Time for me to TALK

New blog

2010-09-14T07:34:00.001-07:00

http://imanspeace.blogspot.com/

Here we go...again

Last one!

2010-09-13T15:32:00.001-07:00

Sorry! I had to post this.

The decision

2010-09-03T04:39:00.000-07:00

Thank you all for your suggestions on what to do next with my "Time for me to TALK" Blog.

After much thought I think it is best to leave it as is and end it right here on this neutral note.

This blog will remain open but I will no longer add entries to it, though I will keep responding to my readers messages.

I will soon begin a new Blog, I just need some time to consider layout, name and what the main focus of it will be. Though I like the idea of interviewing new immigrant woman who are in Canada or women who have had similar stories to mine I think that needs a lot of planning, care, focus and concentrated work...Perhaps in the future and if women contact me to share their stories publically but as for now I think I am heading to a more peaceful type of documentation.

Something that reflects who I am now perhaps?

I still have good days and bad just like anyone else in this world and though I would like to think of my self as a saint, sadly I am no where near achieving that!

I can however, say that I have developed deep insight through my experiences and no longer just react to things, people and situations which has helped me get more grounded and focused on who to spend time and energy on and who/what to simply reject.

I do hope this does not come off sounding like I am a snob, because I am not. I just have had my energy and personal field invaded so many times by bad things and people that I am now quite protective if who I let near it.

I am babbling now...

So long Time for me to TALK....You did good! and see you all in my next blog so keep checking in!

Be Happy

2010-08-30T21:24:00.000-07:00

What is next

2010-08-30T07:27:00.000-07:00

I started this blog a good three years ago now because I wanted to speak of the unspeakable truth that was silenced of all that I had to endure during my life in Saudi Arabia.

Though there is much that remains untold, I believe that I have achieved my goal of telling my story. I have met some amazing people through this blog of mine and developed the most pure of friendships and I have also made some distinct enemies as the same type of people who have harmed me in the past try to perpetuate their need to harm another individual even from miles away.

Point being, My story has now been told and I face a tough decision...

What do I do now with my blog?

Should I end it here?

In many ways this blog has become part of me. A lot of pain and emotion has been forever imprinted in "time for me to talk". Gladly though, I am happy to report that the sad and angry X-Saudi female is now a very happy and loving Canadian wife and mother of two adorable boys.

I have grown leaps over the past 3 years and have emotionally developed to what I once thought was impossible. I now know how to love, how to respect and how to be understanding of my self as well of those around me.

I do not know if this should be my conclusion to this blog but I would gladly accept the ideas of my readers and supporters of what they wish to see next?

My court case remains pending but that is no longer a burning issue in my books. The man who assaulted me is back in Riyadh and is working as an Anesthetist but that is sadly how they chips fell.

I have changed careers and am happy in a career where I can actually say (I help people). The gapping wound Saudi left me with has been healed by my loving husband, the birth of my two precious sons and my life in a free, tolerant and peaceful land.

My life time goal of achieving freedom has been accomplished, my dream of being of a mother and a wife is now reality and my wish of leaving medicine has been granted.

I am at peace...

So,

You guys tell me what you want to see next? If anything...

A Little Break

2010-08-24T05:21:00.000-07:00

Just a little break from all the talk of politics, religion, and blame.

I have a new found respect for Zen and well being lifestyles. I do my very best to engage in some sort of spiritual practice every day. Whether be it in reading some words of peace and universal wisdom or distressing things I would usually stress about in order to free my self of tension and clear my energy.

A friend of mine is helping me do some emotional integration work and a sort of more holistic version of Neuro-linguistic programming if you may. I enjoy these sessions of elevating your spirit and thought above the normal everyday levels the majority of us tend to hover around.

It makes me feel more pure, and more conscious of what really does matter and what does not. These practices and readings are merely suggestions on how to better your self and to obtain peace in this life. They are not orders, they carry no threats and they come from various wise and spiritual sources...not just one.

The overall tone in these teachings is that of peace, harmony and love. I have yet to come across one threat of punishment or suggestion that one kind of practice is better than the other. That a divine spirit will give you luxuries for following it's rules while inflicting harm on those who do not at some point.

This is my religion...

Today I came across this phrase and I thought of reposting it...Enjoy;

"Here is a wooden chair. It is brown. You sit in the chair, and it holds you up. You can place things on it. But then you light the chair on fire, and then leave. When you come back later, the chair is no longer there! This thing that seemed so solid and string and real is now just a pile of cinder and ash which the wind blows around. This example shows how the chair is empty: It has no independent existence. Over a long or short time, the chair will eventually change and become something other than it appears. So, the brown chair is complete emptiness. But though it always has the quality of emptiness, this emptiness is form: you can sit in the chair, and it will hold you up."

"Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form."

Ramadan Kareem

2010-08-20T05:16:00.000-07:00

So I get yet another hate filled comment today...surprise surprise...

What is it about me and my blog that drives every raging bull out there head on into my comment inbox?

So today I get a comment from "a Saudi woman" who I had interacted with a year ago negatively on a post about Saudi Arabia. I had responded to the post and stated my general feelings about Saudi men. Once all was said and done I got a Saudi man non the less responding back and calling me "A Bitch".

Then this woman who is apparently one of his followers, as he is a Saudi Blogger, gets into it with me and calls me this, that and the other and they play the bully game with me online.

So, I did what I thought was best and that was to block them both along with their hate as I was on the way to recovery from Saudi and its chaos. I sent them private messages calling them the same names they did me and simply ended it by blocking them.

Now, 1 year later this "Saudi woman" locates my blog through a common friend and starts again with the trashing and the hate filled comments...apparently I am the "Only Hater in Saudi" according to her.

There we go; I am the ONLY one in Saudi Arabia who hates...

I am the one who seeks out women who have been degraded, humiliated and rejected by a radical society that strips them of their rights and calls them "Bitches" by default.

I am the women who holds a one year old grudge over someone I have never personally met about a comment on a comment on a website...

Yep, it is me who then traced a blog of a person who simply wrote her story with honesty then left her a derogatory message calling her "a bitch" Ironically enough on a post about how she is being called a "Whore" by other Saudis for wanting to live free.

I am the woman who knows first hand what it is like to live in Saudi and then runs after a nother woman who broke free of Saudi and chose life over the radical practice of religion, an insane tradition, and to live in a mal-society,only to spit hate on her and make her a target of all the misery I have cooped up inside me.

Yes, I am obviously the hater here...

Seeing how I made it my life goal to be free of Saudi and heal from the anger and hate that was implanted in me from my life in that country. You will be happy to know that I have achieved all my goals so thank you for the challenge.

I now leave the hate for you... seethe in it and let it consume you to the point of the mad behavior you now exhibit. keep on blaming the world for pointing out that you have no rights as a woman in Saudi and keep up the livelihood of the crippled brainwashed Saudi woman who has to follow a man and have him tell her what to do and how to think.

You and everyone out there who has decided that I am public enemy number one because I, for a change, sought out my freedom and chose to live in peace. Good luck to you, you obviously are in dire need of it.

Perhaps you might want to consider focusing on your own life and judging the people who directly influence you, not someone who is oceans away and has nothing to do with you, and you nothing to do with them.

Oh yes, I almost forgot!

Ramadan Kareem...You are the good Muslim after all right?

The Stoning of Sorayah M.

2010-08-10T07:15:00.000-07:00

I make it a point to read about and keep up to date with human and women rights violations in the major countries that have been notorious for repeatedly violating them.

Over the past month I watched 2 documentaries. The first one was "For Neda" and the second "the stoning of Sorayah M."

Both of these are about real women and how they were murdered by men in the name of religion. The religion would be Islam and the men are those who represent the Iranian government.

I have never written about Iran before. I simply did not think I knew enough about that country to give an opinion, but more and more I am finding that Iran is like a second Saudi Arabia. I am puzzled at why just now all these documentaries are being done back to back in an attempt to finally expose the truth behind another corrupt government that has totally defamed and shamed Islam. Yet another misogynistic society exists...

So, why now??

Why does it have to take amazing, courageous, innocent, pure, beautiful, unfortunate, and severely oppressed women to live a full life of hell and then to be brutally murdered by monsters who have reached the end of it all with extremism, terrorism, radicalism and malicious power to finally uncover the barbaric nature of these countries?

And why Iran and not Saudi? Why is Saudi still protected and next to no documentaries have been done about the ever so rich oil country of Al-Saud and how they feel about their women, how they treat them, how they punish them, how they murder them?

Why is this world the way it is?

I cried during and after watching these documentaries. It was a cleansing cry, it made me feel that these innocent women who suffered greatly in this life are finally in a better place. They are at peace, their souls are finally free...

How any human is capable of stoning another human to death is unimaginable to me. I feel nothing short of terror to think I came from that society, where the mob mentality can justify the ugliest of human crime like honor killings and stoning of peoples own flesh and blood. Where a false brutal religion has mutated out of what was once a pure one that preached love.

In relation to this;During the time when father wanted to marry his second wife, I recall him calling my mother a "Sharmoota" (whore) in front of me and my brother. Later on my brother would only refer to mother as "Sharmoota" and then shortly after I was referred to as the same because I defended her and was on her side. I was a 16 year old "sharmoota."

Both mother and I ended up in jail that year after being accused of having affairs with strange men by my father and the aid of corrupt government officials non the less. I did not realize the gravity of the situation back then but now I am amazed we were not stoned.

Those monsters out there calling women the most horrific of words, accusing them the most vial accusations, doing to them the most barbaric of things in the name of a God... they are the reason this world is what is now. Ugly...

How much of this will go on before a human revolution turns this catastrophe of a life into what it should be?

How many more women will be killed by angry sex driven men who have created a God that hates, kills, resents, and cannot forgive?

How long will we sit back and watch the human race dig its own grave to extinction?

How much more hate can this world handle?

The Anonymous Hater

2010-08-04T05:35:00.000-07:00

Though I had already made up my mind a while ago to never lower my high standards and engage raging lunatic people who lack the mental capacity to look beyond their confined life regulations, so called traditions and organized religions ever so small box,In any form. I decided to write yet another post after I got a toxic comment posted to my "interview" entry yesterday by a someone who is obviously out of their rocker.

First, I would like to reiterate that rude, insulting, derogatory and plane nasty name calling comments will not be posted here, so save your self the time and expended keyboard typing energy and do not comment on my blog if you want to call names, hate, and attack someone. I am sure you can find some other venues to unleash the animal within you...I suggest joining the Taliban to make full use of this malicious intent.

The hate that disseminates from these peoples dark souls and foul language speaking mouths is not something I would like reflected or deflected upon my self nor my readers.

It took me a long time and a whole lot of effort to rise above name calling and the ever so simple and basic anger reaction. If you lack the capacity to act like a human being and prefer reverting to animal behavior then that is your own problem, do not come over here and contaminate the work I have done by spitting toxic venom.

"What ever you have been through in life does not change the fact that you are a filthy disgusting whore. That's all"

This comment was left in my comment moderation inbox yesterday. I suppose this - so called person- considers themselves to be the most purist of humans and that they do no wrong. I also imagine that they believe they are the perfect representation of what a good Muslim is.

I imagine they must pray 5 times a day, fast, and give money to the poor. I also Imagine they visit Makkah frequently.

Because that is, in their small debilitated brains, what a good Muslim is. They also must think that calling me "A filthy disgusting whore" is a Muslim quality as well and that they were given the right by GOD himself non the less to judge people, accuse them and call them awful names any civilized person would cringe to hear.

So this is them spreading the world of ALLAH ...so there you have it...

This is a fresh 2010 sample of the hate that is seething in a society like Saudi. They sit there plastered to the Internet surfing and reading and judging. If they were so righteous why aren't they doing something more productive to themselves, their society and the Muslim nation than sitting back calling people they have never met the ugliest of names?

Perhaps it is because they are the true representation of what a coward is. This is the type of filth that results in honor killings of innocent women and burial of young infant females. This is the Evil that existed way before your prophet appeared by the way. In case you do not know what I am talking about the term is "JAHILYYAH".

That is what you and everyone like you are, JAHIL...the essence of evil...a hater... poisonous...non-productive...a coward...a mental cripple...an opportunistic and deadly parasite and is a shame to the human race. It is because of this brainwashed mentality that women remain oppressed in many regions of the world and die every day in the name of man made religion and rules.

You have zero insight to anything around you and the saddest part is you and others like you have no insight into your own self and actions. This is why engaging you in any matter that is sophisticated or requires actual thought and civilized mental interaction is useless. The only way you can interact is by physical, verbal, mental and emotional violence...by regurgitating sexual and racial slurs, by hating and by accusing others. Probably because you hate your own self so much nothing good is able to come out of you anymore, that is presuming there was ever good there.

People like you lack the ability to reason and that is why you are useless to the world. I imagine you must have some female relative/s that awaits your demise as do I and every other person out there you offend.

You cannot accept anything or anyone that does not do what you do, think the way you think and believe in what you believe in. You are incapable of understanding that people are different and are meant to be that way. Your immediate reaction is to reject anything that takes you out of your comfort zone and hate anyone that challenges your basic life and false beliefs. Basically All free thinkers are condemned to hell the way you see it...

I have broken free of your kind. So call me all the names you want, you are not hurting me one bit and I know it angers you to have no influence or control over my life. That is why you choose to live in a world of Misogyny and imbalance, because in that world you are in your element. The only thing you can do here however is burst in verbal hate so go right ahead...fill your boots and do show us the true colors of you and the society you represent.

You are doing one good thing though, and that is showing the entire world that what I have been blogging about for the past 3 years is not a lie. You are the best evidence that the society I ran away from is every bit as a dangerous as I say it is.

My interview

2010-07-25T11:41:00.000-07:00

Well!

What is one to say...

I was recently interviewed by the author of American Bedu Blog. Today I noticed a lot of comments on my own blog which I had shared a link on during my interview and so I popped over to American Bedu's blog to see that she had finally published my interview.

I want to thank Carol so much for this amazing opportunity and wish her the best of luck. She truly is a great writer. Aafke, you are an amazing lady my dear, thank you so much for your support!

The other thing I would like to do is address some of the comments that were directed at me, some of which were bluntly a whole bunch of blaming that was spit at me more or less.

First, and I am not sure if my readers paid attention to this tid-bit, but I am 34 years old. Some of the comments were like lectures telling me how to think and what to do. Believe me people, I am not only mature by age but I am also mature by the MAGNITUDE of life experiences I have gone through. I am not your average Saudi youth nor am I your average person.

Not trying to burst my own bubble here but I doubt anyone truly understands the gravity of the shifts I have undertaken in this life. So, though I appreciate the attention, I do not need to be told what do, how to think and who to be. I think I can manage...

The other thing of note is this one person who referred to me as "spoiled brat". Why the hate? How is it that you came to this magnificent conclusion not that I care.

Anyhow,

Then we have the person who says that I blame everyone around me but myself and that I went off the "Right path". This comment topped them all...

So, what is the right path? How did this person come to be 100% sure that this "path" is the right one? and what is it right for? Where does this path lead to I wonder?Are they on the right path...are we all supposed to get directions to this "path" and follow the herd?

I knew publishing my blog would bring an array of comments and I - for the most part- feel that I have reached a point in my life where I am at peace with who I am and what I have accomplished. I do not feel the need to answer questions that attack my beliefs and image nor do I feel the need to defend myself to anyone but those I love and who love me.

It was an interesting experience reading what people thought of me through reading a brief interview about who I am and what I have been through. I am awed by the number of people who feel they have the full capacity and right to judge another human based on so little information.

I cannot imagine what these same people would do if they were in a position of power... actually I take that back, I think I can. It would be interesting to see what would happen if the shoe was on the other foot though, and they were being called out for their own actions.

In the comments I was accused of committing serious medical errors that ended my medical career. Ofcourse, any limited minded individual would automatically come to that conclusion. Far be it for those type of mentalities to think that anyone would actually choose to leave the "luxurious life" of being an "MD".

It is much easier for their simple minds to conclude that I was kicked out for medical errors because this makes me easier to hate and easier to judge.

I left Saudi for many reasons but being judged on a daily basis by everyone around me and being told that I am a terrible person by people who themselves are terrible would be on the top list of the reasons I now live elsewhere.

What can I say, I am not going to waste much more of my precious time and blog space talking about the same type of people who represent my assaulter, the Saudi religious police, the corrupt Saudi justice system and the, ever so ready to hate, Saudi society... I think the last 3 years of my blog has covered them.

So,

To all who read my blog, thank you again for your interest and all your input and support. You are the reason there remains hope that Saudi might one day see change.

To those who live to hate; I hope you find peace somehow and stop thriving over anger and emotional violence.

To those who live to judge others from the all mighty high chair; not everyone cares what you think.

Some say that Canada gave me no justice, that I am a coward who ran away from my problems. I say they are mistaken because Canada gave me the one and only thing I have ever wanted which is my freedom. It was also by coming to Canada that I finally was able to face all my issues and problems and concur them one by one with full steam ahead.

In my book the term for that is (COURAGE) and for that I am happy and forever will be...

As for those who are praying for me to find my faith and are questioning where my "Iman" is, all I can say is: Please save your prayers for those in need of them and try to think outside the box.

Not all of us HAVE to belong to one religion or the other. I was born into Islam, it was not my choice to be a Muslim and though I appreciate the religion and respect those who practice it correctly the same way I respect people of all religions, I found my peace of mind in simply living, letting others live and letting go of the obsession of religion and the "Man in the Sky"...

I am the happiest and the most at peace I have ever been by simply believing in me.

Peace

Time to let go

2010-07-06T06:37:00.000-07:00

Today is not a good day...

There has been way too much going on in my life and I have been needing a change of attitude for a while now. Working on your own self in attempt to improve who you are and how life affects you is not easy. It requires a significant amount of insight, something I am thankful to have.

I thought I was doing well seeing how I have toned down my negativity quite significantly over a relatively short period of time. I have become more non- self centered and more grounded. I still have my pitfalls but overall I must say I think I have made good improvements.

Till today...

My ongoing case with the human rights commission and the police is seeing its 3rd year this summer. I have been on and off following the progress of the case mainly because of the slow nature of the court system as well as of the fact that I was in school, in a very busy and intense program, as well as busy making my own family.

Since I graduated 3 weeks ago, I have made an attempt to contact both the police as well as the human rights commission about the progress of my case. I have been in good contact with the commission but the police, who are the main investigators, I have not seen or heard anything from in over a year now.

Since this case brings nothing but bad memories and ill feelings into my life, I have really just been waiting to hear back from these people and make as little contact with them myself. I thought the justice system in Canada was on top of all things...

The last I had heard from the police , which was one year ago, I was told that the man who assaulted me had been located in Ontario and that an investigator was flying over there to interview him. The officer handling my case told me that she is being transferred and that she is handing my case over to another officer who should be in contact with me.

I felt good, happy and somewhat relieved that things were getting somewhere. So, I laid back and waited...and waited...and waited...

Yesterday, I finally mustered up some courage and I called them asking for an update. Today I got a call back and it has left me feeling sick.

I got a call from the officer who was handed over my case and she told me that after- apparently- multiple attempts of trying to contact me through phone, email and through mail they decided to conclude (close) my file because they have been unable to reach me and I was both inactive and inaccessible.

There are no words that can express how angry I am right now, how disappointed and disgusted with what just went on. I am also in an unbelievable amount of shock.

She claimed that my phone number changed, which it has but that was only 1 week ago. She claimed to have called my home many times and when I said did you leave a message she said "No, the voice mail said it is the Willoughby's home". Which it is because my husband is a Whilloughby.

I do not understand? Is it hard to leave a message saying (Hey! It's the cops, call as back!)

What about the human rights commission who have been calling you guys every 3 months asking for updates? Did that give you the impression that I was "Inactive and inaccessible?"

What about regular mail? Just send me a God damn letter or freaking drive your ass over to my apartment like the previous officer did. How big can Halifax be!!???

What is this??!! Where am I???!! I can't believe this is is happening. They fucking closed my case... for what!!???

All this time, all that pain, all of my loss and suffering is worth nothing to them because they are lazy and cannot be bothered to leave a message or truly care.

So, here I am. In tears, in pain, feeling assaulted all over again. My life has been turned upside down because the people who are there to protect us and be the middle man in serving justice are simply useless.

I do not know what to feel or think at this point but something has pushed it's way out of me today and I must say I have had enough of being a victim and have had enough of waiting for others to give me what I need.

They may be fuck ups who do not care but in the meanwhile I have 2 boys who need me and a husband who loves me. I am tired of the past and the drag and the pain...

Whatever happens from here on and wherever this - so called- judicial system takes me I have made my final decision...

Today is the day I let go...

I can no longer live in waiting. I know the guy will most likely never see his day come. It is probably time to accept that fact now. I know I am the loser in this battle but in the end, life is much better now. Perhaps that is what it took for me to finally wake up,to learn to love and to learn to live.

