advice on what to do

hey girls, I'm looking for advice on my current situation that has to do with my family.

To give context, I am 18 years old and have just sent off my UCAS applications to apply to universities. 3 of my top choices are quite far from home but would be easy to get home from by train. However, I am mostly aiming to start my life and understand myself better by living alone at Uni. Another big reason for those choices are also because I have 3 siblings and they are very loud at home (as they should be, they're kids) but I also handle a lot of things such as picking them up from school after I come back, taking one to tuition and etc, and the biggest reason is that my dad always yells and argues and I dont think I will thrive at all without being depressed.

On top of that, I am on my last year of A levels and I do training almost every day of the week except for teusday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and i come home exhausted. I have a brother who is 15 and from time to time I make him pick up my siblings especially when I'm super busy. But it's not always easy to get him to do it. I also have to constantly be tidying around the house so that my dad doesn’t get angry with my mum for the place being untidy, food not being on the table etc, however that's fine because recently ive been teaching my siblings to tidy up in preparation for when I'm not there and it really made me realise that nobody helps around the house.

Now, I want to talk about my relationship with my dad. It is not the best, he is a very difficult man, and we are Arabs. But it's constant bickering, yelling, cursing at us before school, to the moment he comes home and there's virtually no peace unless something good is happening in his day. I have tried a lot to sympathise with him but I have simply given up and see him as nothing than my father whom I have to constant cater to while he yells and bickers in my face (and my mother's and siblings, he is never happy with anything).

About a year ago he started pressuring me about the Hijab, I wont get into the details of how it started but it wasn't very nice. Until every morning before school he would tell me that next year (this one) I should look for more modest clothes to wear for the hijab which was odd because I do not wear tights clothing and I wear modest all the time. I used to ignore him and just say mhm, because behind the scenes I would hear from my mum that she tried to tell him it was for me to put on but she would end up getting yelled at by him.

Then, in summer of 2025, he was taking me to my summer camp that was 45 minutes away, and began interrogating me on why I dont have it on. I am going to be very honest, I am quite a big girl and most of my life I grew up getting called an elephant, a barrel, and my earliest memory is people often came up to my brother to hand him sweets because he was beautiful. But now it has become that people compliment my sister and either say nothing about me, or just look at me and realise then say "oh her too mashallah".

My sister is a very beautiful young girl and this happening constantly has never made me hate her or resent her ever. I love her very much. But ever since I was 11 years old, I have been body dysmorphic and my eating habits became that of an eating disorder which really messed with my mind and how I look at myself.

When i attempted to communicate that with my dad, I was scared to even begin and then he immediately told me that I was talking rubbish. Other reasons for not putting the hijab on for me is that I have just started feeling less bad about myself since I have been doing boxing, I have seen weight loss and felt a lot better. And putting the hijab on now didnt feel right for me because I know I wouldnt put it on for the right reasons.

In the car that summer, after I held back everything when he yelled at me, he told me how he would be the one to blame on the day of judgement and he would be responsible for my children and the children of my children. And that my sister would follow into my steps. and I will never forget when he said to me "I am giving you 2 years to put it on, if by that time you don't put it on, I will never speak to you again and I never want to see you again".

Since then, I havent stopped thinking about it. I have never done anything wrong, (eg, talked to boys inappropriately or drank or any haram stuff) I love my religion very much but all of this has made me lose a bit of eman which i hate to admit. And now, it is going as far as my dad not wanting me to go to a far university which I dont understand, I got an offer from a very good university and there is still bickering and yelling about that.

I also felt that i have never had the chance to be a proper girl, like know how to do my own hair, dress how I would like to (modestly of course) or even put makeup on, the most i do is a mascara (my dad allows makeup so when I do put some on its usually concealer, and alhamdullilah I dont care that much about cakey makeup).

This does not mean ill never put the hijab on, but I dont want to at the moment and I have no idea what to do. i am very aware it is fardh, but again, i know if i put it on, then im being forced to.This is a long post so I am sorry!! but any advice will be great for me, thank you!