Jesus being the Son of God and I did not agree with some of the Church's teachings (because I was depending on my own faulty understanding of things). It just wasn't the time for me to join the Church, so I dropped out of the Inquiry class that I was taking.
I continued to bounce around for a bit more, still wanting a religion that fit me, but I still couldn't find my way. I now realize this is because God wasn't meant to suit me. I was meant to mold myself for God, based on what He told us. And at some point, I remember I started listening to people talk on YouTube about things my very liberal brain absolutely HATED. I hated what these people said so much that I did what I call "hate-listened" to them. Basically what that means is that I listened to their words to deliberately infuriate myself. But at some point, I stopped being quite as mad and the anger turned to curiosity. Suddenly, I started listening to these people talk and seriously considered if what they were saying was the truth or made sense. And that's how I came to the conclusion that abortion is wrong, and after that, it's like God opened the door for me to see EVERYTHING.
I remember when I was younger and religious with Islam, I had my priorities in check. I knew what I wanted out of life and my soul had direction. I wanted a family. I believed in traditional marriage and understood the reasons for it clearly without needing anyone to explain it to me. I knew abortion was immoral. And I believed in God and wished to do everything He asked of me... so what went wrong? Where had I lost all of this? I lost this all when I started to depend on my own understanding and started to create my own morality. I disregarded everything that God taught us and thought morality was relative, which it is not. In my defense, however, I wasn't exactly raised with a correct version of the truth, so of course I would find holes in it and think that my own understanding of things was better.
Anyways, I remember that after this, I really examined my heart and beliefs one more time and uncovered all of those truths about my past. The fact that I wanted a family and such. It's like, remembering why I knew abortion is wrong and now having factual knowledge to back it up opened up my eyes to everything else that I had repressed. It was a miracle, to say the least. I just remember that when I was pro-choice, something was empty about that feeling too. But when I started to become pro-life again, something about it all just felt so right in my soul and heart. So I started to wonder what else I buried in my past that I might have been right about at the time.
And now I've re-enrolled in RCIA and am examining my conscience, morality, and religious beliefs once more. I started over in the Inquiry class just so I could get a refresher on the information and also so I could get to know some others who are also seeking God through the Catholic Church. I'm hoping that this will be the last time I jump to a religion in hopes of joining it. And this time, I actually have some confidence in that, because you know that empty feeling that I kept bringing up? It's being filled right now with the presence of God and I think that I know now that this is truly where God is calling me. God loves me so much and he wants me to come home, just like the rest of his children, and I think that's beautiful. It's quite a derailment from the brimstone and fire God that I was taught about as a child.
Anyways, I think the main takeaway from my story is to never lose hope in God. He sees and knows you and just wants you to be with Him. He loves you so much, you can't even begin to fully comprehend it. May we all be granted Paradise in the world to come and may our friends and family who do not know God be granted the opportunity to learn about Him. Amen.
If you made it this far into my story, congratulations! You get a gold star!
But yes, anyways, I hope this was an enjoyable read and I hope to continue to learn and grow as time goes on. Stay groovy everybody.
I was born to two Muslim parents. My father was a convert from Catholicism while my mother was born into the religion. My parents did their best to teach me my religion growing up, and I remember learning verses of the Qur'an in Arabic. I also remember learning how to pray and things like that, but at the time it was just me imitating my parents. I didn't really understand too much of the religion just yet. All I knew was that there were certain rules I had to follow to get to Heaven, and if I didn't do as I was told, Satan would get me, I would go to Hell, and God as well as my parents would be mad at me. I distinctly remember being pretty afraid of God as a kid, and that only got worse as I got older. When I was Muslim, I remember learning that God would torture some people in their graves and heard graphic depictions of Hell and what that was like. Seldom did I hear about Heaven in any capacity, and I wonder if that was simply because my mother wanted to keep me in line? My father wasn't as strict as her at all, but that's beside the point.
At some point, my parents ended up divorcing and my father went on to re-marry again while I ended up living primarily with my mother. My mother was abusive and would constantly use religion to try and control me, and it got to the point where I obsessed over religion in an obsessive compulsive sort of way. If I didn't do things EXACTLY right, I would be tortured and sent to Hell and that was not an afterlife that I wanted.