Flood

2010-05-04T14:27:00.000-07:00

So yesterday it rained heavily in the capital of Saudi Arabia (Riyadh). Those of you who know me know that I am Saudi and that I went to school in Riyadh. My father, stepmother and sisters actually still reside in Riyadh.

So what is so amazing about rain?

Well, the fact that it rained for 2 hours straight in one day in a country and a city that is based in a desert and that usually goes years without as much as a drop of rain. Riyadh has drowned over the past day or so...literally.

I am seeing horror pictures of the floods and I am reading that 2 people have drowned and many have been devastated by an aftermath of loss of home, basic needs & supplies and most of all loss of safety .

This entry is not a political one about how the government cheated the civilians out of proper emergency measures, proper drainage systems, proper this and proper that. I think people are outraged enough by the previous flooding that occurred a few months back in the second biggest city in Saudi (Jeddah).

This entry and this horrific event come at a critical point of my life where I am at the brink of a massive shift in all that I have known myself and life to be. This entry expresses my deep concern for my family who remain in Riyadh and who I know nothing about at the moment.

Energy, positive thoughts, good wishes, prayers...you name it. I am sending it your way guys and I hope to hear back from you soon.

2010-04-04T11:39:00.000-07:00

Myspace Quotes Graphics

Torn

2010-04-04T10:01:00.000-07:00

It is Easter Sunday here in peaceful Nova Scotia. I am home alone sick with a fever, a sore throat and yet another breast infection. I took some pain medications in attempt to sleep it off but my mind is racing and I could only find refuge in this little blog of mine where all my mind traffic ends up.

Two days ago, right around evening time, Peter and I were home trying to get some things done before we had to pick up the boys from daycare. Suddenly, the phone rang and it was an odd number that seemed to be an overseas call. I answered the phone reluctantly after mumbling out the first few numbers to Peter from across the room off the number display on the phone...1-966-...???

Peter remained silent as I picked up the receiver and said Hello?

The voice on the other line was a female who said "Hello? Iman!? It's Lynn". I Paused in shock and then I said "Hello Lynn".

Lynn is my stepmother and the last time I spoke to her was in 2007 which was the last contact I had with her, my father and sisters. I was pregnant with Sam then and they never got the chance to meet Sam or Oliver. In 2007 Father flew me and Peter over to L.A where we attempted to mend things. Sadly, though the trip itself was a great and memorable one, our differences soon ignited the past into an out of control fire shortly after which I began blogging and needless to say that only added insult to an already long standing existing injury.

She asked me how I was doing ... I began to sob and tears streamed down my face. I said " I do not know Lynn...I do not know where I am in this family anymore". She replied " Iman, you are and always will be part of this family". She then proceeded to explain why they are contacting me and that my father was having surgery in Vancouver in July 2010 but their VISA application to enter Canada had been declined because they mentioned they had a relative in Canada - me- but did not know my contact info.

They needed my PR card and my address to process the VISA so that father could come here and have his surgery.

All I could think of was how could I get this information to them as quickly as possible so that they could come here. I wanted them to know that regardless of all what has been done and said, that I am not evil, that I do care, that I want peace...

I scrambled through the apartment looking for all the required paper work and then stumbled on various technological dilemmas while trying to fax all the documents overseas to them, only for the documents to become blurred and unreadable during their electronic travels from Canada to Saudi Arabia.

So, I got another call from Lynn after the fax was received by them explaining to me that it was unreadable. "OK, I have to go get the kids from daycare but as soon as I get home I will scan the paperwork and email it to you guys". Off Peter and I went to get the boys, it seemed like time was flying and I had only one thing in my head to achieve that day...to get them a readable copy of my PR card and make this VISA application thing work.

We got home and I ran down to the scanner where I once again had a little battle with technology as it was the only obstacle between me and helping my family. 20 minutes later I had successfully scanned 4 copies of my PR card and emailed it to both Lynn and my father.

A few minutes after I sent the email the phone rang one last time; it was Lynn again. She thanked me deeply for helping them and updated me on my sisters and father. She then asked me if I wanted to speak to my father...I began to cry again " I know he is upset with me Lynn..."and she simply handed him the phone.

"Hello?" said father with his ever so stern and unforgettable voice. "How are you Iman?", " I am OK baba" I whimpered. Father went on to explain what was going on and why he needed the surgery. He told me how he lost his house in LA after the economy crisis and how hard life in Saudi had become. He asked about Peter and told me how proud he was of me and my two beautiful boys...

The phone call carried on for a few more minutes and Father ended it by hoping that perhaps we would meet soon.

Two days later I still re-play every word exchanged between Father, Lynn and myself. Peter wonders why I cry so much whenever I talk to or about them, as do I...

Perhaps there is just too much pain and perhaps the pain will never end...perhaps it is not meant to ever end? Perhaps the same way pain ruined us it will some how be the only thing to ever bring us back together? Perhaps the pain is what we all have in common...the one thing that we all understand, the one thing that binds the torn fragments of this family.

Father is proud of me...Iman... who went to jail, left medicine, left Saudi, and wrote a Blog telling the world about my life in Saudi with my family.

He finally said it it...and a big gaping wound in my soul has been mended.

What comes next I wonder?

In Born Error of intolerance to Injustice

2010-03-20T05:47:00.000-07:00

Here I am again,

Why do I keep finding my self in this same position over and over? It must be something about me...

I moved to Canada to find peace. That unfortunately has yet to happen.

Instead I have come to find that my upbringing and long tormented history have given birth to an incredible LACK of tolerance to injustice in all forms and shapes on my behalf. It is like a monster within me awakes at the call of injustice.

The monster is out of its cage again and it is consuming me. It has taken over my thought process on its mad dash for the other side where it believes justice will be found. I am scared of it and so are the people that have to put up with me while I am being driven like a machine to find justice.

Where do I stop is the question? How can I send this monster into a long and ever lasting hibernation?? What will I have to lose meanwhile while it is out of control?

Is it me? Is it them? Is it life? Is it God?

My energy reserves are approaching zero and I feel sick because someone else has power over me at the moment. I cannot allow anyone to have any form of control over my life! Not anymore, not again.

The justice monster will not have it. It will sacrifice it's health and life to no longer be abused.

My children are my life and today I was told that I am endangering their safety because I am blinded by a disastrous and retaliative force to seek revenge at people who have caused myself and child direct harm. I am being asked to shut up and turn the other cheek, take the abuse that is obvious even to the blind, surrender my freedom of speech, give up my right to fight the corrupt and power hungry, let the unethical practice their malice, and to just let things be...

"Why" asked the monster...the answer; "because we do things differently in Canada" I am told. We shut up and take it and move on.

Sorry guys, I cannot shut up. Every living cell in this body of mine would rather die than be abused ever again. Why am I to blame for speaking about something that is wrong? How is this my fault?? Why do I have to become something or someone different just to satisfy others? Why can I not complain now that I have the right and freedom to do so? Why am I to blame?Why!!???

Perhaps Canada is not where I should be...

Repeat Offender

2010-03-12T09:37:00.000-08:00

Oh how I miss writing!

It has been a busy and quite the intense few months as I approach the end of the school year and the near of grad.

Not sure where to start but if you have been reading my story you would probably have come to realize that though I am free and happy here in Canada with a new life and a loving family I continue to struggle with some severe emotional and psychological baggage issues that have attached themselves to me from my previous life in Saudi and career as a doctor.

Though I am quite aware of these issues, it seems I repeatedly fail to address them and get them sorted out.

One of these "issues" is the uncontrollable rage that develops within me whenever I feel that someone has crossed the line if you may. This has been a recurrent problem and today I revisited it again.

I think what happens is that the trauma I have accumulated over the years and the silence I was forced to live in now result in a massive overreaction to the simplest forms of insults. So, for example, today at school my car was blocked from exiting the parking area by another car. This other car has been doing this to me repeatedly over the past few months and for some strange reason I chose to not bring it to the attention of the school or to the person blocking me.

Instead I started reliving my past and feeling that I am unable to complain about this matter to anyone and I chose to suffer through it. I became a victim to this person who kept parking so close to my car and blocking me from leaving or even entering my car. I became their prisoner whenever they felt like trapping me in.

Every time this happened I would spend anywhere from 15 minutes to 1/2 and hour manipulating my car back and forth, side to side till I was able to slide out with no damage to either vehicle.

The stress and risk that I put myself under is amazing...

So, instead of getting them to move their car by complaining to the school director I placed my self in a position of powerlessness and I began to feel victimized.

Today, I sat a final exam and I was happy to leave the school and begin my long awaited March break till I came to realize that I was once again trapped.

Finally,I lost it. You probably would have been able to measure my rage level on the Richter scale . My entire body began to shake and I was hyperventilating to the point of dizziness. I lost the ability to focus as I, again, tried to manipulate my car out of the parking spot. Finally,I hit a wall when I saw that I had gotten myself completely stuck. I could not move my car anymore or anywhere without damaging both vehicles.

Now, the panic sets in...

It took me about 5 minutes to get my self together and grab a pen and paper to write down the make, model and license plate of the car. I ran up to the directors office like a wounded bull and handed her the paper with the info. I was unable to talk from the emotion that had consumed me.

She looked at me and asked me to read out what the writing was and I was unable to make it out. I could not read my own hand writing...

My memory eventually kicked in after I took a few deep breaths and I told her, with a broken trembling voice that this person has blocked my car. I also told her that I feel like I am being targeted at this point.

Off she went as I sat their in front of her office consumed with hate and blinded to all my classmates as they exited the exam with big smiles and excitement to begin their much needed week off school. I was in a far away land of misery, hopelessness and revenge.

Five minutes later the director came back and told me that the car is being moved and that this was not personal. I said " I hope so!" and left with no thank you or have a good day.

I ran out of the school with visions of spitting in the face of this person who has offended me so much and so repeatedly. As I got closer to my car I saw that it was a young guy from the first year students who does not even know me and probably does not even know how to park because he is so young and indeed might have just gotten his drivers license.

I drove off in my car and took the highway route back home just because I felt the need to get rid of this rage somehow. So, I put my windows down, cranked up the music and flew...yes, I was speeding but not being reckless.

Now, five hours later, I sit behind my computer desk and write this to explain things to myself. Yes, now I see the that I am probably viewed as borderline psychotic because of scenarios like these. But I am not.

I keep falling back to the prisoner /victim role. I lived 26 years as both a prisoner and a victim where I was violated on an almost daily basis and ordered to keep quiet. I had no refuge or hope. I had no faith in family or friends because to everyone in that culture I was bad..I was wrong.

How to keep oneself in the current time and erase the past learned habits? Those of being forced to shut up and tolerate injustice. How to wake up from the hypnosis of that role?

This is my current struggle my friends...

I am not a lunatic, a hater, a psychopath or an enraged mad Bitch. I am actually quite the civil person who believes in equality and human rights even though I was taught that I have none.

I love and I care and hope one day people can see beyond my harsh rude outbursts that turn me into a zombie of my past.

Till next time, I would like to end this post with an apology,

To me.

2010-01-09T08:04:00.001-08:00

Myspace Quotes Graphics

Haters

2009-12-27T22:51:00.001-08:00

I decided to write this extra short post after someone recently wrote quite the distasteful comment on one of my blog entries about meeting Peter. They wrote "now I know where all the trash from Saudi ends up..in Canada". This comment no longer exists because I deleted it. But I want everyone who reads my blog and feels the need to crap all over me because I wrote my story with pure emotion and honesty to take their hate somewhere else.

People like this hater are cowards. They leave anonymous comments so no one can answer back to them. Where is, in reality they are the true definition of human garbage and if I am not mistaken - and to be offended so deeply by my story to call me trash - they would have to be a Saudi and most likely a man - or at least they think they are.

So, quick tip for those enraged people who cannot help but act like lunatics. Not here and not with me. I have no time for you nor am I interested in your grandiose disorder. Seriously people...be fucking productive for a minute of your God damn lives. Go plant a date tree or something instead of plastering yourself to my blog, getting angered by it, and contaminating it with your hate filled comments- which upsets my readers and supporters -while you try to feel better about your sad selves by insulting others.

To my supporters I say, thank you for following my story and there is more to come!

Iman

Peter 3

2009-11-22T10:17:00.000-08:00

What a fantastic feeling it is...

To like somebody and actually have them like you back! Something I was not used to. I was also not used to being treated with kindness, respect and love something Peter perfected.

He was it for me. My soul mate and it took me a total of 3 seconds to realize it.

I got home that night and slept in peace knowing that I have finally found him and that my search was over. Over the next few weeks Peter and I went on more amazing dates and it did not take us long to express our love for each other both physically as well as verbally.

This is when I began to change. Iman finally began to calm down and stabilize. I became more quiet, grounded and patient. My anger became a distant unwanted friend that rarely paid me any visits. My anxiety lessened with each passing day as my love and feeling of acceptance grew in its place.

I felt accepted, wanted, and unjudged. Peter completed me and brought out the best of the best in me. Qualities that were buried deep under an endless rebellion that possessed me. The damage that Saudi did to me Peter was undowing without knowing it.

So, this is it, The forbidden love that Saudi prohibited and I was living it happily and fearless, finally.

Within 6 months of meeting each other, Peter and I had moved in together. Within 8 months we had exchanged our wedding vows and within 10 months we were having a baby.

My husband has been my sole supporter through so many decisions and hard times. He has been and continues to be an unbreakable pillar in my life. He has fixed me in so many ways and through him I have been able to let go of a dark past and embrace a life of love, happiness and pride.

I dedicate this part of my blog to a great man, a loving husband and a remarkable father...this is to you Peter...my love.

Peter 2

2009-11-16T13:14:00.000-08:00

I met Peter online...

He was one of those persistent buggers - though nice- who kept messaging me every now and then wondering if I was no longer busy and if I was interested in going out with him?

The funny thing is that I was determined NOT to go out with him and kept making up excuse after excuse of how busy I was at work and with research, that it would be months before I would be free. The poor soul kept holding on to hope! One of his sweetest qualities I must admit.

I finally gave in after going through a volcanic eruption of a friendship ending with a crazy woman who I was trying to help out.

I called Peter up and we set up up a meeting spot. We both had our own cars so no fear of him being crazy and me in the car with Mr. crazy. We both were driving separately back and forth.

We decided to meet up and shoot some pool early in the evening and take it from there depending on whether or not we felt a 'click'. So, I drove my olive green jeep liberty up to our meeting spot, and I remember watching him as he got some money out of the ATM and thinking to my self 'Man! he is white!'

I could not make much out of Peter in the first few hours I spent with him playing pool. He was good looking and had the most AMAZING Caribbean blue eyes but he avoided making eye contact with me. He also was conversation shy which got me thinking - yeah...he doesn't like me.

So, I sucked it up till the game of pool was over and asked him nicely if he wanted to go home?

To my surprise, he replied with a no! "So where would you like to go?" I asked and he suggested a nearby bar/restaurant. Perfect! Off for some cocktails it was!

Here, in this quiet, high end restauranty bar, sitting across from Mr pretty blue eyes sipping on a cosmopolitan is when I first felt that little twitch...aaaahhh yes. I had the biggest crush on Peter and he did not even know it.

He finally opened up and we just talked the night away...

It was 1 a.m wen we left and neither of us wanted to let the other go but there was no other option but to let go if we wanted to give the impression that neither of us was easy and that we were both interested in a second and perhaps a third date.

We said our good nights with as little touching as possible, each got in their own car and drove home.

To be continued

Peter

2009-10-03T07:12:00.001-07:00

Since I came to Canada, and after my divorce from my first husband who was Saudi, I decided to place an online dating profile upon a friends suggestion seeing how I was never able to go out and meet people due to the nature and load of my job as a doctor.

I started meeting all these promising guys online and ended up dating a few. I must admit that during this entire time I felt this was all surreal. I had this nagging doubt of who I was and where I was from that affected my choices in men negatively.

I felt I was an inferior Arab female who did not have the right to be happy or to date a western man. I believed no western man would ever want to commit to a person like myself never the less have children with me. I was convinced that it was impossible to get completely submerged in this Canadian lifestyle, after all I was not worthy of good life.

So, as a result I chose to go out with the most unstable of men. The scum of the Canadian earth as I call them. Everything from pathological liars, to acute psychopaths, to simple losers. Yup, if he treated women like crap he was my date. Why? because being treated like shit is the only way I knew how to get treated. I was familiar with it, and it was simply me hanging on to the only way I learned how to live.

Every relationship ended in disaster. A few of them ended with police getting involved. One ended on the first date after the guy told me that I was an Arab woman and should be used to getting treated like shit. We were in a coffee shop and I remember being so offended that I stood up, threw my hot steaming coffee in his face, flipped a chair and raged out of the store blinded with anger.

Another guy used me for money, which I gave away gladly because I felt that was the least I could do seeing how he lowered his western standards by dating me.

A mess- is a simple way to describe who I was and the way I was conducting myself. The situations I frequently found myself in were a mess, my life was a mess...

I did this off and on for about 3-4 years. One nightmare after the other. All adding to my pain and loneliness. My choice of friends was no better either but that is another chapter!

I was my own worst enemy and I didn't know it till after I met Peter- my now amazing husband...

To Be Continued-

Unplanned

2009-09-12T14:52:00.000-07:00

After having my son Sam and going through the crazy transition of it being JUST Peter and I to becoming new parents who had no clue what having a baby truly meant, Peter and I would still occasionally forget that the outcome of us having sex and completely ignoring the concept of contraception would be for me to get pregnant again.

Seems that we only need to look at each other and Wallah!! Baby on the way!

Pretty much how Oliver came to be about.

One day I woke up and ravaged my way through everything in the kitchen leaving us with little to eat. Then I felt a tingle in my chest. So, I called Peter up at work and said "Honey, I am pretty sure I am pregnant". "Probably just that time of the month" replied Peter with confidence...

So, I waited....and waited....and waited....and that time of the month never did come. After a week of waiting I went out and bought a couple of pregnancy tests just to make sure.

Not to my surprise they both turned positive - What a shocker!

Peter- as usual- takes the news with calm. Meanwhile I am freaking out about school, money, life....etc. Still a big part of me loved the fact that I was going to mother another child and I felt at peace knowing that a fresh new innocent life was depending on me to survive and successfully arrive into this world safe and sound.

Knowing what I know now and going through all this I cannot help but flash back to how much my mother and father belittled family life and how they taught me to unvalue it. Throughout my upbringing I was constantly told to focus on school and work. To forget about marriage and having a family and that it was "Unnecessary" and " un-important".

I always felt like a partial human being -even as a highly paid doctor. Now, as a student, but a mother and a wife...I am complete.

I would like to stress that though Oliver was unplanned that does not make him any less precious to us. He is a gift and I would not have it any different. People associate unplanned with a mistake. My boys are not mistakes, they are my salvation in this life.

And so my second pregnancy journey begins...

To My Oliver

2009-09-05T09:33:00.000-07:00

Dearest child,

When you finally read this I hope you are exactly where you want to be in life -Surrounded by love, living serenity and filled with nothing but inner and eternal peace.

I do not know where life takes our family from here and now. I do not know what my presence in your life will be like as you read these words that I today print hoping they might one day serve you as a guiding force.

All I can say for now is that I want to make you a promise. A promise that was never made to me and one I feel every child deserves to hear from his mother.

Though I could promise you that I will do my best to always give you everything your little heart desires, buy you all the the latest toys and all the best clothes. Send you to the best schools and never allow you to go through a minute of your life feeling bored... I will not. I will not promise you the moon, and the stars...

I do, however, promise you that I will kiss you goodnight with the end of every passing day of my life...

I promise you that I will never make you want to hear the words "I love you" from me because they will be printed on my forehead for you to see and I will make sure that you know how much you are loved every day I walk on this earth...

I promise to respect your existence and autonomy...

I promise to be the best mother I can be, and to continue learning the sensitive art of motherhood to empower you more each day...

I promise to treat your emotions with care and intense fragility...

I promise to back you up in every and any decision you make regardless...

I promise to let you live your life...

I promise to be there when and if you need me, emotionally, physically, mentally and financially and any other possible way there is...

I promise to be your guide...

I promise to hug you and kiss you even when you think it is silly, but I will respect it if you did not want these hugs and kisses and I know you will reach a point where it will seem a bit too childish...

I promise to be your friend...

I promise to accept the man you will eventually choose to be...

With all these promises made it is essential for you to know that my life is nothing without you and your brother. You two make up the air I breathe and for that I want to thank you.

I can only promise you to be the best human I can possibly be to you and with you. My life is complete because of you. If the years lead us a drift please refer to these words of mine and understand that my love for you is eternal.

