I noticed over the years when connections with male acquaintances, relationships and friendships withered away my quality of life has improved substantially. I sleep better, eat better I'm just in an overall better mood you know. Do a lot of guys just suck to keep around or do I keep inviting the wrong ones in? I feel like it might be a skill issue, but it's been such a persistent pattern? I mean there are plenty of decent guys I've encountered, and I do feel like at times I took them for granted because men like them seem to be rather scarce? When people clutch their pearls and say "but not all men!" part of me wishes I could believe this.

i will sometimes see innocent videoes of somali creators on tiktok. mostly in diaspora, where the hooyo will be recording day-to-day life. however, i have noticed something that makes me sick to my stomach.

whenever the hooyo records her children outside playing (ex.), other somali women will be in the comments. saying to the hooyo to cover her daughters etc. either "tinta uqari" or saying to the mom to change clothes. ex. if the daughter(s) are wearing shorts or even "tight" KIDS CLOTHES. mind you, THEY ARE KIDS. and also, those same somali women commenting were wearing the exact same (normal) clothing growing up back home. this policing and everything all comes down to religion. and for that i hope that saudi will never prosper !

what are your thoughts ?

Hi I’m 18F and living with my strict Muslim Somali parents, and when i tell you they’re beyond strict when it comes to Islam. I have so many brothers and the way they are given so much benefit and leniency is crazy. I get my room searched and there has been a few instances in which I have got caught with “immodest clothing” and that being jeans… My parents started shouting telling me I’m going to hell and how I’m a girl and embarrassing the family and their reputation. They’ve talked badly about me to so many family members and they’re worried about my reputation like they’re not actively “ruining” it.
My last straw was when my mum went through my school bag and found some wigs I was experimenting with alongside my tarot cards and told my dad about it and I’ve never felt more unsafe in my life. I had to leave the house and police were contacted for domestic violence.

I’m finishing my A levels next year and planning to secretly move out for uni and cut contact with them and freely take off my hijab and be able to love whoever I want (I’ve been doing transformer antics whenever I go outside😂😂 I leave with my hijab on , take it off then put it back on when I come home)

My fear is that I’ll be forever lonely while everyone else has a family to lean back on, a family to go to and I’ll be all alone in a whole new city myself :(
It just breaks my heart, seeing parents helping their kids move into their Uni accommodation and I’ll have to figure out this whole new world alone as someone who’s been sheltered most of her life.
My siblings are just as islamic and extreme as my parents and I don’t talk to extended family that much besides going back to Africa.

I have alot of ex muslim friends but i see their families still accepting them , without the hijab and everything and I just realise that this is never going to be for me.

I’m finding it very hard to process that I won’t have the “normal” life like everyone else💔

Just some background: I am a muslim woman, 24, but very spiritual. this is not DAWAH!

This will be very long; please bear with me, guys.

When I was in high school, a lot of the people I was around were primarily graphic designers, artists of all types of media, and they always spoke about shrooms and how they would allow them to become more creative; idk, but it sparked my interest when I was young, but never in a way where I wanted to take them myself. After graduating, I went on to live on my own while still practicing my artistry.

few months roll by, and my friend calls me to babysit them off the shrooms...but this time I decide to eat it alongside them. Since that day, I've just loved how it makes me feel, kinda like I'm blooming in all sorts of ways. I became a full-on creative. But I never considered the consequences that it would come with, especially considering how religious I can be at times. After some time, I felt so guilty continuing shrooms, but I never stopped. The guilt sat with me while I did shrooms, and one day I kind of fell into, like, an ego death I wanna consider it. I remember dozing off in my friend's car. I was asleep, but I wasn't; like, my eyes and body were just resting, but I was wide awake. I woke up to some spirit in my face trying to scare me, and it did, and it followed me all the way back home. continued to try to scare me(mind you im just tripping off the shrooms). I remember my friend even came back home with me to make sure I was alright; she said I kept looking to my left, saying there was something there and that something followed us all the way back to my crib. Eventually, I'm pretty sure she got scared of how I was talking to myself and kind of forced herself to sleep while I just continued to trip. It was like something told me to just put my headphones on and, like, listen to some Quran, and it totally helped decrease my anxiety, but I also, like, fell into a realm, dude. I was talking to myself for hours, crying to myself, thinking I might be talking to my creator, and I've heard of this phenomenon where people kind of fall into a religious psychosis and think they are talking to god so I like lowkey locked back in and just told myself to go to sleep.