I got super religious when I was in my teens, but I think it all really started after I got my first period. At that point, in Islam, I was considered an adult and could now be held personally accountable for my sins. It was a heavy burden to bear, and the prospect of this frightened me immensely. So I started praying every day, averting my gaze around men, wearing my hijab any time I went outside, trying not to interact with men, and more. It got to a point where I adopted a "Holier than thou" kind of behavior around my mother and even she thought I was overdoing it.
But, when I reached the age of about 16, that's when my world came crashing down. It was at this age that I finally discovered that I had been sexually abused as a child. Not only that, but that's when my personality began to switch like crazy. As I've stated in another post, I have a dissociative disorder that caused my personality to split at a young age. I always was aware of these other parts, but because of the turbulent environment I was living in with my mother, it made my symptoms that much worse and caused me to split even more. This made me think I might be possessed by demons or something (I grew up in a very superstitious household), so I tried to immerse myself into religion that much more to try and "cure" myself. But you can't just will away personality parts by listening to the Qur'an, I learned, so I suffered in silence, not knowing what was wrong with me, for a very long time. In the meantime, my other personality parts were finally looking at Islam and having doubts. They started asking questions and trying to look for rational or moral answers where there were none. Eventually, they would stray from the religion, although I stayed stubbornly in Islam because it was all I knew.
Eventually, things at home started to get really bad and one of my childlike personality parts frantically asked my grandparents if I could move in with them. They accepted me with open arms and, within a week of asking them, I was out of my mother's house for good.
When I moved in with my grandparents, I experienced a big culture shock. My grandparents are Catholic and I was Muslim. Also, they are Hispanic while I was raised by my mother's side of the family, for the most part, and they are all African American. So, there were a few factors contributing to the culture shock. But they were kind and let me continue to wear my hijab and practice my religion until, eventually, my other personality parts drifted away from outwardly presenting as Muslim. I still remember the first day I attended college without my hijab on. I got shocked looks from my classmates and my teachers all wondered what it felt like to not be wearing a hijab anymore, lol. It felt "naked" to say the least, but soon everyone got used to it. Everyone except me, the religious part.
I was still afraid of going to Hell and being tortured in my grave, so whenever I came forward, I would put the hijab back on, pray compulsively, and plead to God for forgiveness. But my moments of staying forward never lasted too long as soon everyone got tired of my religious antics and shoved me back into the head space... but soon, everyone noticed that something was missing from our lives. It was fun living free from Islam, but there was an emptiness that could be felt. Was it from me abandoning my mom's entire side of the family? Maybe... But in any case, it was too risky to contact them again, so I tried placating the feelings with buying things I didn't need. I wish I could take back every cent of that. I would be so rich right now.
Anyways, at some point, my other personality parts decided to look for another place of worship. We took an online religion quiz and, before we knew it, our first stop was a Unitarian church. It was a nice experience. People there were open-minded and welcoming. I still have friends from there online. I went there for a period of time before I realized that we still felt that sort of emptiness in our hearts. So we looked elsewhere for something with more structure. Our next stop was a Methodist church. That was a nice place to be too, but again something was missing. Then we started going to a Reform Jewish synagogue, which was also a nice experience. For the longest time, we thought maybe we wanted to be Jewish, but something was still missing.
Throughout this entire process of looking for a religion, my personality parts bounced back and forth between wanting to be any of the above religions that we looked at. It would stick for a time, but no matter what, there was always something missing, so we became known for going somewhere for a period of time and then abandoning the place for who knows how long. It made me seem crazy and unstable.
Throughout this entire journey of mine, however, my family was growing in their Catholic faith. Ever since shortly after I moved out, everyone started growing in the faith even more than they already were devoted to it. This was because shortly after I moved in, my family had to fight for custody of my sister because my mother had become a danger to her. It took months of fighting, and the entire time everyone just kept praying and doing all they could to help free my sister. Eventually, my grandparents were granted custody of my sister and the nightmare was over. But ever since then, my family became more Catholic than ever. Even my father reverted back to Catholicism, but I believe that was on account of the court case as well as the fact that he got really sick physically. I almost lost my father because of how sick he was and I tear up every time I think about it. But by the grace of God, my father was healed and he's still around today. I love him so much...
