Reflections on Leaving Islam

I converted into Islam five years ago this month,

and it has been just over a year since I left.

It's brought up a lot for me, this anniversary.

One thing that I have been consistent on is

saying that there needs to be compassion for people who convert.

That started with me trying

to find compassion for myself once I realized what a horrible mistake I had made.

I do, I feel compassion for the person I was in July of 2021 who

was thinking about ending it,

who wanted to find purpose,

who was trying to reach out to God to do that,

and to try to do that through the path of Islam.

But lately, especially as I've been coming up on this anniversary,

I've also been struggling with a lot of anger and self hatred.

I am so furious that I was so short sighted that

I fell for it, you know, I fell for it.

Had I only looked a little bit harder, had I only done more research, had I not

been so desperate for the validation that this cult provided me, I wish I had

known more, and I'm really mad at myself for not

trying harder.

And I'm also furious that I stayed in it as long as I did,

and I'm furious that I learned more and more, you know, about Aisha,

about the beheadings, about the sex slavery, and then the concubinage.

I am furious that

the thing that truly opened my eyes was my own self interest.

I was engaged, and I was studying how to be a good Muslim wife,

and that was what woke me up, the fact that I would have

no rights at all to my body.

Now, I am furious at my own hypocrisy.

I was in a Western bubble where I could have all the privileges

of being an American citizen.

I happily took the freedoms of my society,

while also joining

a society that said that those freedoms were bad.

I was such a hypocrite, and I regret it.

I deeply regret it.

Some days I'm okay,

and then some days it's just this overwhelming anger at myself,

you know, for being so...

I don't know.

I don't know.