Your mother,

Iman

September 6th 2009

Why I hate her

2009-08-01T16:39:00.000-07:00

The other day I took a picture of myself and when I looked at it I was horrified at the resemblance I bared to my mother.

You see, in my 33 years of life I have struggled with an eternal amount of nightmares and night-terrors that are an extraction of what my subconscious mind remains hostage to from my life in Saudi Arabia.

One of the most repetitive nightmares I have had and continue to have - since the age of 14- is that of my mother trying to harm me. The dream would start with some sort of argument between her and I (not that different from reality) and then it would rapidly and viciously progress to her insulting me, shouting and screaming at me and then chasing me with a knife or simply hunting me down like an animal that is about to be slaughtered.

In my dreams I am never able to protect myself from the damage that I am about to receive from her, not too much unlike what used to happen in real life. Many times she succeeds in stabbing me with a knife, or beating me down to the ground with her fists while restraining me.

Though as a youngster the physical pain obviously hurt, it was the terror I was forced to live through on a regular basis that scarred me the most. I see that now and I pay for it with sleepless nights where I -a grown woman and soon to be mother of 2- still wake up in a dreadful sweat of intense anger, fear and hate at night towards a woman I supposedly grew in and survived off for 9 months.

Makes me wonder what she must have done to me during my infancy...

It is always the same. She physically hurts me and I am unable to strike back. Damn her...even in my dreams she still hurts me...

I hate her and I hope she knows how much. I hope on her death bed when she is alone, she realizes that by harming me that much she lost every privilege a mother should have and that I deny her the label "mother".

I hope the pain I feel during and after these dreams I have of her turns back and shadows her for the remainder of her life. I want her to feel this hurt, to live the demoralization and confusion I continue to live because I am still paying the price of the damage brought upon me by an unfit mother. I want her to cry at night like I do and feel nothing but shame for being a miserable human being.

I doubt she will though. I recall her telling me that she had children so that we would financially support her as soon as we started working, so she would not have to support her self by having to work. I also remember the last time she hit me ( I was 27) , I asked her why does she have no respect for me? and she answered "You do not give me enough money".

Because of all of this, I hate my mother.

Demons

2009-07-09T05:00:00.000-07:00

I know it has been a good long while since I last posted pretty much anything but there is a good reason for that.

Between school and life I managed to get pregnant again for the second time in 2 years. Don't get me wrong, I am not unhappy about being pregnant- though I have not seen a day of health since I found out I was- I just seem to have slipped through the cracks for a while there.

Those of you who follow my blog know that I used to be a doctor and that I quit after being sexually assaulted by a male colleague when the hospital we both worked in decided that I was lying and sided with him.

I have since changed careers and decided that Massage Therapy would be a nice healing option as a new career for me. So, I am in massage school and I just finished my first year and am currently on summer break. I am also 32 weeks (8 months) pregnant with a cute and hopefully healthy little boy we have come to call Oliver.

It has been hard as I have pretty much had either a flue or a cold or some intestinal illness since I got pregnant and in the few weeks of recovery in between, as well as now, my pelvic bones decided to separate as my ligaments have become extra relaxed from the effects of placental hormones. So you can imagine how hard it has become to walk, sit, or even sleep. Pain is now my new friend and the only pain killer you can take during this stage of pregnancy is Tylenol which does ZERO.

Speaking of pain, I cannot help but feel it emotionally as well as physically. Though I do not like to relive or think about my family and previous life in Saudi I cannot help but wonder What it was I did to them that was so atrocious that they have eliminated me from their lives in this manner?

The irony is that though at some odd level it upsets me that they are not interested in my children or being around to support me during my pregnancy and delivery, I still fear exposing my children to the chaos that I once lived with them.

I imagine scenarios of me having to leave my child with my mother, stepmother or even father and to be honest I highly doubt I ever would. Why would I leave my baby with people who did nothing but hate and hurt me from the moment I had memory. What kind of person ,better yet, what kind of mother would I be?

The one and only comment I indirectly got from my mother after my son was born was that he was better looking than me. That sums it up right there...

Anyhow,

I have decided to begin writing my blog (AGAIN) and I will be feeding it to my facebook profile. I hope that I have filtered those strange people who wanted to harm me off my profile, and life, and hopefully people would be smarter this time around.

Please note: This blog is copyrighted to it's owner which is me. Those who do not know what copyright is, I suggest you look it up! This blog is also personal meaning it is not part of any social network, group or school. So, if you have problems with it feel free to stop reading. Wining about it to other people will not shut me up :)

First Encounter 3

2009-03-04T09:48:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the delay in finishing up this section of my post. I have been - and continue to - struggle with some intense health issues as does my little baby boy. I also go to school and things have not been the smoothest there either!

So, weeks pass by and I hear nothing about that incident with the religious police from anyone. With every passing day I would give out an extra sigh of relief with the hopes that they have found a bigger fish to fry than me and that they had forgotten about the entire incident.

But, off course that was wishful thinking on my part. Within 2 weeks of the incident one of them showed up at my fathers clinic demanding to see him. He told my father everything and told him that I had informed them about Alcohol in the house. They -apparently- spent the next week ravaging through our everyday garbage in search of empty whine and Whisky bottles, but found none.

Seeing how these people are by definition Vultures they could not come out of this empty handed so back to the whoring teenage girl who fucks her driver in the desert it was! That was the Bullshit they fed my father but I never got the impression he believed them.

He did however make sure I suffered enough over the next few years because of my little blab about his Alcohol possession issue.

Though I basically got out of the sticky situation with quite a bit of ease, they did make sure they haunted our house for a few more months and did follow up with a few more unannounced visits at my fathers work which to my understanding he would just leave them sitting there till after he had seen all his patients then he would leave without looking at them...one of the few times I thought he was on my side.

Still, the mental struggle I had to go through with my father through the upcoming years was nothing less than horrid.

Looking back at it all now, I feel sad that I had to live that life... be called a whore at such a young age, be accused of disgusting actions because I wanted peace, and to have to prove my self out of presumed guilt for the most part. I was forced to put on a veil of sin and promiscuity that became plastered to me. I find it hard to believe that I was once that young girl ...

I wish I could go back in time and hug that girl, tell her that it is all OK and well worth the pain, loneliness and long wait because in the end she was going to get out...be free...see a new world....give life...and never be called a whore again.

My current life is far from perfect but I am happy. I wish the people who currently see me as the enemy or as a problem would open up their limited minded capacity and see where it is I am truly coming from. I wish I could pour my life experiences into their heads but I cannot, and thus they will continue to view me from a distorted angle.

You were born into freedom, and human rights. You choose and pick what school to go to, what clothes to wear, who your boyfriend is, where to go out for drinks. All of you -I am sure- have no idea what the inside of a women's prison looks like nor do you know what it is like to have fought all your life with every pulsating vessel in you to achieve your freedom.

Your worries - to me- are trivial. I have fought for my life and for my right to live and exist, you ...you now fight me because I am different and you are having a crappy day.

People nowadays fight just because they can! Well, I have had enough and I cannot express how uninterested I am in the "new age stressors" people believe are worth the headache, heartache and drama.

Sadly I can state with zero hesitation that almost everyone I currently know - especially those who view themselves as all mighty and extra special- and believe they can enforce themselves onto others, would not last a second outside the cocoon of the sheltered life you have taken so much advantage of and believe to be your God forsaken right.

It is devastating for me to have come from such lack of privilege and to have had to work hard to get to have 1/2 the amount of rights you guys do, only to find that I value humanity and all what has been given to me by my hard work -where is you were born into it- one million times more than you.

What a sin it is to see how consumed with your lives you have become to have total disregard to what it is that truly makes us human.

Perhaps if you were not born into such privilege...you would put more thought and consideration to your actions.

The End

First Encounter 2

2009-02-15T06:28:00.000-08:00

So now that he had my drivers Iqama -which as an Indian he could not be without in the restricted land of anti- foreigners- he ordered my driver to follow him with the car and ordered me to sit my ass back down in it after yelling at me to properly cover my face.

Here we were, 2 hopeless people forced to follow an insignificant nobody - with no morals or standards but that fuming hate to call his own- to God knows where and to an unknown yet somewhat chillingly anticipated fate.

The drive took 10 minutes and those were 10 minutes of silence that was shared between me and my driver. We arrived to the dirt house - the religious police station - of that area and we were both escorted into to different cells.

Within a few minutes of being locked into my cell I heard my drivers cries as he begged for them to let him go. Meanwhile one of the many men that were there decided to rampage through our car and my school bag. He went through every little thing, even pictures of my mother and sister that I had in my wallet.

They called me out of the cell into a tiny room where I was to be interrogated by their leader. As soon as I sat down the man who arrested me threw the cigarette pack I used to keep in my bag in my face shouting "Want a smoke Whore??!!!".

I answered quietly by denying that they were mine and told them they belonged to my mother and I just carried them for her. Then, he went through my wallet in front of me and asked me to identify each and every persons picture in that wallet, providing names and all.

After that was over the accusations began. "What are you doing out here?? you are fucking your driver right??". This was the conclusion they had come to in their maggot filled heads and they had convinced themselves that was the only reason a young girl would be out in a place like this with her driver....to fuck him apparently.

I kept denying this outrageous accusation and they kept insisting. In the end I broke down and explained that my father was an alcoholic and I was being abused at home and that I came here for refuge. Though they didn't believe the abuse part they drooled over the Alcoholic father part.

"Where does he drink, what does he drink, where does he throw it out, can we find it in his trash if we checked?" Oh yes, this was a great way out for me! Distract them with my fathers criminal acts....a bigger and much better fish to fry. Sadly, that was exactly what I did.

They promised to let me go without involving my family and with no charges as long as they could follow us home to know exactly where we live so that could check our garbage.

After a few painful hours at their station both my driver and I were let go and his Iqama was given back to him.

This is way too easy i thought to my self, and indeed it was. Leave it up to filth like them to not keep their promise for by the time I got home they had contacted my mother- the number I gave them instead of my dad's extension - told her everything and she was in panic when I got home.

Though mother was panicked, a part of her was happy that I had thrown my father as bate for the hungry coyotes...indeed she was quite pleased with idea of him in jail, but wait, it was actually the death penalty for posession of alcohol!

To be continued...

First Encounter

2009-02-13T04:27:00.000-08:00

This blog is intended to reflect my thoughts and memories as they re/occur to me. I am not writing to get pity as some people might think.

My experiences in this life have been and to some odd degree continue to be more extreme than other peoples experience.

The most damage that has been done to me was during those 26 years of me living in Saudi. These were 26 years of forced silence where the voice of honesty and truth was always silenced by the power of a morbid religion and the blind actions of extremism.

Though my encounters with the religious police of Saudi were endless, few of these encounters stand out in my mind as tragic.

I know most of you must be bored of hearing about " The religious police", after all how much can you beat a dead horse? But humor me here...this horse is far from dead.

At the tender age of "sweet 16" I had my official first encounter with the desert mongols AKA the religious police of Saudi.

At 16 years of age I had lived to get fed up of endless hate and a cocktail of abuse that was fed to me on a daily basis by my parents and brother. My father had married another woman who made sure she got her fair share of damaging me. My mother had just left us to go live in Egypt but was back for a short visit, I had just inherited the burden of raising my - at the time 3 year old sister - and it was my first year of medical school.

Every now and then our classes would end earlier than usual either due to a cancellation or something of that nature. Unlike all the other students who would get excited about the idea of going home early, I dreaded such a thing.

So, I developed a nice routine that I would go through on such days where I would ask my driver to drive us about an hour out of Riyadh into another city known as (Al-Hayer). This city was mostly desert with little population but I had discovered a streaming river in the middle of no where that I loved sitting next to on some rocks and listening to the sound of flowing water, this place gave me refuge and provided me with some stolen moments of peace.

One day, after an early end to anatomy and physiology lectures I asked my driver to go to my usual spot before we headed home. We got there and my driver went to have a smoke as he usually does while I took my hair cover off and sat next to the river throwing little pebbles into the running water.

The car radio was on and there was a nice Arabic song that I was humming along to before that old rusty Cadillac came driving by.

I saw the car and my immediate reaction was to cover my hair and face up, at the same time my driver came running back yelling at me to get into the car. I looked at him in confusion and he yelled at me stating that the guy in that car was one of the religious police and that he had seen us, "We have to go!" he yelled.

I got up and ran into the car, my driver was already in and had turned off the music and was putting the car into gear when the Cadillac pulled up behind us and the guy in it jumped out of his car, in a matter of seconds he had our car door open and the keys out of the ignition and in his hands.

He ordered my driver to give him his "Iqama" which is similar to a VISA as my driver was Indian. He threatened to throw him in jail if he did not and so out of fear my poor driver handed over his Iqama - which if you are foreign has to be with you at all times.

This was detrimental because my fathers name was on that Iqama as his sponsor to be in the country. So I was basically fucked - to put it bluntly.

To be continued...

Forgiving

2009-02-03T05:05:00.001-08:00

I am not a big fan of OPRAH. I understand she is the dream of Hollywood and a God knows how much' illionare, but I have some serious issues with her shows and some if not many of the things she says and does on them.

Seems like unless you are part of the rich and famous society of Hollywood or have succeeded financially somehow you are just not worth her time.

I was browsing our cable channels yesterday and paused at her show for a bit. It was about a man who forgave his son...this same son killed his mother, brother and was planning on murdering his dad in a plot he had schemed but the dad got away and the son was caught and placed in jail.

Off course this man wrote a book and became rich and thus he ended up on OPRAH.

Anyhow, she said something that just rubbed me the wrong way. She said "surely if this man found the strength to forgive his family murdering son by finding God, you can forgive your friend for messing up your wedding, or your sister for ruining your favorite shirt....etc".

It is not just her saying that that ticked me but the tone she used in stating that comment. Like those of us who are UNABLE or UNWILLING to forgive this, that and the other are defective humans that need to be fixed.

Now, I cannot speak for this man nor can I claim to know where he found the power to not only deal with such a tragedy but to actually come to peace with it and forgive. But that does not place him as a standard nor as the norm. It is also extremely stupid to make such a general comment that takes zero consideration to the variety of lives and cultures that are out there.

Those of you who know me know that I have the word "Forgiveness" tattooed on my back in Arabic because though I have tried my damnest to forgive Saudi, my family and x-friends for the pain I went through over there, I have miserably failed.

Why?

Because every time I said I forgive you and please forgive me, came to peace with these people and said let bygones be bygones they fucked me over royally once again and made sure they cut at the same old wound again so it would eventually never heal.

Because Saudi Arabia stole 26 years from my life and gave me guilt, shame, incompetence and fear as a reward for those years.

Because I never had a choice...I did not choose my family, I did not choose to move to Saudi at the age of 9, I did not choose to have no rights and to be abused and I did not choose to go into medicine either.

Because who I am today and where I am today would not be if I had not been angered and motivated by my previous life experiences. This huge grudge I hold against Saudi, Saudi men and women, my family and the religious police has made me love and appreciate my freedom even if I am poor and with bad credit, it has made me love life and see it from angles I was not permitted to look at it from before.

Hating physical, emotional and mental abuse, remembering every minute of it like it was yesterday and reliving those tragic moments in my dreams every night - though it makes me sleep deprived- has taught me to never lay a finger on my son and how to be a proper row model and parent.

Not forgiving and never forgetting those days and nights I spent under arrest in a religious jail for being a girl has made me love girls and want my own to live her life to the fullest, do everything her heart pleases and to live free of guilt and shame.

Hating Saudi men -though this is generalizing- has made me find the perfect husband and mate. I was never allowed to think I could ever be with a "White man". I believed I was too worthless to have the affection of such a being...I was a third world nothing female after all.

There is so much more but I will quiet down here and end by saying this;

I am an emotional cripple because I cannot forgive and will never forget. But I am finally free and happier everyday knowing that my anger actually got me places. I may have lost God -whoever/whatever that is- but who says I need to find God to be happy?

I am at peace with myself now and no, I will not forgive

Not worth 100000000 dollars or being a doctor for

2009-01-26T23:07:00.000-08:00

http://www.wowowow.com/post/saudi-women-still-struggle-break-free-abusive-husbands-145914

Another eccentric point of view

2009-01-24T05:09:00.000-08:00

Since the tragic re-occurrence of the barbaric assaults in Gaza I have noticed people on face book doing some odd things that left me with nothing less then a sick feeling in my gut.

For those of you who read this and feel intense anger at my opinion, well, we all have the right to an opinion and this is mine.

I do recall living in Saudi when the last flame of war hit Gaza and clearly remember acting the same way you guys are. Now, however, I am noticing a trend.

Counting down the number of women and children who have died in Gaza on a DAILY BASIS and placing these counts as your profile of the day is not helping decrease the number of these poor civilian deaths.

Plastering VIOLENT SNUFF pictures on your profile of infants and children laying dead and chopped up to pieces with blood all over them as well as videos of Muslim religious leaders brainwashing the public by flashing these images in front of them continuously and ordering them to go to jihad against the infidels is how TERRORISM came to be about. So, by doing this you are indeed supporting the terrorism that is hailing on gaza by counter-terrorism.

All you guys are doing is pouring more flammable gas onto an already out of control fire that has been out of control for ages. You are angering yourself as well as others more and more and feeding that rage and hate with actions that honestly have ZERO benefit in the end.

If you are so angered at the war I strongly suggest that you do something else rather than than TALK about it on face book. How about you volunteer to go help these victims of war out physically?

Because I for one am anti-war and anti-terror and am extremely offended by these unthoughtful actions I have been witnessing!

A Message

2009-01-13T09:16:00.001-08:00

Recently -and not willingly, I came to find out that my family including my brother have been reading my blog.

This is interesting to me because I know exactly why they are following it -if they truly are. The reason is not because they care what I think of them or because they want to know how I am doing.

They read my blog to confirm -to themselves- how evil I am and to hate me just a little bit more. To them everything I say is a lie. None of them believe I was ever harmed in that family, in that house and in that country.

I was simply a diseased human being who was given every chance to reform to what is a good Saudi Muslim woman but perhaps it was my ill genetic makeup that made me rebel and get myself into so much trouble.

To them, I got what was coming to me. In their eyes, I not only failed as a daughter, and a sister but indeed failed as a doctor, a human and most likely will fail as a wife and a mother.

I never was and I never will be anything other than a disgrace and a failure to my family.

My family never will see my life from my point of view. They were too busy trying to control every aspect of my out of control life to tap into the destruction that was going on inside of me.

To them I ask;
If indeed you are reading my blog... How does it feel to finally hear what I have to say and not have me within arms reach?

You can no longer beat me up, lock me in my room or lock me in the house, you can no longer set the drivers, maids, nannies and your wife's sisters to spy on me and report to you if my hair was uncovered at work. You can no longer tape my phone calls -and hand them over to the religious police when I speak to a guy so that I would end up in jail- or place hidden tape recorders in my room and the car.

You can no longer take my passports away, threaten to disown me or hand me over to the fucking religious authorities that you believe to be so righteous. You can no longer control every action I make, every step I take, who I talk to and who I know.

Tell me how it feels to no longer have control and to no longer be feared?

The Apple Never Falls Far From The Tree (The end)

2009-01-09T06:35:00.000-08:00

Two pm rolls around and as promised my brother shows up. He stomped into the extension of the house where My mother and I lived like a mad bull and the first thing he demanded was for me to hand over both passports. My mom had them both and simply handed them over to A who - after checking my Saudi passport and confirming that indeed I was in Dubai the past 2 days - confiscated both my U.K as well as my Saudi passport.

He did not talk much, most of what he did the entire 15 minutes of destruction he was there was yell, and throw orders around as well as threaten me. He said " One more mistake from you and I will gladly hand you over to the religious police and they can take care of you".

He told me to kiss my scholarship bye bye and that I was never going to step foot out of Saudi or Riyadh as long as he lived. He told my mother that he is being generous by letting me continue on with my work but I would be under watch, mainly by his wife's sisters who were all physicians and teaching staff at the university hospital I worked in.

Brother had no emotions to reveal to me except those of hate and intense shame of being related to me. He made sure I knew how useless it was to help me out in my not too distant involvement with the religious authorities and that he would never waste his time helping me out again.

He left in as mad of a rage as he came in and left me once again hopeless, drowning in guilt and shame and feeling suicidal because I had finally ruined all my chances of a better life outside of this house and Saudi hell.

As my life would bring it I was finally granted a scholarship to specialize in the field of Anesthesia in Canada within days of this incident. My dreams shattered as I begged my brother and his wife every minute of every day to forgive me and to please give me my passports back so that I could begin my paper work...but the verdict had been passed. I was to forget about it and accept that I will train in Saudi.

My mother kept telling me to blame no one but myself for destroying all my chances of advancing in this life. Though I was terribly depressed I went to my father after 2 years of not speaking to him and told him that A had confiscated my passports which I needed because I had been granted a scholarship for post-grad. training in Canada.

