Growing up in a family that was toxic - and at times dangerous

I was told I was moving because they cared about me and it was for my education, but I noticed strange little things happening and even though I was still young I knew something was wrong. I was being stopped from going on a lot of school trips, and my Mum began insisting that I cover up more. It wasn’t what I was seeing happening to the other girls around me, but I was a shy, quiet girl back then, so although I was unhappy I would keep it bottled up and to myself. 

I was a dreamer, I loved being outside but as I grew older  I realised a point was being made of putting me ‘in my place.’ I had a brother who was two years younger than I was and he was being given the freedom and opportunities I would long for, and being taught he was superior to me and ‘worth’ more. I was told in no uncertain terms one day by my Mum that I was ‘worth half’ literally what he was and that as a female I would be more likely to end up in ‘Hell.’

I couldn’t believe the things I was hearing.. I started to fall apart. I’d been a pretty good student up till then but my dreams it seemed were over, my hopes for the future gone. I was supposed to be prepared for a lifestyle befitting my culture and what she wanted. When school was over many of us had work experience arranged before we started sixth form. Mine had been arranged with a firm of architects. In my head I hovered between the idea of being an architect, a lawyer or a journalist. It makes me laugh now as these careers are so different but I was young and I gravitated towards all those things. My grades at school meant my teachers had been supportive of me going forward down any one of those paths, I just wasn’t sure which. The first morning I had laid out my clothes ready for my week of work experience, but when Mum came in and saw a knee length skirt she said she thought it wasn’t ‘decent’ and I needed to cover up more. 

Things were clearly about to get worse.. 

Up until the age of 16 or so I’d been closeted I guess by my school, but now I’d left it was much easier for Mum to take control. She monitored what I was wearing, who I spoke to and would even listen in to conversations if I was using the phone. I once even caught her trying to follow me in the car as I walked down the road at three in the afternoon, paranoid in case I was meeting a boy. After a couple of attempts at trying to go out in the evenings with friends with the help of my Dad that was soon over too. 

She started saying I’d not be allowed to learn to drive because I’d have ‘too much freedom.‘ I was forbidden to get into a driving instructor’s car after Dad had helped me book lessons., bluntly being told ‘no, you’re not going.’  Another day there was an interrogation by her asking if I let boys ever ‘touch’ me, which ended up with her saying if anyone was ever interested in me it would only be to use me as I was apparently so awful. She put her hand between my legs as if to emphasise the point it would make me a ‘whore.’

I would try and doll myself up believing her when she’d call me ugly, sometimes even in front of guests, trying to break down my confidence.

She would constantly try and monitor what I was reading too. I loved reading… books, magazines, newspapers.. whatever I could get my hands on..  I was interested in the news and knowing what was going on in the world. According to her though, I should only be reading what she thought of as ‘appropriate’ and definitely not things that would fill my head with western ‘nonsense,’ She would disapprove of a lot of books and magazines and so I took to hiding my teenage magazines especially under the front door mat and sneaking them in.  I’d turned 18 but was being treated like a child. I was living in a big house, but it felt like I was in a cage. I began drawing the curtains and sitting in the dark. I don’t think of myself as a weak person generally but I hated living that way. As my milestone 18th and my 21st birthdays went by there were no celebrations at all as I wasn’t meant to go out.

We lived to make God happy and women especially were meant to be ‘sober’ and not enjoying ourselves that much.  

I didn’t think much of myself. My confidence was being stripped away. As well as my movements being restricted I was told I wouldn’t be allowed a tv either. Mum didn’t want me being under any ‘influence’ she couldn’t control I guess, but I got myself one anyway, and she tried to confiscate it, with Dad bringing it back to me.  My freedom, my movements, were so curtailed, was I supposed to just sit in my room on my own all day only doing the activities she approved of? It didn’t seem to matter that my brother would be given the newest games consoles, clothes, whatever he wanted and was allowed to come and go as he pleased. There were no restrictions on him as a boy and I was told ‘it’s different for girls.‘ He had to be kept happy, because he was ‘superior’ to me, and I was meant to simply accept it. He was enjoying the status quo and how things were at home. 

There were a few times I did still try and stand my ground, but I would usually be shot down and ‘taught a lesson.’ My brother gave me a beating so bad once, whilst Mum watched on, that I had to leave, I had to run for my life. As the punches came down on me it hadn’t occurred to me to fight back so I fled. Dad had been present when it happened and was upset, but didn’t want to rock the boat. 

All the promise and dreams I had from my schooldays had began to dissipate. I withdrew into myself and became a shell of a person. Dad was heartbroken by what was happening to me, but was a quiet passive person by nature. He knew what was happening was wrong but I guess he just hoped things would get better. 

**What he failed to realise, or didn’t want to admit to himself perhaps, was that when you let  bullies get away with things there is usually more to come** and there would be cover ups and lies to ‘help’ them, their behaviour would get worse, leading to more family drama, tears and mess with growing egos, thinking they could get away with anything. That was the first incidence of violence but it definitely wasn’t the last. 

My brother, who was never very smart, was now expected to study Medicine to follow in my father’s footsteps. I remember Mum being furious when a teacher had said he wasn’t really ‘doctor material.‘ So when he failed to get into university the first time, and then again, she began to freak out, talking about sending him to Eastern Europe to study as a last resort, to get him into medical school and working as a doctor through the back door.. ‘Luckily’ in the end he did end up getting a place through clearing and moved up to Sheffield University to study. I had been forbidden from leaving home for my place at uni, but by this point my mind was an absolute mess anyway. 

