An introductory reflection on how being born female, childhood trauma, and religious texts shaped my voice—and my silence.

When I began healing, I realized something I had never been able to name before:

**My pain did not start with religion—

but certain doctrines interacted with my childhood wounds in ways that kept me silent, afraid, and compliant.**

And I want to say this clearly, academically, and without hostility:

There is a collective trauma carried by many women—not because of isolated experiences, but because of being born female within systems shaped by certain religious doctrines.

This isn’t about attacking a religion.
This is about acknowledging the psychological environment created for women by specific teachings many of us were raised on.

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🌱 The Collective Trauma of Being Born Female (Within Islamic Doctrine)

Across the Qur’an, Hadith, and classical commentary, there are recurring themes regarding women that form an emotional landscape many females must navigate. Academically, these include:

• the expectation of female obedience
• the normalization of polygamy
• the silence surrounding child marriage
• the prioritization of male authority (spiritually, socially, and legally)
• the association of female value with purity, modesty, and virginity
• the concept of divine punishment for women who assert boundaries or express anger

These teachings collectively form a psychological environment—an environment where many women learn to silence themselves, excuse harmful behavior, internalize fear, and accept emotional neglect as “faith.”

This is not about blaming individuals.
It is about acknowledging the effects of a doctrine when combined with real human vulnerability.

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🌑 How Childhood Trauma Intersected With These Teachings

Because of my unresolved childhood trauma, I was already conditioned to:

• avoid conflict
• people-please
• stay quiet
• fear abandonment
• accept mistreatment
• distrust my own instincts

So when I entered a religious system where:

• obedience was spiritualized
• silence was idealized
• male authority was normalized
• polygamy was always a possibility
• women were inherently secondary in the moral hierarchy

…it all felt familiar.

It felt like home—not because it was healthy, but because trauma recognizes trauma.

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📚 The Doctrines That Kept Me Silent

There were specific teachings that shaped my voice—and my inability to use it.

For example:

“The righteous women are devoutly obedient…”

(Qur’an 4:34)

I taught this verse.
I instructed women to be patient, submissive, compliant.
I told them to endure emotional hardship “for the sake of God.”

And here is the truth:

I helped normalize emotional and spiritual abuse—because I believed God required it.

That is something I had to grieve deeply.
And something only Jesus has been able to free me from in forgiveness.

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⚠️ The Things No One Talks About

There are topics Muslim women whisper about privately but rarely acknowledge publicly, including:

• Child marriage

Aisha’s young age is well-documented in major Hadith collections.
Women avoid this topic because it is painful, confusing, and uncomfortable.
Silence becomes the only safe response.

• The Prophet’s 11 wives

Even though the Qur’an limits men to four wives, classical biography records the Prophet exceeded this limit.
Women are forbidden from questioning this discrepancy.
Again—silence becomes survival.

These issues do not just exist in books.
They shape how women feel about themselves, their bodies, their worth, their roles, and their right to question harm.

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🧩 The Layering of Pain

By the time my faith crisis arrived in 2019, I could finally articulate something I had felt for years:

**My childhood trauma made me vulnerable.

These doctrines deepened the wound.
Together, they created a layered trauma I did not have words for.**

This blog is not an attack on Islam.
It is a place where many women will finally see their own pain reflected—and understood.

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🌸 And Now… Healing

Healing for me meant asking questions I had been too afraid to ask.
It meant recognizing that spiritual truth cannot grow where fear is the foundation.
It meant understanding that God is not the author of my trauma.
And it meant forgiving myself for the years I taught women to carry burdens they were never meant to bear.