Here father stood by me - I believe for the sole reason to get me and my problems out of his house, life and Saudi Arabia. He spoke to my brother and got my passports for me. Within the next 2 months I had all my papers ready and came to Halifax for an interview and was accepted!

In the past 6 years I saw my brother once 6 months after I arrived to Canada in 2003. Since then we have pretty much developed a silent agreement to stay out of each others lives.

I would like to conclude "The apple never falls far from the tree" section by stating 2 facts.

Fact #1: In 2004 I was shopping in Toronto and stayed in one of their major hotels. As I returned from a major shopping trip and as I walked into my hotel lobby I came face to face with N. He stood there like an idiot with his mouth wide open in disbelief that indeed it was me walking across the hall from him. I gave him one single look, and walked away in disregard.

I felt no anger, no pain....nothing. It felt like another lifetime and I had certainly changed from that stupid girl who thought her life depended on his heroism. He no longer mattered and I was happy to be free from trash like him. I later found out he was doing his surgical residency in Toronto and that he had married his cousin.

Fact # 2: In late 2008 I began receiving messages on my facebook account from a Moroccan girl in France - where my brother was doing his fellowship in orthopedic surgery. She gave me intense details of how my brother was there for 2 years while his wife and children were in Saudi and how he had lied to this poor young girl about how much he loved her and how he was going to marry her. He promised her the moon and the stars and then left her high and dry after he was done his fellowship and done with her. He is now back in Saudi with his wife - who is haunting this girl in defense of my brother.

She wrote me message after message telling me how my brother spoke of me like filth and how I ruined every ones life including my own...

I end this blog with a few thoughts that recur to me,

- All I ever wanted in this life, and all I still want is to be happy and free.
- I speak of facts when I do speak of my family. I do not speak of them like filth. A man who calls his sister a "Whore" is not a man I would trust or expect to treat me with decency.

-In the end I am married and happy and will NEVER fuck another man while I am committed to my husband - thanks to the lessons I learned from mother and father. My brother, however, cannot say the same...

As for B (the girl who gossiped about me) well, I hope she is living the typical Saudi woman's life which is exactly what she deserves.

And thus I conclude....the apple never falls far from the tree. I am glad I was always the rotten one...

The end

The Apple Never Falls Far From The Tree (early 2009)

2009-01-08T13:37:00.000-08:00

So I go into N's room anticipating him to be the HERO that will rescue me from this impending crisis. As soon as we walk into his hotel room my cell phone goes off and my future darkened as I read that it was from "Mother"...

I answered the phone and you could hear the tremor in my voice. My mom yelling at me on the other end says" You need to get on the first flight and get back NOW!!!!! Your brother knows where you are and who you are with and is going to ruin your life!!!! You only cause problems!!!!! I am not getting involved in this, get back now!!!!!".

I had little to say to my mother, all I could feel at that point was numb as I once again began to see my life crack in half just before me. Indeed I can never stay out of trouble it seems. Inside or outside of that God damn country. It's plague chases me every where I go.

I broke down in front of N as I explained to him that my fears have indeed become reality. B has contacted either my brother's wife or my brother personally and gave them the quick and dirty about my "whoring around" in a neighbouring country.

This is where N did his best to comfort me and by comfort I mean he tried his best to get me into bed with him and to at least get something for himself out of this mess. He started kissing me and that was fine but it is when he thought I was going to fuck him that things went south.

I simply told him that this is certainly not the time nor the place for a romantic night! I also wanted to know what made him think that I would give up my virginity to him that easy?? Or did he not think I was a virgin period?

It was an interesting night. N did not force himself on me nor did he ask me to leave the room. He simply got changed and went to bed as I paced the room back and forth trying to both calm my self down and figure out my way through this crisis. He fell asleep with lights on, with me sobbing on and off and with me making phone calls every 15 minutes. N found his rest in the mist of my chaos.

I did not sleep that night, I kept trying to wake him up, but he would not. Finally at one point I shook him hard and he woke up and I asked him " My brother will stop me from working and will ruin all my chances of going on any scholarship. If things get bad would you be willing to marry me and get me out of this hell?".

N replied " No, my parents would not allow me to marry a girl like you, and I am already engaged to my cousin".

It was after he said this to me that the lights finally went on in my head. This jerk - and fine specimen of what Saudi men are like- thought I was an easy lay and that is the only reason he was here. Now I felt betrayed, stupid, cheap and simply cursed.

When will I ever fucking learn?

I left after that conversation was over and went back to my room. Packed my shit up, booked a flight back home for the early morning and paid extra money to get that done, called a cab and got the hell out of there.

All the way from that hotel to my house in Riyadh all I could think of was that my brother was going to stop me from pursuing a career and a life outside of Saudi. His wife hated me for a magnitude of reasons and had him convinced that I was Lucifer's daughter. He -as a result hated me twice as much.

I got home next day at noon and mother was furious and told me to blame everything that was to come on my self and silly actions! " You deserve this" she said. It was 12:00 pm and my brother told mother that we should expect him to be there at 2 pm. He ordered both my Saudi passport as well as my U.K passport handed over to him when he got there.

To be continued...

The Apple Never Falls Far From The Tree- (2008-2009)

2008-12-27T05:31:00.000-08:00

N had made all the travel arrangements and he only spoke to me once in the airport when he gave me my ticket.

Silly little me, as I look back at those times I am enraged with anger at how all Saudi men are truly the fucking same.

Anyhow, the plane began to board and off course his seat was basically at the opposite end of the plane from where my seat was. I must say that this specific trip was probably the worst trip I have ever taken in my life.

A couple of hours later we landed in Dubai international airport and here I thought "OK, for sure now he will let his guard down a bit and start talking to me". But, to my surprise he didn't...

He walked in front of me and I simply followed him around the airport to customs and then to luggage. Here is where I felt like a true Arab woman following a stupid man around like a goat. So, he went through customs then I did. He picked his luggage as I did then I followed him to the airport exit.

I cannot recall being angry at that point in time but I do remember feeling humiliated that I had wasted my time, emotion and money to get to know this good looking asshole at all. I wished I could just hop back on the plane and return to Riyadh but that was out of the question at this point...might as well see this silliness through.

Outside of the airport Mr. N decided it was now O.K. to be seen communicating with me- what glory!

He flagged down a cab- which we shared- and he told him the name of the hotel where we were staying. The cabi got us there in a short period of time during which I chose not to talk to N because I was trying to sort out how I felt about him and what my interactions with him were going to be like over the next few days of freedom outside of Saudi.

It was ironic to begin to think that perhaps the prison like rules, regulations and traditions of Saudi actually made sense. Maybe they were there to protect girls like me from the misery of having do deal with garbage like N.

The taxi dropped us in front of the hotel and N paid him his fair and into the hotel we walked, side by side.

As we were checking in I noticed that the discussion with the desk clerk was mainly regarding one room. Here a huge screaming fire alarm went off in my head and I immediately stepped into the discussion unlike a good Arab Saudi woman and told the clerk that we needed two rooms please.

N didn't say anything but he made sure that I paid for the second room and I gladly did. Once all was said and done we each went into our rooms with plans to meet for dinner in the main hotel restaurant later.

Not much was going through my head as I went into my room, and got ready for dinner. I -believe it or not- thought things were going quite well and still found some way to convince myself that this ludicrous behaviour of N was acceptable and understandable. After all, I am the loose Saudi girl with a ruined reputation and he might just be trying to protect himself and reputation from me.

We had dinner in a nice garden situated restaurant which was high class. I ordered my food and a glass of wine but N -the good Muslim- did not order alcoholic drinks for himself and was surprised to see me drink.

I thought nothing of it and really did want to have fun and enjoy my sweet time out of Saudi. This was a breath of fresh air for me and I was too intoxicated in my freedom to see the otherwise obvious.

Half way through our dinner I noticed a table filled with girls -who were covered up in the traditional Saudi cover but had their faces showing -looking at us as if they were trying to make one of us out. In a few minutes I realised that I knew one girl in that group.

This girl "B" was a nutritionist that worked with me in one of the hospitals I rotated through. Also, she was my brother's wife's friend.

Here is where the picture began to go really wrong! I told N what was going on and that I knew this girl who has identified me at this point and made it clear to me that she was going to talk as she picked up her cell phone in front of me and began making a call.

N sat there as cool as a stupid cucumber and couldn't give a shit about what I just told him. Why would he? she does not know him nor does he know her...he is not the one in trouble here. He didn't even as much as suggest that we should leave if I was uncomfortable, as long as he was comfortable I didn't matter.

So, I asked him nicely if we could please leave and go up to the hotel again. He reluctantly agreed. He suggested I come into his room seeing how upset I was and I agreed because at this stage I was in panic mode and my judgment - which was poor to Begin with- became much worst as I saw my life being fragmented by this one girl who knew nothing about me but felt the need to talk.

To be continued...

The Apple Never Falls Far from The Tree- end of 2008

2008-12-23T10:23:00.000-08:00

Well,

Tomorrow is Christmas eve and YES I am celebrating Christmas holidays now that I live in the west and am married to a non Muslim. We have a tree set up and gifts and the whole shebang!

So many people experience the holiday blues especially if the holidays happen to fall when they are apart from their families. I would like to say I feel that way, but it is in times like these that I am happy to have found my home away from home. Ramadan was always a terror for me because the religious police infested the roads and malls with intensity during the entire month of holy fasting. They spread their foul by harassing people even more during the holidays and thus I always found myself confined my home. Something I never liked!

So back to my brother A...
During the few years where A had full power and control over my existence I had graduated medical school and started to work. My mother convinced him to sign a legal document that allowed me to exit and enter Saudi without being accompanied by a male relative which was great for me!

This is when I started taking little trips here and there whenever I got too cooped up from the misery of work, Riyadh and our house and that helped. I travelled to Dubai, Bahrain & Egypt without the knowledge of my brother or father.

I would simply say that I am at work and mother would cover up for me while I took a few days to vent in a neighbouring country with some friends instead of getting arrested in Saudi.

During this time A married his current wife and became a good Muslim and Saudi - whatever that is. He grew more and more distant from me and that was great as I found him dull, selfish and a typical Saudi. He wouldn't come around as much. In fact, it would be about once a month that we would see him.

So, I arranged my little trips around his visiting time.

In my second year of Anesthesia residency I met a good looking Saudi guy who I knew little about. He was a plastic surgery resident and he would spend hours staring at me in the operating room, which automatically made me believe he liked me. So....one thing led to another and we hooked up.

We wanted to hang out together but after my arrest a few years back I was extremely cautious and told him that if he wanted to hang out in public we should probably arrange a 2-3 day trip to Dubai or Bahrain and he agreed. So, Dubai it was!

I told my mother that I like this guy and in order not to get in trouble we were meeting outside the country. She said OK and that was that.

This guy (N) was my brothers colleague, quiet, handsome and a doctor! What more could I ask for right? Unfortunately, there was no chance for me to get to know him any better before we went on this trip of ours.

Things have to be done in a convoluted way in Saudi and I was too exited about having my freedom to travel and date to know any better. Also, as much of a whore as people thought I was, I honestly knew very little about men and was as stupid as any young teenage girl could get at the otherwise adult age of 25.

Days, passed and I took time off work and made external arrangements to be dropped of at the airport to join N there the day of our flight. So exciting!

The first red flag came up in the airport after I met N and he decided to stand in a different check in lane than mine?? He refused to talk to me or even make eye contact with me the entire time we were in the Riyadh international airport.

I checked in separate from him, and him separate from me. He went and looked around the shops on his own as I sat there in shock, bought a coffee for himself, but not me and Sat in a chair alone waiting for the flight to board. He would perhaps crack a smile at me from a far every now and then as if I was unknown to him.

What the hell is this weird shit now?????? It was simply too late to turn back and I thought to myself "He must have a God damn good reason for behaving this way" and knowing Saudi and the terror of it I could somewhat understand.

To be continued...

Saudi Women and their Non-Existant Rights! 2008

2008-12-21T22:17:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of my e-friend Philip,

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1099447/Saudi-court-rejects-divorce-plea-EIGHT-year-old-girl-married-58-year-old-man.html

Comments more than wellcome. My note about this story to follow shortly.

The Apple Never Falls Far From The Tree

2008-12-12T13:50:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the long gap in updating my blog. My life decided to go off road for a while there over the past 4-5 weeks and only today am I seeing a glimpse of hope that I will, once again, recover from life's hits.

Anyhow,
Back to my story,
I grew up in a house of abuse and a country of true terror, that should be pretty evident to those who read this blog of mine. I also grew up in a house of deception, lies and backstabbing where we learned to betray each other to survive.

Ever since I can remember mother always had a male "friend" and father always had a "Mistress". This caused me endless pain growing up because I was confused and scared from what I witnessed. My home, the only place I knew at the time, seemed to be based on lies.

Every year my father brought a new woman into our life and every year I watched the crack that was in the foundation of our family unit get deeper and deeper as the anger and hate of all this deception became reflected on us - the children- making the abuse escalate.

These women my father embraced into his life, invaded mine. The men my mother befriended where my enemies. Still, all my life in that house and in that country I was accused of being corrupt minded, evil, a sinner and bad.

This created a wave of rejection within me that would continue to grow bigger as I grew older. I refused this ugly life of mine and began to rebel, which, in more ways than one, got me in enough trouble to truly appear as the corrupt minded evil girl everyone thought I was.

I always feared to continue on the abuse pattern that was imprinted in my mind more than my body. I also believed with a firm conviction that I would never be stable enough to marry or to have children and that I would only repeat the history of affairs and horrid family life I witnessed my parents scramble through.

Here is the point where I would like to bring my older brother A into the picture. A was my friend up until the point we both reached puberty. After that, I began to notice the favoritism my parents and society had for him over me. It also enraged me that he could drive, have his own car, his own apartment, his own private line, drink, travel, date, fuck with no questions asked by anyone.

Meanwhile, I was put under the microscope, watched, denied the great majority of my requests, and did not dare even compare myself to A.

As we grew older A went through many phases one of which was being a playboy. I knew all his girlfriends because I allowed him to use me for cover up for this, that and the other as he played with these girls minds and hearts.

Then he went through a religious phase, where he was praying 5 times a day, fasting and ended up going to Makkah to perform a pilgrimage. This was after he had met and decided to marry his current wife and mother of his 3 children.

During this phase he decided that I was a whore- like my mother- and a bad Muslim. Off course, this coincided with my major religious police incident where I was kidnapped, framed and thrown in jail for being with a non-relative male.

Here, he had no doubt that I was Lucifer in the flesh and he and father would continuously compare me to my mother "The whore" who had left us when I was 16 and was living in Egypt. Never did A think or believe that my father's fucking around was a bad thing or in any way a cause of our pathetic family being shredded to all hell.

I should note that my mother went to live in Egypt - where she is from- and left me, my brother and my 2 year old sister because father decided he was marrying his nurse and bringing her into our home. That was fine with A but it didn't sit well with me at all and I made sure they knew it.

Because I refused to accept another woman besides my mother in my home or in my life and A did, I was condemned to endless punishment while A was rewarded.

So, after my kidnapping incident father had pretty much disowned me and gave A full legal power over me and didn't he just fucking love playing with my life!

The 2 years where A controlled my life were just before I came to Canada in 2003 and are the main reason why I now completely deny that I even have a brother.

The hate I saw and felt from him still amazes me. The way A, and eventually his wife- who he would not have married if it was not for me and my mother-would turn my life into pure misery.

To be continued...

Exposed

2008-11-15T10:02:00.001-08:00

Immigration always has been, and always will be, quite the demoralizing process.

I came to Canada as a FMG (foreign medical graduate) and was O.K'd to work in the Canadian work force with the "Powers to be" fully knowing that my credentials were foreign.

Now here is the little twist people do not seem to get...

Because I was sponsored by the Saudi government i.e the Saudis were paying the Canadians 90,000 dollars per year for me to get my training, the Canadian government and workforce didn't give a flying fuck what my credentials were or from what country I was from. So, I got the VISA and the documents stating that Canada "needs" me, came here, got the great job and great paycheck and all was well.

After my assault and after the Saudi government withdrew all my funding, I immediately lost my spot in the Canadian training program. Now, lord behold my credentials do not meet "Canadian standards" anymore..

Now-that I don't have 90,000 dollars/year behind my Arabic brown ass- I can't even hold a job as the cleaning lady. See, I take life's hits quite well nowadays. After all I did go to jail for being with a boy at the age of 21...

After I lost my career and life as a doctor and demoralized myself even more by becoming a visible minority AND an immigrant, no employer is willing to give me- non the less my resume- the time of day. Suddenly I am no longer qualified to do Jack shit in this country.

It took me 6 months to find a job as a cleaner or as they call it " Assistant superintendent" but then 4 months down the road I was let go...apparently the property management company I worked for thinks I cost too much!

I reduced myself to accept a job where I would clean in exchange for free rent (no salary involved) and still that was too expensive in THIER eyes, so they laid me off for a much cheaper alternative.

Wow...so this is the cost of fucking freedom!

The Start Of an End IX

2008-11-01T21:34:00.000-07:00

It all began to seriously go down hill from here on. The next 2 years of my Anesthesia residency training in Halifax were nothing less than a shitty mess.

I don't know why the Anesthesia department, the program director, the sexual harassment office, the associate medical dean and basically anyone who found out about this"ALLEGED" assault of mine reacted the way they did. I honestly just don't know... I can't tell you why after reporting this assault to N.V he decided that it was not his responsibility to change any schedules around to help alleviate tensions and to lessen the trauma of me having to continuously work and face this guy.

I have no clue why within the first 3 months following my assault I was placed on call at least twice with M. Why I was scheduled in a one on one academic session with him. Why he appeared in every corridor and every staircase I took. Why he confidently continued to harass me and why my complaints about his continuous harassment were met with such resistance to their validity.

N.V told me to contact the chief resident, at the time, with these problems and I recall working in ICU as M hovered around there doing absolutely nothing but making sure that I knew he was there and thus limiting my movement as well as function. I recall paging the chief resident who took his sweet time answering me and explaining to him that I had work to do in ICU and that M was here for no specific reason that I could make out but to intimidate me. I asked the chief resident to please come up to the ICU and help me out but he declined and told me to just leave if I was that uncomfortable.

So I, the one who was assigned to ICU and had critically ill patients to look after, had to leave while the man who was there for no reason but to fuck me up stayed....yes, that made a whole lot of nonsense!

I also cannot explain why as the months passed and my stress and depression progressed people gravitated away from me, people who knew the situation well decided to become ever so close of friends with M. Women- who knew of the attack- would hug him in front of me.

Within 1 year of the assault M had become the shining star of the department while I began failing rotations, getting terrible evaluations and became completely alone and isolated.

I wish I knew why I was called into N.V's office to talk about next year schedule only to become aggressively told off for speaking to various people in the the hospital about the assault. N.V told me "You need to stop talking to people about the assault! people from other departments have approached me asking me about it this needs to STOP!"

I also wish I knew why my 2 meetings with the associate dean resulted in me being asked to transfer out of the hospital, me being told that I cannot handle life, and him finding the fact that I could not recall the actual date of my assault interestingly funny...

Why did N.V make this a living hell for me? throughout the next 2 years and as schedules continued to clash, scenes developed where I simply would not show up for academic sessions or calls because I had been scheduled with M. My mental and emotional reserves finally began to deplete by the start of 2005.

Still I went on with my training, miserable, depressed and hating every minute I had to spend at the hospital. I used up all my sick leaves and then some.

N.V did not allow me any time off to go for my psychiatric counselling sessions. Whenever I did go it would be after me either lying to get out of the operating room or sitting there and explaining to my senior staff person why I had to leave,which only added insult to injury, and either way my evaluations suffered immensely and I continued to fail rotation after rotation.

I don't know why I was shit on for taking 3 months off after being sexually assaulted. Do people in the medical world not go through depression and grief? I also, don't know why I was booked for a mock oral exam, which I failed, with M by the end of 2005.

I don't know why I had to submit to, by a forced order from N.V, 2 separate psychiatric evaluations after my first and second leaves of absences. My first being fresh after my assault and my second was after a full year of being bombarded with facing M almost on a daily basis at the end of which I had mentally deteriorated to a point where I was no longer able to care for sick patients as a medical professional.

I cannot explain why the department and the powers to be at the hospital continuously insisted and pushed that I report this case to the police. Why they refused to offer an ounce of support or change in anything to serve my needs UNLESS the police were involved?

Were the police going to make these silly insignificant, yet significant, schedule changes? Was that part of the RCMP job description??

I don't know why I became the problem that everyone wanted to go away. In my last months as a doctor I failed to thrive as a woman and as a human. This was a dark time for me and it truly ended with as much pain and devastation as it began with.

