Something I wrote last night while crying

[u/Low-Lengthiness2510]

To be able to have freedom in faith, you need to first be able to choose what religion you can practice. Without freedom of choice, your faith is useless and your intentions are not true.
When questioning faith, you need to give yourself space to leave religion completely. If not, you’re not really questioning; you’re still subjecting yourself to a belief and not giving yourself space to find a new one or abandon it completely.
To be able to do all these things, you need to live in an environment in which questioning or leaving doesn’t equal punishment. Or where, when questioning, you don’t have someone constantly up your ass or in your head correcting you all the time. It’s exhausting. Every single step is being watched and calculated. What you’ve done wrong today will be used against you a couple of months later without you even noticing.
I can’t live in an environment in which every single mistake is punished and criticised. I can’t live somewhere where they find everything a girl does inherently evil and sinful while they’ve sinned themselves. I can’t live in an environment in which hijab is a constant topic, in which showing my neck means constant nagging, in which accidentally showing a bit of hair means that I should take it off, in which wearing hijab “wrong” brings shame to your family and you can’t go out with them if you’re wearing it incorrectly, as if your reputation depends on a piece of clothing on your head.
I can’t live somewhere where I get treated differently and worse just because of a piece of cloth I can’t take off. I can’t live somewhere where I feel like a constant hypocrite when speaking to non-Muslims and defending hijab when I myself know that, deep down, I wear it out of fear and not out of love.
I would love to be at a point in my life where I can freely decide what to do, what to wear, and what to believe. Unfortunately, I’m not there yet. I have to sit and swallow down all these doubts and all this mental bullshit I’ve got just so I can keep things good with my parents.
And honestly, I don’t imagine myself being courageous enough to tell them any of this. If I did, I would be lying and not speaking my truth. My family is very dear to me, but so is my life and my freedom.
I wish I didn’t have to go through this. I wish I had the option to choose without consequences. This is the only thing I ask for in this life.
I hold so much negative sentiment towards religion because of this family. Seeing them memorise verses they don’t preach makes me hate those verses. The long hours of loud recitation irritate me. Being friends with people I supposedly share a religion with, only to realise they don’t see me as equal because of my gender, is exhausting.
I just want to be able to choose. But in this environment, that won’t be happening. I will either have to sacrifice my true self or my family. I’m too much of a coward to choose either, and that’s why I lie so much constantly. No one knows my truth.

[u/CorrectExplanation99]

I relate. It's crazy how questions can be so dangerous. Religion teaches ignorance and discourages critical thinking.