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Young revert living the cutie life while trying to keep her heart as soft as possible, iA.

My worst nightmare came true πŸ§•πŸ’”


Being a hijabi is stressful enough on its own, especially living in a small town, and one thing I've always been fearful of is someone possibly coming up to or behind me and assaulting me trying to take off my hijab and after going almost five years of being muslim, it finally happened.

Even more upsetting and terrifying about the whole thing is that it was a co-worker who did it and it happened at work!

I missed two blog updates because of how traumatised and upset I was about everything that happened and if I'm being honest, I'm still recovering emotionally and mentally (alhamdulillah, the only physical thing hurt was a partially broken nail from scratching my attacker). I thought about whether I wanted to write about this or not and honestly, I'm not going to hide what happened to me and I think it'll help me recover in the long run, in sha Allah. 

Since my family is non-muslim and my parents (and at least one of my brothers) are extremely islamophobic, I ended up not wearing what many would consider a conventional hijab. I used to go to work and hide my underscarf and hijab in my bag and put them on in the parking lot at work, but after my parents kept coming to the store more and more often, I decided against it and instead, began wearing a knitted hat with an underscarf instead. I felt like giving the circumstances, that Allah (swt) would definitely understand my attempt at hijab, in sha Allah. 

Almost all of my co-workers know I'm muslim and are very respectful of my boundaries (such as me not liking men touching or grabbing me) and I always felt like it was a very safe place for me. I won't lie: I've had some awful encounters with co-workers from demanding to know why I'm muslim, calling me a terrorist and telling me how "oppressed" I am, but for the past two years, things have been really nice. 

On Friday, I was at work just trying to enjoy my shift, when a co-worker and someone I thought was a friend, came up to me, and when I asked if he was going home, he looked me dead in the eyes and said, "Not til I see what you've got hidden under there!". For a split second, it was like I couldn't understand what I'd heard. Then, before I could do anything, he started grabbing and pulling at my hijab, underscarf and even my hair! I started yelling at him to stop, that it was my hijab and that he was upsetting me, but he just kept repeating himself over and over again: "I have to see what you have hidden under here!" and "I'm not leaving til I see what's under here!". I'm not quite sure what he thought was under my hijab? As if he would pull my hijab and underscarf up and Voldemort's head would be underneath. 

I started screaming and scratching at his hands and even managed to grab one of them and I squeezed it as hard as possible, digging my nails into his skin, still screaming at him to stop. But no matter how loud I screamed or how much I scratched and grabbed at him, he refused to stop and just continued grabbing and pulling at my hair, hijab and underscarf. Finally, I burst into tears and screamed, "STOP IT!" at the top of my lungs; and just as suddenly as he started, he stopped. 

Unfortunately, it didn't fully end there. 

He bent his head close to mine and asked me, 'what's wrong with you?'. 

I was so upset, I was full-blown weeping and told him to just leave me alone and go away and he left. 

I ended up going to the back and calling my Darling hysterically and telling me he needed to come to the breakroom as soon as possible and that it was an emergency. I didn't care what he was doing, he had to stop and come to me right away. "Please," I begged, "I need you." He didn't need to hear any more and told me he'd be right there and hung up and in less than a minute later, he came running in the breakroom and when he saw how distraught I was, he asked me what happened and tried to help me calm down. Once I managed to tell him what happened, he ran off to find a manager and came back with one and didn't leave til he was satisfied that everything was being taken care of, masha'Allah. πŸ’πŸ’πŸ’ I spoke to two managers and was told that disciplinary action would be taken, as well as being told that maybe he didn't understand what a 'hijab' was, but as I pointed out: even if he didn't know what it was and thought I was just wearing a hat, he should've stopped as soon as I told him to and especially once I started screaming and scratching him. Any way you look at it, he crossed a line. 

My Darling ended up checking on me throughout the rest of the afternoon and the next day too, masha'Allah πŸ’πŸ’πŸ’ I ended up calling in the next day after my parents and Darling agreed that there was no reason to go to work if I was just going to spend all day crying. At first, I wasn't sure. However, after a few hours, I had to admit that it'd really helped: I wasn't crying anymore, scared and jumping at every little sound, and I started to feel calm once again. 

While I did go to work the next day, I was by myself with the flowers and plants and was able to calm down and get a little comfortable again with my job place, although I'm not sure if I'll ever feel comfortable or safe there again. Through this whole ordeal, my Darling has been there for me and supported me through all of it, even when I call him at somewhat random hours of the day in a panic. I really can't deny that I'm so blessed to have someone that loves me so much and that will support me and protect me as best as he possibly can, subhan'Allah. I don't think I'd be able to get through this without him, and I pray that Allah (swt) will grant me shifa soon, in sha Allah


 

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