But back to my story, I was bouncing back and forth between religious beliefs. And at some point, I got the divine inspiration to check out the Catholic Church. At first, I avoided it like the plague. My grandparents took me to Mass before a bunch of times, but I was afraid of the Church to be truthful. I was afraid of leaving Islam because, once you leave Islam, they believe that you go to Hell, especially since you knew the "truth" and rejected it anyways. But then my grandparents sent me to a Catholic conference for teenagers along with my sister and something about that trip always stuck with me. I mean, I didn't pray with everyone else or do anything that would make me an official apostate to Islam, but something still was planted in me on that trip and I remember really wanting to go back after that, despite not being Catholic.
It took some years after that trip before I finally got that divine inspiration to check out the Church for myself, and when I did check it out at first, I was excited. By this point, even I realized that Islam was not for me and so I too was on the search for a new religion. But I was skeptical about Jesus being the Son of God and I did not agree with some of the Church's teachings (because I was depending on my own faulty understanding of things). It just wasn't the time for me to join the Church, so I dropped out of the Inquiry class that I was taking.
I continued to bounce around for a bit more, still wanting a religion that fit me, but I still couldn't find my way. I now realize this is because God wasn't meant to suit me. I was meant to mold myself for God, based on what He told us. And at some point, I remember I started listening to people talk on YouTube about things my very liberal brain absolutely HATED. I hated what these people said so much that I did what I call "hate-listened" to them. Basically what that means is that I listened to their words to deliberately infuriate myself. But at some point, I stopped being quite as mad and the anger turned to curiosity. Suddenly, I started listening to these people talk and seriously considered if what they were saying was the truth or made sense. And that's how I came to the conclusion that abortion is wrong, and after that, it's like God opened the door for me to see EVERYTHING.
I remember when I was younger and religious with Islam, I had my priorities in check. I knew what I wanted out of life and my soul had direction. I wanted a family. I believed in traditional marriage and understood the reasons for it clearly without needing anyone to explain it to me. I knew abortion was immoral. And I believed in God and wished to do everything He asked of me... so what went wrong? Where had I lost all of this? I lost this all when I started to depend on my own understanding and started to create my own morality. I disregarded everything that God taught us and thought morality was relative, which it is not. In my defense, however, I wasn't exactly raised with a correct version of the truth, so of course I would find holes in it and think that my own understanding of things was better.
Anyways, I remember that after this, I really examined my heart and beliefs one more time and uncovered all of those truths about my past. The fact that I wanted a family and such. It's like, remembering why I knew abortion is wrong and now having factual knowledge to back it up opened up my eyes to everything else that I had repressed. It was a miracle, to say the least. I just remember that when I was pro-choice, something was empty about that feeling too. But when I started to become pro-life again, something about it all just felt so right in my soul and heart. So I started to wonder what else I buried in my past that I might have been right about at the time.
And now I've re-enrolled in RCIA and am examining my conscience, morality, and religious beliefs once more. I started over in the Inquiry class just so I could get a refresher on the information and also so I could get to know some others who are also seeking God through the Catholic Church. I'm hoping that this will be the last time I jump to a religion in hopes of joining it. And this time, I actually have some confidence in that, because you know that empty feeling that I kept bringing up? It's being filled right now with the presence of God and I think that I know now that this is truly where God is calling me. God loves me so much and he wants me to come home, just like the rest of his children, and I think that's beautiful. It's quite a derailment from the brimstone and fire God that I was taught about as a child.
Anyways, I think the main takeaway from my story is to never lose hope in God. He sees and knows you and just wants you to be with Him. He loves you so much, you can't even begin to fully comprehend it. May we all be granted Paradise in the world to come and may our friends and family who do not know God be granted the opportunity to learn about Him. Amen.
If you made it this far into my story, congratulations! You get a gold star!
But yes, anyways, I hope this was an enjoyable read and I hope to continue to learn and grow as time goes on. Stay groovy everybody.
