u/s3lfstarvation

Greetings! I'm yet another ex-muslim that is currently hiding it from everyone I know irl. I'm sure a lot of you are in the same boat, and I really just want to let out my frustrations regarding it.

Every. Single. Day. 5 prayers that I cannot skip because my mom is always watching me. The only ones I actually can skip are Dhuhr and Isha prayers. Dhuhr only on weekdays since my mom is out taking care of my cousins, and Isha because I stay up late, and can easily lie to my mom about having done it while she was asleep. It's a routine, but one that I hate. All I'm doing is going through the motions that have been engrained in me since I was little and reciting things I vaguely recall now to make sure I get the timing right and not looking like I'm being "reckless".

And speaking of my mom—I've tried to tell her before how I don't like being in this religion, how I don't think it's not for me and tried to explain why. But alas, she shut me down and told me that I was just losing faith and should pray to Allah for Guidance and some other bullshit. Eventually I gave up because clearly I won't get through to her.

Don't get me wrong, I love my mom. She's wonderful, still makes meals for me everyday and cares for my wellbeing. She even gets me things that I want so long as it's within reasonable budget. But... the only thing that makes me dislike being with her is every single religious aspect of our lives. Prayers, sometimes making me read parts of the quran with her... I just— I really hate it. I hate it so badly that I can't have the freedom I want with these things.

And lets not forget to mention the everyday reminders that people in this country can be literal religious freaks. I met a doctor, I thought she was kind, because she noticed that I was struggling mentally (I had, and still sorta am dealing with depression) and offered to get me assigned to a counselor. But of course, at some point she had to spit out some religious bullshit at me too. She was very clearly a firm believer, which inclined me to be unable to trust my counselor with the knowledge I'm an ex-muslim.

Polytechnic dormmates. When I went to Poli (since my mom is very insistent that I need to at least go to college/poli/uni the moment I graduated highschool) (society norms, amirite?) the first batch of dormmates I had were genuinely wonderful. They were funny, and my roommate didn't care at all about doing prayers so I could skip them without judgement at all. However, the dormmates in my second semester are... on the opposite end. They were nice enough, I guess. Extremely loud. And I just so happened to be paired with a roommate who religiously upkeeps these prayer things. Oh, the sheer terror I felt when she asked me whether I wanted to do prayers with her...

I'm out of Poli now, though. My depression got really bad at some point that I chose to drop out (this was before I met a counselor).

Multiple times have I considered that I could simply walk outside, hair out and pretend I'm not a Muslim. Many times have people commented that I look half chinese, which I considered taking advantage of. I even asked someone if I went out with free hair if they would mistake me as chinese, and they said yes. I always feared that this could backfire though... I don't know any mandarin or anything, but I suppose my accent would help. Some also commented that the way I speak was different from a typical Malay, which is probably due to me growing up speaking English more than Malay LOL

Ah, but it does get exhausting keeping the facade up sometimes. I really want to move out of the country someday, maybe somewhere in Europe, but that will have to wait until I can get a sustainable income. Rant over, apologies for how lengthy this is... I really needed to let some steam out