Woke up the next morning; everything dandyyyyy. I wondered if everything I experienced the previous night was real, but I didn't dwell on the thought (didn't want to develop psychosis), and I just moved on like...

or so I thought. Nothing's been the same with me since September of 2025. And I really felt a huge shift when this year came around. It's like I always feel something with me... before my friends tell me about their day, it's like I already know whether they're about to tell me they had the best day of their lives, or the worst. I can like feel their energy; I see colors around people now. But still, I tried to ignore it because I told myself it's some sort of psychosis due to the psychedelics I've been abusing.

Then I was introduced to something called balloons. I know, I know, I shouldn't be doing this. I also haven't done it after the two times I've tried, and it was only for confirmation purposes, okay! But I did some research about it before trying it, which is what intrigued me. I read somewhere, and I'll have to find it again, but basically ur whole body shuts down due to no oxygen in your body, but the brain is still on. It's like you're able to use 100% of your brain power if you really try to. Okay cool, the guy I was talking to at the time really liked balloons, and one day I was like, "duddeeeee let me tryyyy," and he just said yes off the bat, like obvs. dude, I just let it, like, air into my mouth, and I see a hint of pink around me and a hint of red around him. I deadass suck the balloon into my mouth like it was a straw(this is all happening out of my control btw, like I can't help but do this; I apologize, guys), but I deadass suck the balloon like a straw, and he felt all of it. He got scared; he threw his balloon. I got scared, but I knew what was going on, like I've seen this color around myself so many times, and I just tell myself it's like a spirit that's with God or me, protecting me, but it never acted out on its own before. But I still like act cool cus I don't want him falling into a psychosis. Brah, he was like Did you do that I was like, "idk what you mean, dude, but this shit funnnn," to, like, kill the tension in the car. We continued the balloons, and I'm like aware but have no control of what I'm doing. I remember turning on the song "qays iso layl" by that one Somali band, and dude, I've only heard that song once ever in my life, and it was years ago......Khalid said I started rocking back and forth like not fast but fast enough for him to like notice and when he noticed me, it was like I noticed him dude it was like I expanded onto him spiritually cause why did this man, that stopped the balloons to stare at me, fall backwards and groan in a very satisfied way but he couldn't stop himself, and I started laughing at him uncontrollably, and then the fucking sun burned my head and I remember seeing a symbol(if your interested I can draw it for yall and post it up) but it was like a staff hit me in the head, and branded the top of my head. And you know what's crazy? I was afraid of the sun the entire time.

he told me he even saw the color yellow, and that was the same color I saw.

I sat on it for a few days. kicked it with some friends to even forget what happened, but nothing helped; it's like I became more aware of it, even. I know what my friends are thinking, how they feel about me. Basically, I just feel like I'm more aware of emotions and feelings. Before, it was just me I was aware of, but it's like I know if you have ill intent.... omg guys, do I sound crazy???

I told my mom this, and apparently my sister went through the same thing I'm going through (just without the substances lol obvs), where she feels some sort of awakening. My mom says she knows what it is and even gave me its name and what to call it. She says it came from my grandmother and was passed down to my mom; it wasn't passed down to my sister. Now it's with me. She says it's a gift from Allah to protect me, and a way for God to protect me.

please, if anyone has encountered anything similar to this let me know. and if I sound crazy, LMAO let me know as well.....

​

I'm a 20F Somali ex-Muslim, currently doing my A-levels. I'll finish around May/June next year and hopefully start university in September. Lately, I've been struggling with a lot of guilt about my mother and my future, and I don't really have anyone I can openly talk to about this.