After my second 3 month leave of absence N.V refused to let me back into work unless I submitted to a psychiatric evaluation to a psychiatrist of his choosing. Why? because the previous psychiatrist-which I chose- said I was fine and good to return to work and N.V was making sure that didn't happen.

So I did, I got evaluated and it came as no shock to be diagnosed with Severe anxiety, chronic depression, anorexia, severe post traumatic stress and labelled unfit to work.

This marked the end of my career as a doctor. By the end of 2006 I was indeed suffering from all the above and had completely BURNT OUT.

In early 2007, after the Saudis withdrew all my funding as well as my scholarship when I informed them of my attack and it's consequences, after losing my spot in the training program, and after they ordered me to pay them back 200,000 dollars for money that was spent on my education and me telling them to GO FUCKING BURN IN HELL, I finally went to the RCMP and reported my case. I also went to the Nova Scotia human rights commission and filed a human rights complaint against the hospital and the department.

Unfortunately the all mighty Saudi Bureau in Ottawa cannot be touched as they do not fall under Canadian jurisdiction or law. As for M, he passed his board exams a mere 9 months after I was expelled from my training. He now enjoys the title of FRCPC and the prestige of an Anesthesiologist.

2 weeks ago I got a call from the RCMP telling me that the investigation had been completed and that M has been located in Ottawa, Ontario where he is being brought up on charges. He is due to come to Halifax where we will go to court to get this settled once and for all.

My case against the hospital is ongoing ...

During all this I met my husband Peter who has sponsored me for immigration and we have a beautiful baby boy together. Though my husband bears a lot of weight on his shoulders and life has been extra hard on the both of us since I left medicine I do not doubt his love and support.

I have switched careers and I am currently going to school to become a registered massage therapist. A profession of true care..
I also work as an assistant building representative while I am at school and my main job is to clean...

-The End-

The Start Of an End VIII

2008-10-26T08:44:00.000-07:00

I hate being Saudi...

My life in that country was painful and traumatizing. The people of Saudi did nothing less than help create a devastated, angry and sad woman who learned that her life and entire physical being is wrong and unacceptable.

The religion that was forced upon me in the great Kingdom of lack of women and human rights made me doubt Islam to the roots. I do not believe in a prophet Mohamed, I do not believe in God and I highly doubt the Quraan is as accurate as these people make it out to be, nor that God would write such things.

In Saudi I am-as all women are- to blame for a man attacking us in a sexual form and any other form as well. Women are ordered to cover up from head to toe in order not to get men's attention. We are beaten with sticks in the street if one of our eye lashes is showing. We are the demons who want nothing but to drag men into our sexual webs of sin and because of that we struggle and are forced to live with no rights.

-I will lose many friends,not that I have that many, as a result of this blog but that is fine with me. If you have a mentality that prohibits you from understanding why I am who I am and say what I say then please feel free to exit my life. I would love to see how you would end up after living the misery that was my life!-

In my condo and after a mere few hours of yet another attack upon my existence by a Saudi beast I became lost in a world of shame that I knew too well. Was this my fault? After all I was in a towel...Did I send him mixed messages? Do I deserve this? What should I do now?

I dragged my humiliated self into the bath and showered to get his nauseating smell off of me. I then crawled into my bed and began losing myself in doubts, fears and endless questions for which I had no immediate or definite answers to.

I was not Canadian, I was a Saudi in Halifax on a work permit and I was fully funded by the Saudi government. If I were to open my mouth about this by going to the police there would have been no doubt that I would lose my funding and training spot when the Saudis found out then be dragged back to Saudi where who knows what the outcome might have been. Most likely, knowing the corrupt system they call law over there, I would have ended up being lashed and going to jail for being alone with a man I did not know in a cottage.

The fact that I was physically violated means nothing to the Saudis. It all comes down to the man being the victim of an evil woman's seduction.

After a few days of hell, lack of sleep, anorexia and physical sickness I decided not to inform the police of my attack. Instead I decided to inform the Anesthesia department Program director J.M of what happened and so I did. This was after I consulted one of the female department members and got her advice on my next step.

I met with J.M and he was applaud by it all. He recommended I report the incident to the sexual harassment office and promised me that I would not have to see or confront M-my attacker- as long as I was in training. This meant that he was going to arrange the call as well as work/academic schedules so that we would not be in the same room together or in the same hospital thereby limiting our interaction with each other to zero.

This was enough to satisfy me and I filed a complaint with the sexual harassment office and began mental counselling.

Within a few weeks of this arrangement, and unfortunately for me, J.M-the program director- stepped down from his position which was handed over to N.V.

N.V was a single male and one of the department members whom I had serious issues with. He was sexist and had no problem showing his preference to the male residents and not so much to the females. Myself and another 2 females in the department did not like him as he just sent off bad vibes and always seemed to react inappropriately.

He became program director and requested to meet with me to discuss this assault matter. I fulfilled his request and met with him and explained exactly what happened the day of the attack. I recall crying as I relived my assault while he sat far away from me cross legged, flicking his pen around with an unreactive stone face.

He said that we needed to set up a meeting with post grad. medical associate dean to further discuss this matter. He stressed that he could not promise me any schedule changes as it was too hard for him to arrange. He also stressed that I need to go to the police and file a legal complaint.

I became distraught from his presence and from this meeting and so I became silenced by fear of the unknown. I left his office broken and confused to what was to come next.

Little did I know, as I walked away from this meeting, that along with my attacker, N.V would be the second most important reason for me to leave my training and the medical world behind 2 years later only to never regret such a decision, and to never look back.

End of part 8

The Start Of and End VII

2008-10-25T09:26:00.000-07:00

I was enjoying my life thus far, with all the difficulties I was facing, out of Saudi. I knew I was still on a long Saudi leash as I was being funded by the Saudi government and a lot of the doctors at the hospital were Saudi as well. You see Saudi medical specialty training is so poorly developed that they have to send us over to the west to get the knowledge and degrees in order to improve our health care system.

I struggled at work with the crippled mentality of Saudi residents. They sent me anonymous emails telling me to cover up, I was given dirty looks by most of them whenever they saw me as I was, in their eyes, a whore because I wore makeup, dressed provocatively and did not cover up my hair and face. Those who did not hate me because they believed I was an infidel were mostly men who wanted to fuck me because I -in their heads- was easy and asking for it.

The 2 guys I worked with-especially M- fell into that last category and I was well aware of that. When they couldn't get to me in a sexual way their next immediate reaction was to hate me because I was a disgrace to Islam and the image of a Saudi woman.

So,as I sat in my hot bubble bath in a cottage out in the middle of no where listening to some soft music in the background I suddenly heard a door unlock and some items shifting around. Once I heard the noise downstairs I got out of the bath, wrapped a towel around me and slowly went down a few steps and peeked behind an angle of the wall where the steps curved at about 90 degrees to see what I could see.

What I saw came nothing less then a shock to me as I saw M lock the cottage door, take of his winter jacket and run up the stairs to grab me. It took me a couple of seconds to absorb what was happening to me and as soon as it sunk in a ran up the stairs trying to get out of his slimy grip but he had, at this point, wrapped his entire arms around me as my back was to him.

He began groping me and kissing my neck and back while commenting on my tattoo as he read it out loud in Arabic saying how sexy it was. Meanwhile, I kept trying to get out of his grip and we ended up in the bathroom where once again he shut the door while still holding on to me and aggressively kissing my face and neck.

I got a hold of my flat iron-which was unplugged- and threatened him that it was hot and that I was going to burn him with it...he laughed and the struggle continued as I opened the bathroom door to get out only for him to push me into the bedroom....again he shut the door.

Here he stepped away from me and told me to undress. I grabbed a shirt and told him that I want him to leave so I can get dressed and he said " why don't I help you get dressed then?" as he took the shirt away from me and pushed me onto the bed where my towel came off and he placed himself on me and started rubbing his hard on against my leg.

I did not scream, yell, shout or do anything really. It amazes me how different a real reaction to a sexual assault is from what we commonly see on T.V and the movies.

As he performed this act on me I was continuously asking him what it is he thought he was doing and why he was doing this to me? I also repeatedly asked him to stop but off course, that was all useless.

At some point during the assault I asked M to give me 5 minutes alone so I can do something special so we can do this properly and enjoy it. Amazingly, that made him stop, get up and leave the room with my promise that I would come down and that we would have some more "proper" time together and so he left the bedroom.

I stood there in humiliation, disgust and utter shock, this is when I began to panic and the flight or flight reaction that we studied so much in physiology began to manifest. I began to tremble, shake, sweat and hyperventilate. All I recall doing was getting dressed, grabbing my keys and running out of the cottage as fast as humanly possible.

I ran downstairs where he was sitting on a couch rubbing himself and I exited the cottage without looking back. I heard him call my name and ask where I was going as I got into my car, backed up and drove off.

As I drove away from this nightmare I ran into a couple of male residents who were on their way back to the cottage, one of them was our chief resident. I stopped them, began sobbing as I explained what happened. They did their best to comprehend this unusual situation and asked if I needed help driving home. I said no and asked them to return to the cottage and pretend that they knew nothing, and so they did.

I ended up calling a friend of mine, who was a staff person at the Anesthesia department, from a nearby payphone. He drove up to where I was and I followed him with my car back home as I did not know the way. How I was able to operate a vehicle in that state was beyond me but I did.

He came into my place with me and offered his endless support which I rejected. He sat there in front of me on a chair and watched me sink into one of the darkest places I had ever sunken to in my life.

All I wanted was to be alone. So, I asked him to get out of my house and to leave me alone...and so he reluctantly did.

End of part VII

The Start Of an End VI

2008-10-17T14:48:00.000-07:00

In my second year of Anesthesia residency training there were 2 other Saudi residents that I worked with, both of which were male. One of them I knew quite well, he used to work with me in the same department as well as hospital back in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He left for his scholarship 1 year ahead of me and thus was my senior when I arrived here, it was unfortunate that we would end up in the same depratment and hospital again!

I was always creeped out by this man-if you dare call him that. He was the typical earth slime that Saudi men represented or should I say misrepresented. He was greasy, dirty, ugly, ultra religious and always looked at me with nasty lust in his eyes that always made my skin crawl. He had made multiple comments to me/at me when I worked with him in Saudi about how he was looking for "wife number 2" as he had recently been married to one of his female relatives.

I worked with these 2 men here in Halifax and I never liked or trusted either of them in any setting or situation. At this point of my life I was well aware of the limited thought process of a Saudi man especially when it came to women. One of them, who was single initially, made direct passes at me up to the point where he got married to another Saudi female resident from another department whom he dumped his wife for after they developed a relationship here together.

So, I simply ignored both of them as much as I could while maintaining a high degree of alertness about their presence. The other residents of the department began sensing my dislike and distrust of these 2 and I was viewed as an irrational person by most because they did not understand where I was coming from and why I was being so harsh.

Life went on as busy as it can get as an Anesthesia resident and our department decided to send the entire group of residents on a nice 2 day weekend winter retreat at one of the fall river cottages near the martok ski hill. It was the winter of 2004 and this sounded like a good break and reward for all that hard work and shifts we had been pulling off at the hospital.

The retreat was organized by a group of people, names were gathered, groups were divided on the basis of who was going out on Friday and who was going out on Saturday. Car arrangements as well as food and drinks were all being planned out well ahead of time in order for us to make the most out of this promising 2 day retreat that was being awarded to us residents.

During the weeks of scheduling and planning I kept trying to get information on when these 2 guys were going to come out to the cottage. The department had booked us 2 cottages to do with as we please and I believe the thought was the guys would be in one and the girls in the other. This was all fine with me but I still wanted to know who was coming out and when...especially M, the guy who I was most discomfotrted by. Unfortunately the day came for us to travel up to to our retreat spot and I still did not have the information I wanted.

I drove up to the Cottage following 2 other Canadian male residents in their cars and it was a nice Friday evening.Though the drive was long, I still enjoyed it and it was nothing less than exciting. I was going to go Skiing at some point and that was a first for me! I also was finally going to have a chance to connect with my work colleagues without the stress of a hospital setting.

We arrived at both cottages late Friday evening and this would have been the first group of residents to get there. The second group was going to come up the next morning. The first group consisted only of male Canadian Anesthesia residents and myself. We talked, joked, ate and had tons of fun. It was one of the few times where I felt at peace with myself and everyone around me.

I decided to go to bed early and asked the guys where I should sleep? The suggestion came up that I could go sleep at the other cottage but I was not too happy about being alone there. So, 3 of the guys offered to give me their upstairs room while they slept on the couches and floor of the living room. I agreed to this option and up to my room I went where I unpacked, turned up the heat, brushed my teeth and fell asleep in a cozy bed.

When I woke up early Saturday morning the second group had arrived, it was noisy and the guys were all dressed and ready to go Skiing, they asked me to join them but I decided it was way too early for me as I still needed to shower and get ready. I asked them one final time if they Knew when M and the other Saudi guy were coming up as they still had not showed up and I got no specific answer, so I told them to go ahead and that I would join them later on the day.

As I had the cottage to myself I grabbed a quick breakfast and went up to my room, undressed and hopped into a relaxing bubble bath...

The events that would take place over the next 20 minutes of my life would eventually become detrimental to my life both as a Saudi female and a doctor. For it is over those unforgettably slow 20 minutes that I would once more become the prey to an animal who is a Saudi man.

End of part VI

The Start Of an End V

2008-10-16T11:17:00.000-07:00

I had completed my internship as well as 2 full years of Anesthesia specialty training before I came to Halifax. Sadly, those years were scratched out by the powers to be and I was asked to begin from ground zero. So, I swallowed my pride and went through the nightmare of a rotating internship once again after 2 years of specialty training, NOT FUN!

It was in this first year of my internship that I would be introduced to the devastating world of racism. Now, before I go on I should probably explain why I tolerated what I did in my 4 years of Anesthesia training here; you see as a medical resident it has become norm and in fact -an unspoken rule- that you are treated like the scum of the earth, work like a slave while you eat less and less and sleep less and less. You are, to put it nicely, regularly abused, misused and almost always shit on by your superiors/seniors as well as by nursing staff.

Being a female adds more stress to the situation because medicine is unfortunately an OLD BOYS CLUB and nurses, who are 80% females, are unionized and simply love playing the power game with us female residents, they being the ones in power off course. So in the end we- the worker bees of the hospital- tolerate a lot of stress and abuse and the majority of us are too scared to speak.

Why?
For many reasons, but here are mine:
I was on a scholarship that was funded by another government. I was a resident and had to go through the bullshit associated with my training in order to get a pass or a good evaluation to proceed from one year to the next. I was a Saudi, which meant I had less privileges then Canadian residents who where here for years, know the system and had become friends with the staff. I was on a tight leash by the Saudi government who don't believe in human or woman rights. I was one of the few females in the department here, the rest were all men so I always felt I had something to prove to the men of the department who thought-and I quote:"women who want to have families and babies should become librarians not doctors"

So. in my first year I would encounter some nasty people with M.D behind their names who made my pediatrics rotations nothing but pure hell. During this rotation I had 2 seniors who were pediatric residents themselves, one was male and the other female. The male who I will refer to as P was actually a first year resident too but because he was a pediatrics resident, he immediately became my senior?! made no fucking sense to me but that was how it worked. The female-S- was on the verge of finishing her specialty training in pediatrics and both of them were quite the psychotic cocktail that I was forced to deal with every day for a full month.

Some of the highlights of my time on that service included incidences where one of these two would approach me at the end of the day and tell me to take a break and just go home and that they would stick around and finish up discharges...etc. I would take them up on that offer only to show up the next morning and find out that my patients who should have been discharged the day before w ere still there and that would cause the most senior psycho- our staff pediatrician J.K- who was also a female to yell at me in the middle of the ward in front of patients and nurses.

I was never given the chance to explain anything to her as she blindly believed what they had told her about me. Another incident would be the recurrent and multiple admissions of a teenage girl who had diabetes to the hospital. This girl was well known to all the hospital staff and was known to be a difficult patient and an awful person who abused the hospital system. She would get admitted about twice a week on a regular basis because she refused to take her insulin and I found it frustrating that I would always be asked to admit her by my seniors who walked around not doing much really while myself and another"junior" resident did all the work.

There came a point after admission number 10 that I voiced out to P that this was not constructive to my training and that someone else should take her on. Little did I know that as a result of this J.K would decide that I am to fail the pediatrics rotation and would write a 2 page hateful report about me and how useless and non-committed to work I was.

So there, my first year in repeating my internship ended with my failure in pediatrics for no reason that I was ever informed of. All this happened behind my back which dare I say is against the rules as we are supposed to get a mid-cycle warning if we were not performing well. But hey, I was special! I did not deserve a warning and because I actually wanted to learn something instead of being abused and doing everyone Else's job I failed.

So how is this racism?
because I was the only one who had such an experience, because it was sickening and because though no one said anything to my face, a whole crap load of things were being done and said about me behind my back. Why? they did not know me from a hole in the wall and they sure as hell did not even try to be friends with me. The moment I walked into that service I felt nothing but hated and I was never given the chance to survive.

This event would set the tone for the next 4 years of my residency training..

End of part V

The Start Of an End IV

2008-10-12T12:57:00.001-07:00

Over the next 2 months I would enroll in a local driving school to finally learn how to drive. I came to Canada 2 months early intentionally, as my training would not commence till July, because I planned on learning how to drive here.

Women in Saudi are not allowed to drive or learn how to drive, so this was one of my first goals to accomplish in this new life of mine. I attended classes regularly and got my driver's permit then I began the actual physical driving lessons.

I want to pause here for a bit..
One of the most difficult things I have ever had to learn and accomplish in my life was driving. I recall how I used to sit on bus stops and watch with extreme envy and sadness teenage girls drive by in their cars and I used to feel debilitated and depressed that I was 26, a doctor & unable to operate a motor vehicle or memorize a route to get somewhere. I had become crippled by the imprinting/brainwashing process of the Saudi Regime.

My driving instructors would ask me where I was having difficulty and why I was failing every other driving test and I could never give them a solid answer because I didn't know why. All I knew was that I had to overcome a deep seated fear that I could not and should not drive because I am female. It was as if I had a mental block as a residual effect from my life in Saudi, in my head I was still Saudi and thus had limited privileges as a woman.

So, 4 driving tests and 3000 dollars later I finally passed and got my first ever driver's license. Now I had the car and the license but I still would not drive. I refused to operate my car because of this, that and the other and continued taking the bus to and from work for the first year while my car sat in the parking area rusting.

In my second year I finally broke the wall of fear and got in my car and began driving around the city. I never drove too far and it took me a total brain reformat to learn roads, shortcuts and signals/lights. Then, in my third year I became a pro and I now drive with confidence and glad to say I have never had an accident!

Though driving was my main challenge, I had several others that surfaced as I became a free Arab woman living in the west. I discovered that I was extremely anxious about and unable to properly deal with men. I did not know how to talk to them and I did not know how to function without the help of a nanny or a driver. I also became culture shocked and that lasted for 6 long months where I was alone and at some point was going through a terrible divorce after I married a Saudi man whom I thought I had known.

Aaaahhh, yes..my first marriage. What a total fuck up that was!

I met J in Saudi. He was the son of one of my patients and we grew fond of each other. To make a long story short, as he is not worthy of a lengthy mention, he proposed, I accepted, I came here and he followed me months later. We got married here, he beat me up and abused me. I walked out on him the morning after our wedding night and within 2 months we were getting divorced and he married his first cousin.

He made me pay for my wedding and he made me pay for my divorce and believe it or not I had to travel back to Saudi Arabia-at my own cost- to return his precious fucking ring to him so he would finally give me my divorce. Who would have thought that I would revist the "Kingdom of lunacy", as a friend of mine calls it, so soon. I was there for 7 days, got my divorce and hopped on the first plane back to Canada. I have never stepped foot in Saudi since.

All this was happening while I had just started intense medical residency training which was excessively demanding, physically exhausting and mentally draining and to top that all up I was struggling with culture shock while I had to learn the ABC's of single life living..cooking my own meals, washing my own clothes, cleaning my own house. Oh yes, and the divorce, could not forget about that as he made sure I was put through hell! Suddenly everything became overwhelming.

Needless to say it was a tragic start to my new life. I was sad 90% of the time and completely alone with zero support all the time. I had to re-learn how to interact with people who looked at me with a question mark on their faces. September 11th was not that far ago and I am an Arab and a Muslim after all. I spent the first 6-7 months either at home or at work and simply refused to socialize, I was free but far from O.K..

There were times where I felt defeated and contemplated calling it quits, packing my shit up and heading back to a hell I knew how to deal with but a nagging voice inside me kept saying NO!

End of part IV

The Start Of an End III

2008-10-12T03:26:00.000-07:00

My illness had peaked at this point of my travel to achieve freedom. This was the moment I had envisioned all my life and I was here in current time living it. Unfortunately for me I was unable to be fully submerged in the moment as every cell in me was exhausted by the war that had been going on within me for 2 full days now.