I was being denied the opportunities a male was told would be his and not once had he stood up for me or said we should be equals. On the contrary he would back Mum up and tell relatives as the only male child on my father’s side everything would be passed onto him. 

He had started telling people that everything my (very successful) Grandad had had would end up being his.. and this amounted to millions.. My Grandad had grown up poor, but begun buying land when it was dirt cheap and no-one else was thinking of it, later being able to sell it and make large profits when developers came along and wanted to build on it.. My brother was now claiming it should all be his, with my Mum backing him up, even though we had cousins, but they were female (ie the ‘wrong’ sex).. 

It was insane.. like we had stepped back hundreds of years, and I was being branded a ‘troublemaker” for wanting to be treated as an equal. The excuses given were ‘Islamic law’ and ‘it’s our culture’ but of course they would just pick and choose the bits that were convenient for them. Again, I was told off when I pointed out the double standards and ridiculousness of it all.. My Mum didn’t believe she should get less than a man herself and went by British and secular law when it meant she could get more, whilst imposing the traditional rules on me. 

Although I was treated as someone quite unwanted that wasn’t something I was personally seeing amongst family friends, from what I saw their daughters had a lot more freedom and WERE going away to study, they were living their lives as normal. They didn’t have the same restrictions I had. People saw my Mum as conservative in the way women were maybe 50/60 years ago back in the homeland. The funny thing was that when I was very young I distinctly remember her wearing jeans, taking us to McDonalds at the weekends, I think we even went swimming together once.. things Mum later decided should be forbidden as they were symbols of a western lifestyle. 

A local woman, let’s call her Mrs K’, had turned up at our front door after we’d moved to Bexhill and everything changed. She was a teacher at the local mosque, but rather than teaching love and compassion in Islam, she encouraged Mum to become more hardline In her beliefs. She was conservative and did cover, but now was saying she’d no longer wear western clothes at all. ‘Mrs K’ had told her to start wearing the hijab, the Muslim headscarf, despite secretly taking it off herself and telling us kids not to tell anyone. 

I’d not grown up seeing anything like this personally and was irritated at my life becoming more restricted. We were no longer to eat food that wasn’t ‘Halal’ (meat sourced according to our religion) and living in Bexhill, a very small town, without a large Muslim community,  meant meat was no Longer an option if she had her way and stuck to Halal. I‘d bought home a KFC, which was thrown in the bin, despite the fact we’d grown up on burgers, chips and nuggets up until then. Even my favourite beef flavoured crisps were a problem. I knew I wasn‘t the only one irritated by the new rules and Dad would sometimes pick up some chicken from M&S, saying changing everything overnight was going overboard.  

Dad also wasn’t happy about me not going to uni. He’d taken me to my interview to study Law, but that was the beginning and end of that because Mum didn’t want me away from the house and mixing too much with the opposite sex.  My grandad, my Mum’s dad, had allowed her to leave home and go away to university though, and that was still a pretty rare thing  back in that generation in Muslim families. Dad pointed out Mum was trying to deny me the same freedoms she herself had been given and enjoyed. 

When people asked why I hadn’t gone she lied and said ‘my daughter doesn’t want to’ and ‘she’s lazy’, just as she’d said to people ‘she doesn’t like going out’ when they’d ask why I wasn’t out more. 

I began to sink in and out of cycles of depression.. I would doll myself up with makeup and play about with my hair to cheer myself and as a form of quiet rebellion. I went blonde, which I knew would also make it more difficult for Mum to marry me off. I hated how things were at home. 

Years went by then one day I met a doctor friend of Dad’s who worked at the same hospital he did and he told Dad in no uncertain terms to get me away from Mum and my brother and said what had been going on was abuse. He told Dad that I  should have a safe place to go and. Dad took his words seriously. Now, I was allowed the odd trip away by myself as my health was suffering and I was trying to not be around my Mum or brother. 

A lovely little flat was bought in Brentwood. It was to be a ‘safe place’ to provide me with some security. Mum was furious though and stopped speaking to Dad, saying why should I get help to buy a home, despite the fact my brother had done. 

A couple of years later Dad ran into financial issues when the last large payment on the mortgage of the family home was due.  Neither Mum, who had well in excess of £100,000 available, or my brother wanted to help so I said to Dad to sell the flat, and that was what  happened. Now my safe place was gone a lot worse was to come.. 

I’m not someone who normally cries very easily but I was struggling a lot and as I got lonelier and lonelier I decided to try and get a pet. With more or less no cash of my own I wasn’t sure how I was going to do it till I realised I could adopt. When I was a little girl I had fallen in love with dogs but never been allowed a pet. So after finding a group online who needed to rehome chihuahuas off I went to adopt a dog from a family who could no longer keep theirs. I knew my Mum would not be happy but when she was out one day I did it anyway and snuck him into the house and up into my room! What I hadn’t thought of though was that the little guy might bark and when my Dad walked past my room the next morning, of course he did, On opening the door though Dad fell in love with him and seeing what I was going through said we could keep him. I realised over the following years how loving these animals could be and have become so grateful to have had them in my life.