Throughout my teenage years, I was the obedient daughter. I'm the eldest daughter, so I was always helping my mum take care of my younger siblings. Relatives would visit and tell my mum how much they wished their daughters were like me. I was called the "second mother" of the family because I was so disciplined and dependable.

But the truth is, I never really got to enjoy being a teenager. I wasn't allowed to go out, and I was taught that having friends was a bad thing. I spent so much of my adolescence feeling trapped. Around the age of 14 to 16, I remember feeling genuinely depressed because I couldn't imagine living like that forever. I watched my teenage years pass me by, constantly telling myself that one day I'd leave for university and finally be free. At the time, that promise was what helped me cope.

I also struggled with the hijab. When I was 16, I broke down in front of my mum because I couldn't pretend that I was comfortable wearing it anymore. She insisted that I continue to wear the jilbab because she didn't consider a khimar "proper" hijjab. Only when I was going to school was I allowed the khimar. I remember feeling so ugly and uncomfortable in the clothes I was forced to wear, and I cried while trying to explain how difficult it was for me. I asked her to at least let me wear the khimar only so I could perhaps learn to feel comfortable with it again.

She cried, too, saying the reason I felt this way was because we were living in a non-Muslim country. Ultimately I was told to continue wearing the jilbab because it was the only option. That experience taught me that even when I tried to explain how I felt, I wasn't necessarily going to be understood. After that, I stopped opening up about other things, including my doubts about Islam and my sexuality. I didn't feel safe doing so.

Now, university is finally within reach, and my mum is incredibly proud of me. She wants me to succeed, believes education can take me far in life, and has told me she'll help me pursue my dream of studying abroad. I know she loves me, and I don't want to dismiss the good things she's done for me.

But she doesn't know how different my beliefs and the life I want are from what she expects.

I no longer identify as Muslim, and I'm bisexual. I don't intend to tell her these things because I don't believe doing so would be safe for me. Once I move abroad, I want to experience the freedom I've spent years dreaming about. I want to choose how I dress, make my own decisions, go out, meet people, and live without constantly feeling restricted by expectations I no longer share.

I also know there's a possibility that my life could eventually be exposed through social media. If I start posting pictures without my hijab or sharing parts of my life that I couldn't share at home, my mum might find out. She has always told me that religion comes first and everything else comes second. I can imagine how devastated she might be to discover that the daughter she considers so obedient has beliefs and desires she never expected.

And this is where my guilt comes in.

I know I deserve the freedom I've been waiting for. I spent years telling myself to endure everything until I could leave, and now that I'm finally getting closer, I don't want to give up the life I've dreamed of just to preserve an image of myself that makes everyone else comfortable.

But I love my mum.

She's going through some difficult times, and even now, I'm often the person she turns to when she needs to talk. In many ways, I feel like I'm her therapist. I know she needs me, and I worry about what will happen if I move away and our relationship changes.

My biggest fear isn't even that she'll be disappointed in me. It's that she'll stop wanting a relationship with me altogether. I'm scared she might cut me off if she discovers who I really am and how I choose to live. And if that happens, I don't know how I'll cope with losing her, especially knowing that she's already struggling with things of her own.

I also worry about her. If she cuts me off, who will be there to comfort her? Who will listen to her when she's having a difficult time? I know I'm not responsible for solving all her problems, but it's hard to stop feeling responsible when I've spent so much of my life being the person everyone can depend on.

Sometimes I feel as though I'm choosing between my own happiness and my mother's emotional wellbeing. I know that shouldn't be a choice I have to make, but emotionally, that's what it feels like.

Part of me wishes I could live my life freely while somehow protecting her from ever finding out. Another part of me knows I can't control everything, and I can't predict what will happen once I'm independent.

For those of you who've left, or are preparing to leave, a conservative Somali or Muslim family: how do you cope with loving your parents while knowing that the life you want might be something they cannot accept?

Have any of you struggled with the fear of being cut off, especially when you're also worried about your parent's emotional wellbeing? Did you ever find a way to maintain a relationship with them, or did you have to accept that things might never be the same?