Was it too much to ask for? To enjoy my first taste of true freedom? Apparently it was...

Never the less I felt victory. Little insignificant Iman had done it. Against all odds and there were too many, I had done it. For once in my life I did not feel like a failure.

I remained on the plane for the 45 minutes and then we departed from St. John to my final destination, Halifax. I got off the plane and made my way to the immigration office where my paper work was quickly checked for accuracy and I was admitted into Halifax, finally. I got my luggage which didn't take long at all and then went through Canada customs who didn't even bother to check my luggage. My next step was the revolving exit door in the Halifax international airport after which I went through felt a powerful breeze of freedom hit my senses.

I stood on the sidewalk, in semi disbelief, sick, and charged with an incredible sense of lack of fear. I was not covered up from head to toe -in a black garbage bag, I was in public and I was not afraid. Such a luxurious feeling..

I got into a cab and rested my head on the back seat with a monster sigh of relief and asked the driver to take me to the Hotel Nelson where I had my reservation. As the cab drove I enjoyed every minute of the beautiful scenery of green trees and hills. My eyes had become over sensitized by the image of a dull yellowish brown sandy desert and date trees that a simple maple tree became so intriguing to me.

My Kleenex box-my friend- was still with me and running low on tissue supply. I was approaching the recovery process of this miserable illness. I was alive and thought not well, I gladly highly doubted the diagnosis of SARS.

The cab came to a stop after a 40 some minute drive, I paid him and got my suitcases and slowly walked into the beautiful lobby of the Lord Nelson Hotel to check in. Once I was in, a front door clerk looked at me with a stunned look and wide eyes and simply said " Rough trip?". I smiled as I knew what I looked like at that point-nothing less then miserable- and agreed with him that indeed it was a rough trip.

I finished all the formalities at the front desk, got my key and up to my room I went. I undressed, bathed, ordered some room service, and enjoyed the feeling of being a female alone in a hotel room without a male guardian and not being referred to or accused of being a whore who is waiting to get fucked by a man who is not her husband. Eventually after watching some non Islamic or Arabic TV I crashed at around 4 pm only to wake up the next morning at 8 am.

End of part three

The Start Of an End II

2008-10-11T09:23:00.000-07:00

I was barely conscious sitting there waiting for the overhead call that would say that my flight was boarding. Oh how I dreamt of this day! But never in my dreams did I imagine myself to be so toxically ill that I would not be able to salvage and enjoy every last minute I spent on Saudi ground knowing that I was soon to depart from the this hell.

I took my Abaya ( head and body cover) off and made my way to the bathroom as I was coughing hard and didn't want to attract too much attention. In the bathroom there was a woman who just had finished washing up and when she heard me cough panicked and walked away in a fearful rush as she mumbled something about SARS. I looked at myself in the mirror and I could barely recognize my face from the swelling and congestion. I knew I didn't have SARS but this was scary..

I washed up and fixed my make up and exited the bathroom just in time for my flight's boarding call. I sat in a far away seat waiting for the majority of people, who were mainly Asians and Pakistanis mixed with some Europeans to board and once they did I approached the gate, showed them my I.D and letter of permission to travel alone from my brother and on the plane I went. I had the window seat which was next to a middle aged man whom I didn't say a complete word to the entire flight. My flight path was from Riyadh to London, Heathrow which would take about 7 hours and then I would transit in London for 8 hours to catch a connecting flight from London To St. John, another 6 hours. Transit there for 45 minutes then from there to Halifax, my final destination.

This was only my second time traveling completely alone and I had never travelled this sick before. I was continuously going through scenarios where I would get quarantined at Heathrow and what I would do if that happened.

The flight was difficult on my system which was battling an intense war with one of the nastiest viruses I would ever contract. I had no energy to even keep my eyes open and my Kleenex box was my only friend in this solitary transition of my life. No one approached me on the plane about anything and I found that incredible seeing how I was continuously sneezing, coughing and blowing my nose. I was only able to eat the soup on the flight's menu as I was extremely fatigued and nauseous.

Time passed slowly and I was not able to sleep or rest on this flight. The man next to me however had no such problem as he both slept and snored through half of it. We finally landed in Heathrow at around 8 am and though I was happy to be there, my physical state was only deteriorating.

In Heathrow I grabbed a Starbucks muffin and coffee and once again overdosed on pain killers and flue meds in an attempt to get me through the next 8 hour long wait. I grabbed a large water and sipped on it over the next few hours and luckily found a nice quiet spot in this busy airport where I snoozed for a bit.

I woke up in a coughing spell and reoriented myself. I checked the time and realized I was one hour away from boarding my next flight. So off I went on a mile hike in this busy and extra large airport to find my gate. I by all means looked like death and it would have been now that my fears of being quarantined would peak. I checked in with security and they let me through-no questions asked. I checked at my boarding gate and, again, no questions were asked.

So there I sat, sick and alone on a chair at my second boarding gate in thankful shock! I bowed my head down to the floor in order to get less attention as I continued to cough, sneeze and breathe with extreme difficulty.
The flight began boarding and once again I boarded a plane that would get me closer to my destination of a free life.

This flight was a light one. All together I think we were 60 or so passengers and I was allowed to find 4 non-occupied seats in the back of the plane and sleep there and that was exactly what I did. I slept for the whole 6 hours and when I woke up the plane had began it's descend into St. John's.

I sat up, smiled as my dry lips began to hurt from minor cracking caused by my dehydrated state and cried silently as the plane touched Canadian ground.

End of part 2

The Start of an End

2008-10-10T04:52:00.000-07:00

2003/May/1st was the day I got off the plane and stepped foot on Canadian soil, to stay. I landed in Halifax, Nova Scotia after 20 hours of hectic traveling and prolonged transit times in airports.

My last day in Saudi Arabia was nothing less than interesting. After an extremely long conflict with my brother and his wife which occurred over a period of 6 or so months where they were both insisting that I would never leave Saudi and never see Canada, taking my passport away from me and their extensive attempts to rip me of the one and only dream that I lived my entire life striving to accomplish, I was still able to overpower both of them through my father who just wanted me out. So, finally and one month before my flight was scheduled to depart I got my passport back from my brother and quickly finished up all my paperwork to exit the country safely and come to Canada legally under a work permit and on a scholarship that was being funded by the Saudi government in order for me to specialize in the field of Anesthesiology.

This was it! I was weeks away from accomplishing the one thing I thought I could never accomplish...to leave Saudi for a long long time. My bags were packed and ready to go weeks ahead of time and all my medical books and furniture had been shipped via sea ahead of me to arrive in Halifax sometime close to the time I would be there. My hotel was booked for my stay while I got my apartment-which was also booked-ready and furnished. For once in my life I saw a glimpse of that silver lining behind the clouds that people spoke of. I was ready and nothing, NOTHING, was getting in my way.

About 2 days before my flight I became severely ill, this was one of the worst flues I ever recall having. Unfortunately the world was in the mist of the SARS epidemic and people were being quarantined left right and centre in airports around the world. The countdown began and father became concerned about my health-amazingly.

The day I was scheduled to leave my temperature had shot up to 40 degrees C. This was a high grade fever and consistent with SARS. I looked toxic and I felt like I had been poisoned. My eyes were blood shot, my throat felt like I had swallowed acid and every joint in my body became weak and overwhelmed with a dull aching pain. This was it...my body had failed me on the one single day that I waited for, for 26 years...

I remember laying on my bed crying from the pain and sadness that this would happen to me at this moment of my life and I recall father standing in front of my bed telling me that he cannot let me travel like this and that I should cancel my flight. These were words that I did not want to hear and an outcome that I refused to allow to happen. He told me to wait till late night, as my flight was at 1:00 am, and to see if I felt any better since I was so stubborn about it.

I spent that entire day in bed angry at God for doing this to me. WHY FUCKING ME AND WHY NOW???!!!! I would drift in and out of consciousness for hours.
At 11 pm I dragged my aching body out of bed, over dosed on pain killers and flue meds, got dressed and called my driver to pack up the car with my suitcases because I was heading to Riyadh International Airport to catch my flight. I was well aware of the consequence of my actions and the high probability that I might me quarantined at some point during my travel but I would be damned if I was going to let this get in my way.

Father came down with his wife to see what was going on and I pretended I was feeling better, said goodbye and never looked back. I was detaching myself, once again, from my physical body. Though I put little thought into my physical actions that day, there is nothing I regret at this point about what I did back then. I think father hugged me before I left and I do believe my eyes teared up because I knew that was going to be the last time I would ever see him and the last I would ever see of that house.

Out of pure obligation, my brother would accompany me to the Airport to see me off once and for all. He checked me in and cleared me at the security gate where they made sure that I had permission from a legal male guardian to exit the country and he stood there behind the metal gates watching me walk away. He waved goodbye to me and I nodded my head in recognition that this was indeed a goodbye.

I went up the escalators and with every step I took forward I felt a heavy leash come off me. I found an empty seat at my boarding gate which was G27, sat there with my Kleenex box and closed my eyes to rest.

End of part one

Changed

2008-10-02T15:09:00.000-07:00

I left medicine..I left Saudi..I left my family and people want to know why?

Because I have seen how ugly humans can be and didn't want to be part of that ugliness.
I lived in a family that was consumed with anger and hate. I grew up in a society and a country that finds any excuse, including religion, to punish people for everything underneath the sun including being human.

I wanted to elevate myself and made a career out of medicine with the goal of helping people but I was confronted with even more ugliness. People were the most cruel, they were the most blind to the truth, they were the most egotistic and they not only used but abused the power of being a doctor.

I saw evil reside in places where it shouldn't and when I spoke out I was crushed by a stampede of greedy intelligent men who didn't want to lose the high chair they sat on and the bank account that made them rich and truly FILTHY.

Never did I think that selfishness and narrow mindedness could exist to this extent outside the land of hate ( Saudi Arabia) which I propelled myself away from with every force I had. I ran to a country of freedom only to realize that freedom had been lost in the mist of a confused race that slaves away day and night for the all mighty dollar..

I became a leashed hostage of misery in a new world that I was not prepared for. Nothing less than shock was the result of the tragic 4 years of residency training I went through in Nova Scotia.

I, for the first time ever, was subjected to the denigrating world of racism. It is interesting how situations were manipulated and twisted to a sickening extent in order to harm people like myself and how I always got the sour end of every deal. It is here that I was called "An Arab terrorist pig" , it is here that I was told "Why are you dressed in jeans? you should be in a burka"-Burka: is what women in Afghanistan are forced to wear to cover up. It is also here that I would become sexually assaulted at a departmental gathering by a department member.

It is in the land of freedom that I would be forced to work and deal with my attacker, by order from my seniors and the hospital, on a daily basis because I refused to go to the police and report my case. In the land of women's rights, I the Arab Muslim female -who was once the pride of the department -was asked to transfer out of the hospital I was working in because I was becoming a problem they were not interested in dealing with. Such caring and high standard people!

Medicine had become my poison and once again I was viciously robbed of purity and innocence. I hated my joke of a life as a doctor and the entire medical system was at that point a muddy can of worms I was no longer interested in being part of.

I had no place in the land of corrupt, blind to the truth, racist and machine like men and women of the medical system. These people who shit on me and others like me day in and day out and expected us to shut the hell up, deal with it, and suck it up because that is what medical training is all about! Abuse from seniors, abuse from nurses and abuse from anyone who was having a bad day was accepted and expected.

Medicine became nothing but an extension of the horrendous life of terror that I had come to know so well and fear more than death, only now I could no longer do it..every cell in my body began rejecting medicine as a career.

As my mind became dark and my heart filled with wounds I fell into the no mans land of depression that was mixed with conflict and fear of breaking the long term commitment to a lifestyle and career that made my bank account look good but had brought me to my knees and most likely would have brought me to my end.

In my last days as a doctor I was lost. I no longer knew who I was as I was consumed with misery, anger, hate, fear, anxiety and every other dark feeling you can imagine. I hated who I was, what I did and everyone around me...the question was; So why was I there???!

I was there because I had a long term commitment with misery. Though I find myself till this day disgusted by the monsters who claimed to be caring doctors and who brought me to the end of my career, I cannot help but feel somewhat thankful to them.

You see, It is because of their ugliness,racism, blind egoes and power abuse that I am now in a much better place in my life..

You all know who you are. Thank you for showing me what not to be..

To My Friends

2008-09-27T06:07:00.000-07:00

As I end the violated chapter of my blog I wanted to write a short thank you note to all my new, and old, friends who have been following my story and reading it. It took me 11 years of tragic confusion and pain to be able to finally gather my scattered thoughts and put them on paper in a form that makes some sense.

Though violated may seem lengthy I did leave some things out and there are other events that took place but unfortunately my mind has learned to play a nice game with me in order to keep me sane... the game of forgetting.

I am happy in my new life here in Canada with an amazing husband and a beautiful baby boy, though still my life took yet another massive and unexpected turn that landed me in massage therapy it is a turn I am learning to love. I am connecting with people for the first time in 20 some years and I feel that people care again, and for once I don't feel that I am being judged/viewed as a liar or a failure/disgrace.

Everyone of you has helped mend a piece of me back into its place and with that happening I am starting to become whole again.

Life is not without tragedy, some of us get the end of the barrel that is filled with mud and some of us get most of the good stuff on top. I did not write this to guilt people or to get a pat on the back. I wrote my story to share and to let everyone know that freedom is a right I earned at the age of 30 after a long life of being a second class citizen if even that.

Most of you have been born into freedom....enjoy it, salvage it and please don't ever forget about those in this world who are forced to live with no rights.

Thank you for choosing to read my blog and there is yet more to come...

Violated 7

2008-09-27T05:06:00.000-07:00

They took pride away from me. Graduating medical school and finally becoming a doctor meant nothing to me anymore, it also meant nothing to my family. At this point my life was an endless saga that just dragged and dragged and the fact that I became an M.D carried no weight had no bearing on anyone including my own self.

During those months of isolation and confusion, those long days of captivity where I was not informed of anything and just sat there in a cell with cockroaches rotting away and waiting for the unknown to happen, the religious police took those 4 papers they forced me to sign and filled them up with an incredible story that only their filthy and hate filled minds could come up with. A story that I would later hear from my father, who believed every single word of what they wrote on those papers that had my thumb prints on them. He was 100% certain that I was lying when I tried to explain how they made me sign these papers under threats of physical harm.

I was framed of fornicating with M and my case was taken to court-without me knowing- and a sentence was later carried out-in my absence- for the 80 lashes and further time in jail. This is how Islamic Shariia law is practiced and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

I cannot find the words to explain how terrorized I felt hearing the words 80 lashes, court, and more jail time from my father who at this point decided I was not worth the hassle and that I might as well just serve the time and punishment. I thought this was over!!!? Wasn't what happened to me punishment enough??? Why am I being punished again? What did I do? When did all this happen??When will all this be over?!!

I became hopeless as I drowned in the darkness of misery and fear. No one was interested in the truth anymore. After all, the religious police would never lie..

Over the next 2 weeks I would be exposed to ruthless mental abuse and a twisted method of rectifying me by my brother and his wife who enjoyed coming over and talking to me about what the routine was for lashing women and how much it hurt and the marks that would be left on these women's bodies. I never understood how she knew this and why she was sharing this information with me now at this point of my life.

My brother, to my surprise, fought the religious police hard who in turn fought even harder to see me get my punishment. This went on every day for the most part of the 2 weeks where he would go to the courts and try to get an appeal or something to delay/stop this from happening but his efforts were met by rejection from the courts and resulted in his frustration and my further mental deterioration to the point where I told everyone to stop fighting it and that I wanted to get this over and done with soon so I can be able to resume my life which had been stuck in a tornado of religion, hate, shame and ugliness.

I had become sick of my case, the lies and the overpowering useless and fraudulent judicial system that was being run by barbarians who hated everyone and anyone that was not them and enjoyed hurting innocent people and destroying lives.

My brother finally ended up going to the prince of Riyadh, lying to him by saying I had been married off to a man who didn't know about my case and that if I was to serve the time and get lashed my husband would divorce me. As a result of this lie I was pardoned by the royal family 2 days before I was to get my punishment of 80 lashes.

I was happy the day I was informed of my pardon, though it was a bitter happiness I finally saw an end to my tragedy with the religious police. I knew, though it seemed to be over, that it was not over. For now all my actions were being monitored not only by my own family but by the fucking gorillas AKA the religious police. My father made it clear to me that I had dragged his name through the dirt and that he had no problem disowning me but because he cant be hassled about all this he was signing me over to my brother. So now my brother was my legal guardian and yet another chapter of hell would begin in my life..

With regards to M, I heard later on that he had a similar fate to mine and unlike myself he had to get lashed. I never did see M again and I never heard from him. Our short lived friendship became a catastrophe that I am sure haunts him, as it does me, till this day.

M, if you ever read this.....I hope you are well...and I am sorry my driver never showed up that day.

Iman

Violated 6

2008-09-25T14:25:00.000-07:00

It was late evening by the time we got home. The religious police guy lectured me as I stepped out of the car and told my Father to keep a watch on me as our house and mainly my activity was going to be monitored by them from now on.

I did not say anything and I did not even shake my head to acknowledge what he was saying. He soon drove off and father unlocked the main door to our house and we both went in. I walked in through the door and then I stopped and faced my father. I did this because I knew what was going to happen next. Though I was mortified, I stood there waiting for the beating to begin and for the hail of insults and attacks to destroy whatever that was left of the girl I used to be.

To my amazement, father shut the door and walked away from me in damaging silence. He went up the stairs through another door, shut it behind him and I was left alone standing in the middle of our garden. Once I realized I was not going to be beaten I went into the extension of the house where mother lived-they were divorced but she still lived there- and I walked in to see her sitting in a chair in a state of shock. She looked like she had not slept in 1000 years and her eyes were red.

I fell apart as soon as I saw her, I shattered into a million pieces. I cried, I shivered, I moaned, I apologized and I sunk into an unknown territory of shame, depression, guilt and fear. I remember, as soon as I entered our room, immediately taking off all the clothes they had forced me to wear in prison -to look acceptable- ripping them to pieces and throwing them in the garbage. I just wanted to wear my own clothes. I wanted to smell the scent of our laundry. I wanted familiarity and I needed to feel like I belonged again. I sat on the floor in the middle of the room I shared with mother trying to absorb that I am finally home and safe?

That territory that I sunk to, I remained in for the next few weeks. I refused to talk to anyone about anything. I refused to go to school and I refused to go out period. I was punishing myself...for what, I was not sure.

Exams started at school and I knew I was going to fail, but I went in under pressure from my mother and amazingly, I barely passed.

I later found out, after my internship began why I was given an extra hard time at work by my superiors who were religious men that treated me like dirt and had no problem showing it. Apparently the religious police had contacted the hospital and the department I was in. They informed them of everything and told them I was a whore. I know this because the info was spread around to my colleagues who eventually came and told me.

Such ethics and standards! This is what islam meant to those ammoral cave men.

Over the next 2 months I would become anti-social, depressed, confused and alone. With no counselling or therapy to help me deal with the extensive and acute post traumatic stress disorder symptoms that were now consuming me. No one seemed to comprehend, care or even believe in what I was going through, to them I was acting to get pity. You see...I didn't follow the rules and so, I should not be suffering as I am guilty and what happened to me was "normal and expected".

Then one day a few months down the road the call came..
The religious police had contacted my father to get me into the station in 2 weeks time for me to get my final sentence of 80 lashes in public for the crime that I had committed. I was also ordered to serve an additional 2 months in jail.

To be continued..

Violated 5

2008-09-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

I, til this day, don't know exactly how long I was in jail for. The days past so slow that I could easily say it was months but I cannot for sure confirm. Everything is a haze now and at the time I was informed of little.

The days and nights would eventually merge and the only 2 things that would consume me were my family, which at this stage of my life became a blessing, and my future. I had exams coming up that I probably was going to miss seeing how I am in jail. My life became hollow and my every day routine had been reduced to a forced prayer that I had to perform to please my captures 5 times a day for the remainder of my time there.

I would every now and then try to strike a conversation with one of the guards trying to find out information about what was going to happen to me here and if my family knew where I was. Unfortunately that got me nowhere except more hopeless as they kept confirming that I was going to be here for a while till my case goes to court and that they don't know about my family. I recall one of the main guards telling me to forget about medical school and sitting my exams as that was not going to happen.

I cried my self to a horrid sleep every night and with every day that passed I would sit there alone in my cell trying to think of a unique and unfamiliar way to end my life. I remember pinching myself to the point of damaging tissue just to feel something else besides the terror that was forced upon me by these people. My mental state deteriorated to an unpleasant and hopeless one. Shame ran through my veins and with every breath I took I felt the burden get heavier and heavier.