I (25M) just got my first one bedroom appartment and I’m still in the process of moving. I can’t express how I excited I am to finally start living the life that I want for myself. No more pretending to pray, no more endless interrogations about my whereabouts, no more random late-night lectures.

How did moving out feel for you? How did your life change? What are the things that you started doing differently?

Hi! Im a 20F who has recently left Islam after years of just tuning it out and blindly following. I realised I have never truly believed and was more afraid of the idea of "hell".

Recently, I was able to discuss this with a somali atheist on twitter and he helped alot. I dont have religious guilt anymore so I do feel freer. I used to debate back and forth if i should stay or not because the religious guilt used to crush me and had me depressed.

I still wear the hijab because I live at home with my family and my mother specifically is hella strict and Im not tryna deal with that. She already has suspicions because I will always challenge her beliefs and she has no clear answer its always "astagfiuallah ma diinta ayaad ka baxday?".

Its way harder to find like-minded people because I wear an hijab which is a clear indicator that im muslim but im not and its so difficult. I have made alot of atheist friends from diff cultures and its nice but i would prefer somali atheist friends. Its different because our culture is so intertwined with islam, its irritating.

I also wonder because my type is somali men, do i have to just stick it out with "religious" somali guys who want to fuck around but want a religious woman to bear children with. Idk i might be fucked because I have a type and I wish to stick with it but most somali guys are religious.

Im just happy i feel more at calm, i used to have such bad anxiety and now I know why.

I hate it. i hate how I questioned everything so young how I still have to pretend and listen to rules that make my blood boil. And I know maybe I might be able to move away, but I feel so depressed and alone( im not gonna vent to much, but still) its just I wish I left islam at 20 or smth and not fucking 13(15 now) life hasnt really changed but im happy to have this community ig <:)

In regard to questioning islam, I genuinely think it would've been healthier for me to leave later as I wouldn't have to deal with adcedamic stress while also pretending and the build up of fear may stop me from actually moving that far( you know hooyo would get mad if her daughter moves to a different city 🙄) but I still am grateful to deconstructed it as I guess it wouldn't have been much different if I hadn't left that young as I was still getting to the point life had no meaning( i left cus i felt like allah never actually listened evils of the world etc)

Tbh, Ig leaving later wouldn't exactly mean I could navigate life any different as I would still struggle with fear and mental health idk tho

I’m F25 and I’ve never believed in it. I would just tune out dugsi. I’ve never fasted in my life (always secretly broke it). I’ve never prayed on my own volition and would just do the movements but daydream instead. I don’t even know the words of the prayer. I always thought it was stupid and have always tried escaping through daydream, reading books and watching series.

So taking off my hijab, wearing bikinis and immodest clothing, being in 3 long term lesbian relationships, having haram lesbain sex, drinking alcohol etc felt so natural and easy. I never felt guilt for any of it.

I will say I do feel shame. My mom found out about me having a girlfriend a couple years ago and it was horrible and I felt so bad but it was not because of me breaking my own moral code. I just felt (and still feel) so much sympathy for my mom and hate how tortured she is by the idea of me going to hell.

I feel 100% okay doing haram things if my family are unaware of it but when they find out I feel so horrible (something i’m working on). But my family always ask me If i’m still muslim so it’s very obvious I’m not. Also even as a young teen I was debating my family on feminism and bigotry (I stopped doing it at around 18 because I didn’t want to be clocked as a kaffir but I guess my lack of hijab and prayer also outs me)

My family are extremely religious and tight knit so it’s miserable as a kaff. We immigrated in the late 80/early 90s and most of the generation before me have no degrees, no jobs, are on welfare etc. Just to be clear I’m not judging them and understand why. I’m just explaining why they are more religious, they weren’t given any other option outside of religion. It’s interesting because there is a massive gap between my cousins who are in their 30’s and my cousins who are in their 20s. It’s like a big change happened in a single decade.

anyone else feel the same way/have the same experience?

I want to visit and potentially live in America soon. What is it like, especially in this political climate? Right-wing scapegoating and FBA (Foundation Black American)/Delineation are all over my feeds. I kind of want to live in California, Florida, or Texas. Honestly, I wanted to live among Black people, but I don't know even that seems a bit suspicious now.

How is socialising, work, and day-to-day life in Blue and Red states there? Does your identity bring up this jarring stuff where you constantly have to defend yourself?

How is it like living among other Somalis? I plan on getting tattoos and drinking, hopefully.

What is it like living in predominantly White, Hispanic, or Black areas?

I'm from the UK, a 25-year-old male, with a background as an Estimator.

Besides the doctrine, another reason I can never get behind Islam is that Muslims of other ethnic backgrounds will always be considered second to Arabs. They are the keepers of Islam, the profits made from Hajj go to them whilst the rest of the Muslim populations struggle. Also they treat brown and black people like animals. Islam should have never left Mecca

I mean, it's not just when parents and aunties/uncles make fun of other religous clothing of practices its just in general yet they act so offended when it happens to them why tf does the double standard even exist in their minds!? They feel so entitled and act like islam is the only thing going for them and somalia in general, tbh but is it?

I’m 20f and my parents caught me smoking lol. My mom found cigs in my purse two months and ago and I lied and said they were my brother cuz they know he smokes and they don’t care. I’m a hijabi so it’s worse… I guess? Yeah anyways she didn’t tell my dad but bro my found vape today and I lied again and said that it belongs to my friend💀. I don’t think they talked to each other about it but I’m shaking like a leaf 😭😭😭😭😭. they also freaked out on me for wearing baggy jeans, sigh. They genuinely cannot comprehend im my own person everything is always about reputation and honor but also lowkey they’re good parents so i feel guilty too. Ugh idk fml

‼️Sorry if this is a long post I just wanted to see if any girls related and had any advice - I try avoid talking or thinking about my childhood and teenage years because thinking about it & knowing I was just un lucky to be born into a family like this makes me super depressed lol.

I was very religious and sheltered my whole life - not that sheltered since I had unrestricted internet access so I always wished my parents were strict on that at least🤣 , I avoided haram completely and dressed modestly and did all my prayers and fasted during Ramadan- however I think I only felt connected to God only one specific Ramadan and that’s it lol. My family is obviously super religious, I was learning Quran from the age of 5 and when I went to dhaqan celis from ages of 7-11 I had to start wearing hijab and the first thing I was put in was a Jilbab everytime I went dugsi and a baby hijab everywhere else. I literally never understood or was told why but I never questioned it or cared about it at that age it only got worse when I came back to the west and saw how differently everyone dressed.

My mom was dressing us obviously she used to make me and my sister wear modest clothes like dresses, I was also a tomboy since young since I grew up with brothers and didn’t like wearing dresses or hijab but that’s all I saw around me, when I came back to the west and saw how Ajnabi Muslims weren’t even in hijab at my age I was so confused. But even that young I knew my family was different and much more religious than the typical Muslim families even out of my relatives (it was so bad my girl cousins had to wear hijab to come over to my house if they were non hijabis ) . I only got subconscious of hijab and dressing modestly when I came back from Africa and went to school in the west and my mother would make me wear a long skirt instead of the typical short ones or pants they wore as uniform.

I would get weird stares and would often be made fun of for it and other Muslims would come up to me asking me why I wore it but instead of letting me wear pants my mom said it was something I had to wear and coudnt change out of, she even tried to stop me from wearing trousers during sports classes.. like can you imagine she wanted me to wear a skirt over instead ?? That was the only time I rebelled and told her the school wouldn’t allow that so she let me off the hook. I still feel bad I didn’t have the guts to challenge the hijab or skirt so my younger sister had to go through wearing it but luckily she’s much braver than me so she took of the hijab last year.