So many questions filled my overwhelmed brain, and so Little answers did I find. Where are my mother and father? Did they disown me? how long will I be here? am I going to get killed? will i ever see the outside world again? what shame have I brought upon myself and family? What about M!!!??? is he alive? is this my fault? Do I deserve this? does M deserve this? Is M in jail too? What about school and my exams? What about my career? Will I ever get married and have children? Is this it for me?

I failed in those weeks/months in jail to progress as a human. I felt no different than those bugs that crawled the floor of the cell I was in who were more free than I was, and who amazingly kept me company. I found refuge in that red light the shined off of the surveillance camera and in it my thoughts would wonder off along with my mind and soul almost on a daily basis. I learned to eat the crap that was served to me twice a day and pitied the good old days when I would pick through my food and refuse to eat it just because I could! Oh what tragic a turn my life had underwent..

Then one day out of the blue the main prison guard showed up in my cell, unlocked it and mumbled something about me being lucky! I didn't quite understand what was going on but she gave me all my stuff in a plastic bag and ordered me to put on a "proper" head and body cover that they supplied me and then I was guided into a room that had a large table in the center with chairs around it. The room was empty and once I was in it the guard left and shut the door behind her.

My heart was pounding as I was in fear of the religious police who I knew were near by. Why would they cover me up like this if that was not the case? So, there I sat. Little insignificant me awaiting my fate when the door on the opposite side of this room suddenly opened and a dozen police men and religious police men walked in and grabbed seats as far away from me as they could. Then a man wearing civilian clothing walked in and sat down at the end closer to where I was.

The elder of the religious police began talking and preaching and reciting some paragraphs from the Quraan. I wish I could say I remember what was being said but I cant for I had shut down long before I entered that room, and once again I detached from the reality that surrounded me. I just sat there like a piece of furniture with my head bowed down so I would not anger these people who seemed to be easily angered. They talked and talked and preached and everything was directed at me and nothing to me. this went on for about 15 minutes or so and then they started reading off some papers they had brought in and talking to each other while questioning as well as reviewing my case it seemed.

Then I heard a familiar voice, I knew this mans voice and so I looked up for a second to orient myself again and perhaps See if I can recognize who this was. The man talking was the civilian who came in last...this man... was my father.

Father, who didn't look his daughter in the eyes the entire time, thanked them for the lecture and signed some papers and then walked out along with the elder leader who ordered me to follow them into a car.

I was ashamed for being alive that day. My father, the surgeon, had to come down to this shit hole with these pigs and sit there listening to this mumbo jumbo bullshit religious crap so he could get his daughter back from these people. That day, for the first time ever, I felt bad for my father.

Still, I was not happy to see him there, if anything I was instilled with yet another dose of fear now. The fear of what he might do to me once we got home. Still that was a pain I knew how to deal with and thus more acceptable to me and so I quietly got up and followed them into the car and the leader drove both my father and I home while we all listened to versus from the fucking Quraan on his tape player.

To be continued..

Violated 4

2008-09-21T16:09:00.000-07:00

Though I spent a lot of time asleep in that cell, the quality of sleep I was getting was that of a person who had no clue what her fate was. I slept in fear and dreamt of death, only to wake up in more fear. My reality at that point had become a horror story I would not wish anyone to live nor myself to relive.

The next day in jail I would become ill, I was unable to arouse and my blood pressure severely dropped and so I was taken to the prison nurse who I have no clue what qualifications made her a nurse as I saw no diplomas and she didn't look like she had received any nursing training. But, that was out of the question now as nothing was making sense anymore at this point!

She took my blood pressure which she said was 80 over 40 and told me to drink juice which she gave me and sent me back to my cell. That afternoon I ate the food that little girl would serve to me, though not much, but it helped me get enough energy to survive. Late that afternoon I was taken to the prison psychologist lady who would spend a good number of hours with me that day analyzing what sick mental disorder it was I had that made me think I had rights? what illness would make a twenty some year old girl be in the presence of a man that was not related to her?? What a puzzle and what abnormality I exhibited. Apparently I was not only a criminal but also a psychopath.

I cant remember much about this so called psychologist. I do recall thinking she was a university student and that I was her study subject, that she was writing a paper and using me as an example of what has gone wrong with society's women. I recall her not believing that I was being abused at home and that the overall impression she got from me was that I was making up stories, for which I should be punished. This was surreal to me and indeed I ended up feeling more hate and alienation from this system that I now found myself sucked into and was being violently exposed to it's fucked up people who I would more likely consider to be parasites than human.

This was day number 2 for me in jail and I have yet to know what, why, who , when and where. Aside from the lectures these women were vomiting on me every time they saw me I honestly was not informed of when I was to talk to my family, if they had been informed of my whereabouts and what was to come next. Every minute of every hour was a mystery to me and I lived the next few weeks not knowing when, where or why anything was happening to me.

They took my right to know along with everything else...

I remained in isolation for the remainder of my time in jail except for one day when they let me out and took me down to a gathering place where they sat me down on the floor next to other women. They ordered me not to talk to anyone so I didn't. But a young girl with her little boy came and sat next to me and started cursing the religious police and wishing to see them burn in hell. I looked at her and asked what happened to you? as I whispered trying to avoid the consequences. She replied " They caught me with my boyfriend in a car and I was 3 month pregnant at the time". WHAT???!!!! I asked how she was still alive?? and she didn't know but she would eventually and quietly then tell me the rest of her story which has been forever burnt in my memory.

This young girl had a boyfriend who got her pregnant. She was trying to figure things out with him the only way any girl can in Saudi and that is in his car pretending to be his sister or wife and like me she was kidnapped bu the religious police. The sad part is that she was underage and her family ended up disowning her so she became prison property where she gave birth to her son that was now around 5 years old. She is never allowed to step foot out of the prison and she cannot recall the last time she saw the sky.

We reached that point of the conversation and a guard came towards us, separated us and took me back to my cell. I never saw or heard from this young girl again and as I sit here today as a free woman I cannot help but wonder what ever became of the girl in that Saudi jail who couldn't keep quiet and her beautiful 5 year old son?

To be continued...

Violated 3

2008-09-20T02:26:00.000-07:00

The car stopped in front of the large prison gates and one of the men went down to speak to some of the guards and then he came back into the car. The gates slowly opened and the GMC drove in and finally came to a stop.

Though I was not informed of where we were headed, I knew it was the women's prison for I had seen it before. You see during my first 3 years in "female' medical school our building was right next to the female prison, what a prime location for women doctors!, and I would frequently have my lunch in the yard and watch the women who were in prison and think of their stories. Never did I ever think that I would be in there with them one day...but I guess I should never say never.

I was guided from the back of the GMC down a path and handed over to one of the women guards/prison personnel. I should stop here and note that in my state of misery and shock I still had enough mental capacity to notice one of the younger religious police men who began flirting with the female prison guard and I found that to be quite interesting and funny seeing how the only reason I was here was for being in the company of a man who is not my relative yet here I witnessed these 2 laughing and flirting with each other as if they were lovers...what hypocrisy.

Now I was in the female prison and now my physical state began to decompensate. i started shaking violently as if I was having a seizure and the female guard did nothing to adress what was going on. I had lost control of my body that was reacting terribly to what it was forced to undergo. I was hungry, tired and my nervous system couldn't stop firing from the intense horror of my situation.

I was asked to undress down to nothing, which I did reluctantly and with each layer that came off the female guard stood there asking me to undress more. I finally stood there naked, ashamed and shaking trying to cover myself up with my hands and arms when she began examining me. She looked at all my body marks and interrogated what the cause of each mark/ lesion was. I had bad psoriasis at the time and off course she didn't know what that was.

I can only imagine the reason for this to be her trying to find marks of "fornication" on my body which, off course, were not there. Once all that was done she took my clothes away and gave me this cheap quality night gown and cotton underwear which I have no clue who wore before me and ordered me to put them on. She then took me to my cell and on the way she started lecturing me on how I had thrown my life away for a boy who at this point couldn't care less about me and how I was a "typical' case, that she saw 10 of me every day and some of theses girls would eventually become disowned by their families due to the shame they bring. "Is it worth it to throw your life away like this?" she asked me as she locked me in my cell.

The walls of this cell would witness tragic moments of my life and it was between these walls that my innocence, soul and humanity were taken away from me at a very young age. This cell had a surveillance camera with a bright red light that I would eventually use as a focus point to escape away with my mind into another and perhaps a more pleasant place. I had a mattress to sleep on that was filthy and on the floor and everywhere I looked there were cockroaches, ants, spiders and flyes. It is in this cell that I developed my unrealistic and intense bug phobia that people joke at and find funny now that I am 32 years of age.

Over the next few hours I would lose it...I became hysterical and startined yelling, screaming and crying. I shouted out for the guards to please let me out, please call my mother and father, please let me talk to them. I didn't want to be alone and I yelled and cried for anyone to come up and listen to me but that was useless. I would eventually lose my voice and fall asleep on the dirty mattress that was on the cold concrete floor.

I woke up to the cell door being opened and a young girl who was about 12 or so bringing me dinner. She ran out as I called her and the female guard locked the cell and they left. I looked at the food which was nothing but a piece of bread and some strange soup and refused to eat...what was the point? and back to sleep I fell.

The next time the door unlocked it was early morning and the guard woke me up for the morning prayer. She guided me to the bathroom for me to clean up and then guided me down to where all the inmates had to pray as the guards watched us, you see prayer was not an option at this point, it was the law. So I squeezed in my spot that they chose for me, we were shoulder to shoulder and I found it hard to breath non the less perform a prayer but so I did.

I prayed with my body but not with my soul and not with my mind. I was unable to recite any of the prayer rituals. I was simply mimicking what the other women were doing because that is what I had to do at that point to please the guards. The one thing I did do while praying though was break down to a fraction of who I knew I was and began sobbing.

The prayer ended and I was, once again, guided to my cell where I fell asleep.

To be continued..

Violated 2

2008-09-17T15:34:00.001-07:00

At that point my life was negligible...then and there I became a nothing. I was incredibly overwhelmed with fear for my life and safety during this lengthy car ride with these animals that my mental self detached from my physical body. I became calm and cold and non emotional. I was unable to cry, scream, run, or attack them. I suddenly was crippled sitting there in the back seat like a statue that was being transported from point A to point B.

All the insults and attacks these men threw at me while in that car with them only made me become more still. They watched every move I made, they turned to every breath I took and I could do nothing but take it all as it came without complaining. For, I didn't know what was to come next and they were easily aggravated by me.

This was one of the few times in my life where I felt intense shame and guilt for being a living woman that had needs and wants. I felt like a criminal not only because that is what I was to them but because I knew that my actions that morning were what society viewed as a criminal act by a woman. How could I have been so stupid and how could I think I have rights and freedom to do what I did? I may indeed deserve this and it would be best for them to end my life. These were my thoughts in that state.

So, finally the car stops and I look out the window to see that we have approached a house. They opened a garage door and the car entered the house, the door closed and then they went out and got me from the back seat without touching me and got me into the house.

There were other men in that house that came out to watch me -the sinner and the "Doctor" as they made fun of that fact -get out of the car into their filthy gathering station that was nothing but a house. I was being humiliated in every step I took as they advertised to one another how they "Captured me" what I was doing and what my profession was. This was one of the lowest moments I was ever forced to live and it is then and there that I was ashamed, for the first time, of being a female doctor.

They got me into a room that had metal rods on its windows and locked me in it with no information on what was to happen next and how long I would stay there. So there i sat on the floor as I had no chair completely covered up from head to toe as I simply didn't know when one of them would open the door again and get mad if he saw that my face was uncovered.

Hours passed and night fell and I began to weep and sob as I cursed my life and luck. I became both dizzy and hypoglycemic from the prolonged fatigue and lack of food as well as the prolonged state of shock my system had to overcome to keep me at a semi-functioning level.

Suddenly the door just unlocked and opened and 6 of them stomped into the room with a chair and a small desk for one of the elder leaders who came in to interview/interrogate me. The first thing he did after sitting on the chair and raising his foot on the desk so that it was in front of my face as I sat on the floor was to order me to properly cover my face up as he could see my eyes. So I doubled the layer of my face cover to satisfy him.

At this point one of them got so mad and starting running towards me calling me a whore and a disgrace, yelling at them to throw me in prison and not to listen to anything I had to say he got so close with his fist aiming right at me but a group of them interfered so that he didn't achieve his goal and then he left the room. The next few hours were hectic and my mind, till this day, finds trouble in gathering the facts of what happened. But, for the next 4 or so hours I was repeatedly accused of fornicating with M and that they had seen me exit a private apartment with him from one of the main buildings downtown Riyadh. I kept denying and they kept insisting that the story that is their version of the events to be the truth and that they had witnesses to prove it.

I became silenced by the impending guilt that was my fate. Under various threats of beating me up, me never seeing my family again and me ending up in the women's prison for the rest of my life they forced me to sign about 4 empty sheets of paper and got me to place my thumb print on them. After that was done they finally all left the room and now I was being guided by the leader to another vehicle, this time one of their GMC's.

They placed me in the back, like a goat and off they drove...to where I had no idea as no one was saying anything to me unless it was an accusation or an insult. I remember falling asleep in the back of that GMC and hoping that my eyes would never open again, sadly that didn't happen for the next time I opened my eyes the car had come to a stop and I was now in the women's prison.

To be continued

Violated

2008-09-17T15:34:00.000-07:00

At the age of 22 and in my final year of medical school I would, once again, experience the unimaginable and horrifying so called justice system and Shariaa law of Saudi Arabia.

Here I was, a keen and enthusiastic young doctor to be with her bright future close by as my exams were a mere 2 months away before I would finally receive that amazing diploma and add the to letters M.D to my last name....what an accomplishment and what excitement that held for me..

So here I am studying my ass off and working while I did that as the last 3 years were mainly clinical ones where the medical students would start doing night duties. I was smart, loved what I did and always enjoyed a good puzzling case that kept me up all night at the hospital.

This helped me as the abuse in my home was -as always-ongoing. Yes, I was 22 and you would think I would be independent at that point but not in Saudi! You see in Saudi women have to live with their legal guardian who has to be male. So, in my case as I was single, that would be my father along with my stepmother who hated the sight of me and would only be another tragic addition to the endless abuse I had to put up with.

The days and nights I spend away from home were always a blessing...up until that day when I was post call (after a 24 hour hospital shift) and it was time for me to leave and go home to rest up. So, I stood there all ready for my driver to come pick me up where he usually does at the hospital's back door. I waited...and waited...and waited, and he never showed up. So, me being as tired as I was and after standing under the hot Saudi sun for over an hour, I was ready to either get a cab and go home risking what I knew the consequences would be, as women could not be alone in cabs, or to simply call home to get my stepmother telling me that the driver is too busy to come pick me up.

As I was standing there contemplating, hot, dehydrated and sleep deprived I heard my name being called. I looked around and realized that a good colleague of mine, who happened to be a male, and who was on call with me was leaving at that point too so he offered to drop me home after hearing how long I have been waiting and knowing about my family situation as we frequently conversed.

YES! I said..please get me home! and off I went without doubting him or the situation and without fear of anything. i just wanted to go home and sleep. So, I hopped in the seat next to him because we thought that way if the religious police were to see us they would not suspect much hopefully and off we went.

The drive from the hospital to my home was a good 45 minute one and you would have to pass by some of the stations these religious police resided at and knowing that my friend who I will refer to as M had an alternative root planned out so we would not get in any trouble and that was good enough for me.

As he drove we conversed and joked and laughed and for a good 20 minutes I felt happy and free, then I saw something that distressed me. We drove by a mosque and I saw a guy standing next to his car stare intently into our car and at us. This man was one of the religious police with no doubt and I did express my concern to M but he said "Don't worry, he is on foot and we are in a car" So I didn't think much of it and we drove on. M didn't think too much of the situation and he remedied my fears so I didn't worry either......and then it happened.

Suddenly 4 large GMC's approached us from behind and immediately surrounded M's car as we continued to drive. We became boxed in by one car in front of us, one behind us and one on either side and this box narrowed on us to the point that we had to come to a stop or become part of a major motor vehicle accident.

Within 2 seconds of the car stopping a flood of large men with beards exited the cars and forcefully opened each of our doors pulling each of us out of the car with a shower of accusations, insults and questioning. I didn't know what to say or do and the best I could describe the next few hours of my life would be intense horror, shock and an impending feeling of doom. I saw my useless and pathetic life end right then and there and the terror that was instilled within me consumed the essence of who I thought I was. It was then that I realized that these, otherwise, insignificant hateful kidnapping criminals now had control over my life and M's.

I was called a whore, an infidel...and every other name they felt like spitting out at me. I watched M get beaten up like a sac of shit and then I watched both of us get placed in separate cars, get locked in so we could not jump out or escape and literally get kidnapped in mid day light off a main street in Riyadh.

So now, I am in the back seat of a moving car that I was forced into by 2 strange men that have been showering me with insults and unbelievable accusations since they kidnapped me. I am sitting in the back with my face fully covered, by force, and they are demanding to know what my full name is, where I live, where I study, what my student number is, what my father does, what I was doing in the car with M and what he was to me?

The state I was in at that point of my life cannot be described...You would have to look death in the eyes to understand how I felt. I recall thinking that if only they would open a window I could just throw myself out of the car and perhaps get run over and die. Yes, death was an option for me now, I wanted to die then spend another second in the presence of these raging mad sick gorillas but unfortunately death was not interested in me at that point.

to be continued...

My Anger

2008-09-07T11:13:00.000-07:00

When I lived in Saudi Arabia I learned how to live with no rights as a human or as a woman. Women in Saudi are treated like a virus that is considered to be a hazard and needs to be extensively controlled and contained. I have said on multiple occasions to many people that a stray dog living in the streets of Saudi probably has more rights and lives a better life than a woman ever would over there.

Will the above phrase enrage a lot of people who think they have it all in Saudi Arabia? probably yes. But no one has the right to tell me what I experienced was not true/wrong. My experience as a young female in Saudi robbed me of freedom, rights, and normality.

Growing up there I was not allowed to interact with men in any shape or form and if I did then the repercussions were catastrophic. Imagine that, women only allowed to interact with women because it is a mortal sin to talk to or look at a man who is not your relative or husband. As a result the rates of females who would turn gay just out of sexual frustration are ridiculously and unbelievably high in Saudi...

I recall whenever my passport needed to be renewed my father would have to do it for me because by being an inferior female I was not allowed to enter any government office to do anything. You need a male representative to do this MANLY stuff for you...Now I am being told that this has changed but it doesn't matter, women are still a contagious disease over there.

In Saudi I was never allowed to drive a car-off course!- or to sit in the front seat of the car unless the driver was my male relative. It was funny to look at the buses as they drove down the road. Each bus had about 3 seats in the far back behind a partition for women who needed to ride the bus. Imagine that! 3 whole seats!!!! what luxury we had over there..

The religious police would frequently park their notorious GMC in front of the girls schools and colleges to harass the young women as they left. yelling at us and threatening us to properly cover our face or they will take us in their GMC to jail. I recall one day as I was leaving my university and waiting in front of the doors for my driver to pick me up. Prayer began to call and the routine there was that no woman would be allowed out the university doors till prayer was over. Here my first incident with these terrorist-so called religious leaders occurred.

One of them came up to me yelling and swinging his stick that they frequently use to beat upon people and when I tried to explain to this mongol that my car was across the street ready for me to get into it he began beating me with this stick to the point where I ended up on the ground crying and trying to protect my body from his lashes. Yes, I was beaten black and blue by a religious leader at the age of 19 because I stood outside the university doors while prayer called...such justice!

Women in Saudi are not safe regardless what the hell they do. We are guilty with no chance of ever being innocent. Never have I ever been violated and made to feel shame for existing as I did when I lived there and never was I a target for every creep with a beard who used Islam to serve his sickened and deranged mind as I was there.

I await the day where I see them and it all burn to the ground.

A Harsh Reality

2008-08-31T15:13:00.000-07:00

At the age of 17 and in the city of Riyadh Saudi Arabia I would, once again, come back from school to chaos, screams and fear. Yes, mother and father had been at it again and this time I had come home at the peak of the events!

To say I was scared is beyond an understatement. I was horrified and terrorized and I till this day have nightmares based on the occurrences of that day that almost always wake me up in a confused horrified sweat, a ruined mood and a shattered self esteem. That day I remember with extensive clarity as it is a day I frequently flash back to.