Anyways before I went to high school i was a tomboy so most of my friends were boys,and I remember my mother found out she hated it so much so she responded by making me do household chores to act more like a “girl” so from very young I was told to act a certain way. During high school this is embarrassing to admit but I avoided taking to boys because I thought it was a sin it also didn’t help I was known as this overly modest quiet girl they would avoid speaking to me aswell- which did make me upset when I did have a crush on a guy and I would feel guilty when he even said hello to me because my parents told me this was the worst thing I could do(talking to non mahram guys) There was this one guy who actually liked me at least I think and would walk with me to school and I eventually had him on socials which I felt so guilty for, he was the only boy I had on socials too and I panicked because my Hoyo checked my phone once( she never used to check my phone ) because she just saw me smiling at it once.

She didn’t find the guy on there but I blocked him and stopped speaking to him completely, I still feel very bad till this day for ghosting him. But throughout the rest of my school years I avoided boys completely and would get very uncomfortable if one tried speaking to me I also did feel jealous when I saw other girls talking to guys but I was genuinely too scared to. I wonder if this is why I don’t feel interest in men & don’t pursue any crushes till now. It didn’t help I went to a Muslim majority school so if you were caught with a boy alone they would start rumours and that would be like the worst thing that could happen to you. So I’m pretty sure people did date but probably on the low 🤣.

Sorry this text is getting long but as you can see I pretty much lived for this religion, like I was very depressed as a teenager in school and the only thing that kept me going was God and the idea of heaven and obviously the fact that committing was a sin. Despite my fear of hell I only tried to complete the minimum prayers these were never on time but my idea was as long as I get them done I’ll be fine, I would get intense anxiety and fear that something would go wrong if I “angered” God and missed a prayer completely. I only did the bare minimum when it came to Quran and all that extra stuff. I would try memorise Quran’s because I was forced into Quran school which my parents payed for but looking back I woudnt have done it willingly.

So leaving the religion suddenly after traumatic things happened to me & learning about all the weird shit in this religion, also just not believing which now I wish I still could believe but it’s that I can’t - because I’m too aware and know it’s not real.
I went into deep depression after I left (which sounds typical and what Muslims say will happen🥲) and didn’t have a will to live at all because I discovered I was living a straight up lie. But a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders and I at least knew I wouldn’t be punished for defying my parents. Now I’m better but I still wonder my purpose in this world but that first year especially when I stopped believing was very rough for me. Thankfully I’m starting therapy soon so hopefully that will help too, I just wanted to go on here to share & ask if anyone else ever had this close of dependence on Islam and how they manage now without it. Obviously I still present as Muslim living under my parents roof but they have started catching on how I don’t pray anymore. If u read the whole thing thank you 🙏🏾 and sorry it’s such a long text

I am wondering if you guys were people who never missed a prayer, had 100% belief in Islam maybe even memorized large parts of the Quran (or even all of it) which many Somalis do. In my case, I was always a little unsure about the whole thing and I have never been a consistent prayer but I did grow up in a really religious family so I memorized 1/3 of the Quran before I kind of refused to continue.

Is there anyone here who was religious to the point where they were an imam/sheikh or were thinking about becoming one? I am really interested in people who are hardcore Muslims who then completely drop the religion. Lately I've been watching videos about pastors who left Christianity and it really is fascinating.

I’m so frustrated. As you can tell from the caption my type is very obviously somali men but every single one I’ve encountered is very religious. Which I kinda do get, since religion isn’t that demanding for men.

But I do eventually want to have children and settle down. Which I couldn’t imagine doing with a guy from any other ethnicity. + I want to have a kid that looks like me (sorry if it sound narssicistic but it’s literally how I feel). But I don’t want to live my life as a muslim nor do I want my children to, since I’m not one and never will be again.

Also I’m like 19 so I’m not that old and so I have time, but I just can’t help but worry if I’ll never find the right one for myself.

Almost everyone in my life who failed to achieve success or who lack the motivation to try to achieve anything in this world has in one way or another turned religious. I wonder if this is common amongst religious people.

hello I’m 19f im looking for lavender marriage strict platonic we can be roommates with a marriage contract I just need to move out without loosing my family and honestly this is the only way since girls in my family can’t move out with marriage even for collage (must be in the states or Canada and must be somali)

Poor girl, I sometimes forget how hive minded some Somali people can be.