In the mist of the yelling, beating and running around the house like mad people mother started screaming at me to exit the house immediately as father had gone crazy and was going to kill us she said. So I did exactly what she said because I believed her. I opened the main doors and ran as fast as I could through the sandy alleys that surrounded my house and found my way into a neighbors house who had strangely left their door open. I ran in and hid under a table I found in a small room near their kitchen. Let me pause here for a second to explain how lost and misplaced I felt running into some strangers home to hide from my own Father. Under that table and for a brief moment I felt safe, here I was mortified of what was to come next, ashamed of what these people might think/say of me if they found me yet, and only for a split second, away from the misery that had become my family life. Under that table I found peace..

I was there for less than 2 minutes before I heard voices approaching me and a short fat man bending to look under the table and address me by saying " You need to leave right now!! You are not my problem!!! Get out!!!" Soon my father appeared behind him and I was pulled out and dragged across this strange house and the street back into my house.

Here it happened, at this moment my father who is 6 feet tall and above 200 pounds decides he needs to beat the living life out of his 90 pound 17 year old daughter because she wanted to get away from the abuse she was forced to live in for every day of her God damned life....

The best way I can describe what happened next is by comparing it to a massive blow that shatters your every bone and submerges every nerve cell in your body in pain to a point where you can no longer focus or know what is hurting. My father did not hit me that day, he did not hurt me and he did not kill me...that day my father destroyed me and marked the beginning of a windy long road of pain I would frequently refer to in my mind for many days to come in my future life. That day my father became my enemy.

What amazes me, besides the abuse, is the neighbours reaction to a young girl he does not know running into his house to find refuge from an abusive situation which, in her little overwhelmed head, appeared deadly.

This strange short fat man stood there and demanded I leave his property. I guess he just didn't want any part to do with it....but I still feel utter humiliation and confusion when I think of his reaction. Am I crazy to think this? Shouldn't he have done something, any fucking thing to help or remedy the situation at least??!!!

All I can do is revisit this day in my head and relive the pain all over again...nothing else can be done about it for now. But perhaps as people read these oh so depressing entries I have...perhaps then they might understand and maybe I will no longer be judged for being Iman.

I wonder if mother and father can even recall that day?

Dysfunctional

2008-08-28T17:21:00.000-07:00

Today, once again, I realize how socially crippled I am. Perhaps this explains my anti-social tendencies. Its either that or I have some mild and hidden learning disability that has hindered me all my life.

Recently I read an article on how children who are a product of emotional, physical, mental and verbal abuse as well as all other kinds-like sexual- grow up to become incomplete people who have much difficulty dealing with others, having relationships, trusting as well as socializing and becoming an integral part of society. I wish I could send copies of this articles to all those who have known me and radically judged me for this, that and the other. I would also like to send a copy of it to my family...

You see my mother and father, till this day, do not realize the extent of damage their abuse has caused. They blame me and hate me for not reaching out to them and trying to re-connect. They seem to have selectively forgotten the twenty some years of terror and endless abuse I had to tolerate living with them. To them I am at fault...it is my problem and I should either forget about it or just deal with it already.

After all...I fucked up my life! and this has absolutely nothing to do with them. I mean seriously now, how long can I blame them for?

I say...FOR EVER mother and father. You are forever the sole cause of all my failures in life. You are the cause of my shame, insecurity, inferiority, hate, fear, terror, sadness and misery and NO I cannot and will never forgive you.

I live to raise a healthy and abuse free family and your legacy ends with your demise. So thank you for showing me what parents and family should never become and for this alone I owe you nothing!

When Money Becomes More Important

2008-08-22T22:02:00.001-07:00

Today I got some shocking but yet not so shocking news.

I will not go into extensive detail but it came as a rude not so shocking reminder of where I stand in this family I have gained.

It is easy for those who have had it EASY to a sickening degree their entire lives and who sadly don't know it to judge those less fortunate than themselves. It is equally as easy to believe what ever silliness they choose to believe without digging around for the truth.

How I loath this quality of viciously judging others and telling them how to live their lives and what should and should not be done! Why cant people shut the hell up and simply help out their family members without degrading them. Do they not know how humiliating it is to ask for help? I guess not seeing how they made all the right choices in life while I apparently chose to get sexually assaulted and have my entire medical funding as well as scholarship taken away from me because I became mentally overwhelmed and sick after the assault.

These same people once told me "You are selfish and irresponsible" Want to know why?
Because I refused to work with my attacker and see him on a daily basis..because I was true to my heart which was crying out for me to leave medicine, a profession chosen for me but never by me. Because I wanted to live happy and pursue a career I wanted and finally, because I gave up the big bucks for all this selfish silliness!

This is the age where money has become thicker and much more important than blood.

Ahhhhhhhh...greed,
A quality that damages and destroys...the only thing it builds is a nice looking bank account and as much as I realize how hard people work for their money to get that nice looking bank account I question; what use is money if you refuse to use it in a good way and end up placing it ahead of all including a family member in need.

What good comes out of this endless selfish and silly greed?

I feel like I have been stuck in the same spot for 2 years now. I have seen everyone I know move forward and watched myself sink miles bellow the surface. My anger has reached a level that frightens me and my mind has gone numb. What sympathy do I get-not that I want any- but it is ZERO. I get the Stay Away From Us looks that they give and the You Are a Failure feel every time I am around them. I get the You Fucked Up Your Life and you want us to fix it? attitude and the We Dont Know Why He Choose You, You can Come Over But dont Saty Too Long treatment.

Perhaps one day the shoe will be on the other foot...

An Unaccomplished life

2008-08-17T14:03:00.000-07:00

Excuse me while every cell in my body fuels up with energy that is the sole result of Rage.

Every now and then I experience something similar to what I am experiencing today and it scares me to tears.

This rage monstrosity that dwells within me finds its way to the surface when I am at my weakest. This is where Iman turns into a hateful spiteful creature that has no remorse and is blind to see the repercussions of her actions. Today I hate everything and everyone. I loath myself down to the genetic make up that is me. I see no good in people as I can do no good and off course today I face a difficult situation where an insignificant waste of human flesh that is a man insults me as he in his little head that contains a grand total of one and a quarter brain cells thinks he is in a position of power over me.

This garbage of a human being represents all that I want to murder in man kind. He is the religious police, he is my attacker, he is the abuser, the racist, the bigot, the pig, the weakling, the nobody who preys on people to be a somebody, the dirty old man...he is my enemy.

He got me today as I was having a tragic day battling mental and emotional over stress that has stirred up a foul mood between me and my husband.

I gave a low life scum a fraction of my attention, care and time and I feel like I have wasted precious time and emotions. I feel like he robbed me of that one minute of a nightmare in which I was so unfortunate to meet him. I am disgusted to have laid eyes on him and sickened to have exchanged verbal contact with him.

These people are like flies...they are nasty and ugly and spread disease and the best thing to do is ignore them. Unfortunately I have a fly phobia and I tend to over react at the site of them!

I want to sleep this anger away, my chest is heavy and I cant breathe as I feel a heavy load on it as if it is being crushed. My eyes are burning as they fill up with tears and I have no one to talk to.... I am by all means alone.

Thank you mother and father, Saudi Arabia, the Anesthesia department at the QE2, my attacker, and everyone who has abused me in any shape or form. I dedicate this blog to all of you...I hope you all burn in hell.

Discovering Jane Austen

2008-08-16T15:38:00.000-07:00

Growing up and attending school and university in the poisonous religious atmosphere of Saudi Arabia, I studied in a boring and repetitive fashion a lot about religion, the Quraan and the interpretations of the Quraan. I had to learn about the-so called- prophet Mohammad and all his history and battles to spread the Islamic word as well as his 12 wives!I studied about great Muslim leaders like Salah Al Dean and his glorious expansion of the Muslim faith to many civilizations at the time.

I also studied Arabic literature and had to memorize famous poems written by great Arabic/Muslim poets to regurgitate them in my oral exams the same way I blindly memorized versus of the Quraan that were oh way to complex for a 12 year old to understand but had to know by heart to get a passing grade.

I studied nothing about the West. I knew nothing about their faith except that it was not mine to follow. I knew nothing about their history and I knew nothing about great people such as Shakespeare or Jane Austin...etc. These people who lived amazing lives and told historical stories that have continued to transcend through generations and will continue to do so with a slim to none chance of anyone developing the ability of replicating their amazing work. Why did I not learn this?

I feel cheated, saddened and robbed of yet again one of the most basic of rights a person could ask for...KNOWLEDGE

Why was I forced to only focus on religion and Islam in such an overwhelming manner that ended up poisoning me? Why did I have to enroll in more obligatory religion classes in medical school at 18 years of age? How was that essential to my career as a physician?

Recently-in the past month- I discovered the great Novelist Jane Austin.

Not many words can describe how I feel about this women and her work which I have only today picked up and started reading. Can I dare and compare myself to her? Probably not but I feel an amazing sense of connection with this great historical female figure that makes me shiver with intense emotion.

She lived in an Era not too different from Saudi Arabia in the 21st century. She was difficult, a problem, an exception to the rule, selfish, eccentric and truly one of a kind! She succeeded in leaving her print in this world. Her voice has been heard and one can only wish to accomplish a minute fraction of what this incredible woman was able to accomplish.

Today I picked up"sense and sensibility", "Pride and prejudice" and "Mansfield park" I have also studied about Jane Austin and plan to research more about her. But for now I can only say that she is the true definition of a HERO

My Dsihonor

2008-08-14T16:25:00.000-07:00

Today I will explain a bit more about who I am. If you have read this far then you probably are thinking...what a sad, mad and terribly depressed woman I am to write such a personal "selfish" and angry blog.

You are right. I am selfish-rightfully so- as well as angry- rightfully so.

A glimpse of my life:

I was born in Westminster (England) in 1976 to a Saudi surgeon and an Egyptian housewife. I am the second eldest in a family of 5, 2 of which are my half sisters. I have one full sister and one elder brother. I enjoyed my limited and young years in England then my mother and father decided it was time to move to Saudi.

I would grow up and live the next 26 years of my life in a huge house with many nannies, maids and drivers in the capital of Saudi (Riyadh). The earliest memory I have of my parents is dad beating mother up and mother screaming and crying while dad bites her arm.

My daily life would always incorporate some sort of physical or mental abuse weather be it mom putting Tabasco sauce in my mouth and locking me in the balcony for a couple of hours or telling me that dad hates me because I am dark skinned. I grew up hating my father as well have feeling fear whenever I am near him.

At 13 my parents became psychopaths and the horror of the abuse I encountered cannot be described. Waking up from both their screams and watching them chase one another with knives and axes...blood...furniture being thrown around...axes taken to doors....beatings....etc. I hated being home and just wanted out. You see my dad had a problem with infidelity that started when he was basically born.

At 16 mother packed her bags and left to Egypt. She left us all behind including my at the time 2-3 year old sister that I would have to take the challenge of raising for the next 10 or so years. Dad remarries and the abuse continues. Now my father abuses the new wife and she assaults/abuses me including chasing me around with knives.

The worst memories are not those of abuse but those of the intense fear and loneliness that became my best and only friends. No one cared, no one listened and worst of all I was frequently blamed for everything and made to feel like I deserved a good deal of this hell.

The result? I became a social handicap, a problem, a confused young woman bubbling with anger, sadness and rage. I wanted attention badly but could never get it unless it was negative attention so I just got in trouble all the time.

Imagine the above girl in a normal western society? Now Imagine her in Saudi Arabia. So, on top of all this pain I was also facing issues outside my home. I couldn't talk and express my opinion, couldn't drive or get to anywhere on my own, couldn't go out, couldn't date, couldn't fucking live..

At 17 I went into medical school. Here the anti-social rebel made its first entrance. I was not liked, I failed my first year of medical school and would be labelled as a "Repeater" for many years to follow because I had to repeat my first year.

At 18 I was caught for the first time by religious police and thrown in jail because they believed I was having a relationship with my Indian driver. At 21 I was kidnapped by the religious police and thrown in jail then got a sentence of 80 lashes because a male friend of mine was dropping me home after a night shift at the hospital...my driver never showed up to get me under the instructions of my stepmother.

My relationship with what was left of my family fell apart at that point. I was commonly referred to as a whore or prostitute. I was repeatedly told that they have no problems disowning me because I brought shame to the family name. My brother played a big role in the destruction of the element that is/was me.

No one cared that the religious police forced me to sign 9-10 blank pieces of paper under their threats and they filled up the pages with whatever stories they believed in their fucked up heads would destroy my life. I was truly guilty with no chance of being innocent.

Mother returned after I graduated medical school and started bleeding me for money and sucking every penny I would make like a money hungry vampire. The day she wasn't paid would be the day the abuse would resurface..

At 26 I was awarded a scholarship to specialize in Anesthesia in Halifax, Nova Scotia in the great country of Canada. My brother and his wife tried their best to not let this happen to the point that he took my passport away and told me that there was no way in hell I would ever see Canada. What can I say...it was meant to be because 2 months later I left.

I left Saudi and I swore on the plane to never return to my family or Saudi.

At 28 I was sexually assaulted by a Saudi department member here in Halifax in a work related gathering. This would sadly bring on the end of my medical career as I chose not to report the incident to the police out of fear of my scholarship funding being withdrawn by the Saudis which eventually happened as over the years I became extremely mentally overwhelmed with depression, post traumatic stress disorder, severe crippling anxiety with a touch of anorexia. You see the hospital treated my case poorly and in fact treated me poorly as a result of my refusal to report the incident to officials.

The man who assaulted me ended up becoming the star of the Anesthesia department and all my requests to be scheduled away from him were denied. I was asked to transfer out to a different hospital and they didn't understand why I was depressed. In the end this lovely can of worms popped open and the great Saudi Bureau in Ottawa reacted as poorly as I predicted. My funding was stopped and I lost my spot here as a resident.....the rest is HISTORY...

I have since taken my case to the human rights commission who are taking their time investigating it. I have switched careers to massage therapy. I married a great Christian guy and had a beautiful baby with him and I have immigrated to Canada.

I left terror and abuse in the land of no rights to become a visible minority with full rights...haha

I have highlighted my life and tried to make it as concise as possible. The details of each major incident of my life will follow in several chapters so you will have to dig deeper into this blog to get the entire story as it is.

The Wrong of being Right

2008-08-11T10:39:00.000-07:00

S:

In my many years of struggle in Saudi Arabia I found it routine to be punished or told off for doing something in my mind I thought to be right while society and the "disciplining authorities" found the very same thing to be wrong. This resulted in my vision and judgment to become clouded for a great number of years in my life...perhaps till now even, though to a much lesser extent.

Recently A young and immature Saudi girl commented on one of my opinions about the the 19 year old girl who was sentenced to 200 lashes for being raped by saying "She should have been smart enough not put her self in that situation....I will never be in her situation".

Wow!!!!! Not only did she arouse a mixture of dangerous emotions in me but she echoed every stupid, arrogant, judgmental, hateful and Hippocratic Saudi thought, belief and opinion I have ever despised growing up in Saudi. I recall the reasoning for women not being allowed to drive that was repeated like a broken record that made absolutely no sense "because if she is driving a car and the car breaks down then she has to stand in the road to get help and she might get raped"

WHAT???!?!!!!!!! Why and where is this acceptable????When did this become a reason to deny women driving. So all men want to rape women who are alone in Saudi?? Then why the hell are women being punished for being raped???? Is Saudi Arabia another term for a ZOO?

A:

Though I would never wish it upon any one to be a captive in the deadly claws of the religious Saudi police and the corrupt justice system over there. I found my self wishing this stupid little miss know it all twit would suddenly wake up in exactly that situation. Lets see then how she can make such a appalling statement about a girl who was crippled by an antisocial society that endlessly inbred.

What I find funny about the western media advertising this story is that they are asking how can the U.S be an ally of Saudi when such human rights violations are such a normal thing in this oil rich country?

I cant help but laugh as this show goes on so that it is not too obvious how much in bed the Saudi and the U.S really are.

P:

Apparently the 19 year old girl has been pardoned by the royal family- like I was- Sadly her life is forever damaged, though she might not know it yet.

Dream, hope and wish all you want but Saudi will never change.

Another Saudi Targedy

2008-08-07T01:09:00.000-07:00

S:
Yesterday while surfing the net I came across this horrific story of a young Saudi girl in Riyadh who was beaten by her own father then shot to death after he walked in on her chatting with a guy on face book.

Here is the link to this horror story

The Saudi religious leaders apparently are calling to block the face book web page from all access to women. Not sure how they are going to do that but I am not surprised if the do. Seeing how 80% of the Internet sites are blocked anyhow in Saudi.

You talk about, God or sex or the freaking country and that's it, you are out!

A:
Here is my problem with this:

1- So face book is corrupting the Saudi youth mind apparently but a father shooting his own flesh and blood that he invested time, emotion, money and care on is fine.

2-The religious Saudi leaders think or at least are trying to convince everyone that face book is the way of the west to invade and corrupt the Saudi youth? Are you kidding me? The Saudi youth is exploding out of its own skin from the enormous suppression they are under....they want a sliver of relief from religion, oppression and sexist law.

3- Last time I checked 15 of the 9-11 hijackers were SAUDI not WESTERN but face book is obviously the problem here.

P:
I think Saudi needs to run the hell out of oil sometime soon so some other WESTERN country with a lot more military power can just invade it already and eradicate this mind boggling sickness and perhaps rebuild a country and civilization that is...mmmm..lets see.....more civil?

Bagaya 7ojjaj "Immigrant Remnants"

2008-08-06T06:30:00.000-07:00

This is what People like me are commonly referred to in Saudi Arabia seeing how I am not a "True Saudi" whatever that means. See my last name is actually Bukhari which my father ended up dropping in order to avoid racism and discrimination. Off course that never happened.

I would hear this phrase "bagaya 7ojjaj" many many times throughout my life and medical career in Saudi. It is considered to be a grave insult to a person and I would learn to become friends with this label and actually become quite proud and fond of it. As it meant that I am not a racist bigot that hates people who look, sound and talk different.

I would hear it from friends, enemies, patients, colleagues and people I didn't even know who simply didn't like how I looked. You see it is quite normal to be insulted as you walk down the street or anywhere really in Saudi. You take it and shut up and never even think of answering back because the outcome might cost you much more than your life especially if the one doing the insulting is a member of the notorious religious police.

What this term"Immigrant remnants" actually means is that you are living in their land and enjoying it when you are not worthy of it because you are not from the "Al ..." family or that you are not from a tribe that is known.

Let me think here...Saudi was originally Arabia and they gave "Pilgrims" free passports - which is how my grandfather got it- in order to populate the land and attract people to build a civilization on a desert. So now that they succeeded in building this civilization they decide to insult the immigrants who moved from their land to this foreign one for a new chance at a life. Now it is disgraceful to be a "Immigrant remnant" and is used to hurt people and show them that they don't belong.

How is this normal or even sane? why is this tolerated?

After a multitude of anger episodes interrupted by some angry lash outs at these people I eventually decided to let it go and let it be. I am in the end exactly that...an immigrant remnant and thanks to everyone who called me that to my face or behind my back because I knew I didn't and never would belong there.

I left Saudi at the age of 26 and will never return.

Why I am blogging

2008-08-05T23:42:00.000-07:00

Because I am fed up of being quiet. It is time I screamed my story so loud that the entire world would wake up and feel the pain I have had to live with for 32 years now.

Who am I and what is this pressing matter that has made me blog?

I am a nobody, a nothing, an X Saudi female. A doctor -with a useless MD- who graduated from the useless King Saud University and tolerated 7 years of medical school hell in Riyadh because I was viewed as a whore due to the nature of my work and doing night shifts at the hospital which automatically meant I am fucking a man. I am the product of endless family abuse, a society that hates women, and a fraudulent justice system.

I am a jaded x Saudi woman who fought the religious police with every breath I had, a girl who was brutally kidnapped by the notorious Mutawwa at the age of 21 only to get framed for something I didn't do and end up with a sentence of 80 lashes and 2 months in jail.

Apparently I am also a disgrace because after getting a scholarship to Canada to do my residency training and after being sexually assaulted by another Saudi doctor in Canada during this training the Saudis withdrew my funding and I lost my spot and any future I have in medicine ...he has finished his training and is back in Saudi supposedly living the life.But hey I am the failure.

I am the non practicing Muslim who has rejected the Islamic practice that Saudi has pushed upon me- and a million others-with the hopes of brainwashing me/them. I drink, I have sex, and I eat pork and I don't think I am going to hell either.

I am the Muslim woman who is married to a christian man and I am glad he cant have 3 more wives!

I drive my own car, I wear shorts in public and I pluck my eyebrows and I am finally free.

This is my first blog so tolerate me please. I will get to the juicy parts here soon. It is 4 am now here and I have been up since 2 am. I couldn't sleep after reading about the Saudi girl who was raped and then found guilty by our lovely religious -so called- leaders who have decided she needs to get 200 lashes and another 6 months in the fucking Saudi jail. This has upset me because this is similar to my story and I see nothing has changed...but hey women can vote!

YIPPEE FUCKING YAY!