How to have confidence to go against abnormal family norms?
Please help me cope in this situation.
I’m from an elite background. I feel everything I do is so heavily judged by my family.
Everything is paindu, everything I do is seen as below them.
Covering my hair and wearing abayas (although now I wear long skirts/shirts). It was a major hurdle.
Confidence was so affected, I couldn’t attend classes in uni thinking I looked hideous as my mother made me feel that way that I had to just quit uni altogether.
My mother mockingly greets me with a heavy Assalam Alaikum ! in an overconfident way every morning. Saying salam and using Islamic terminology is seen as something for villagers according to them.
Previously I would just feel uncomfortable and maybe whisper a reply but recently I’ve started saying Walaykum Assalam confidently.
I’m trying to be more confident.
It’s so uncomfortable because even to servants we’re not expected to say Jee, even to my parents, it’s haan and living like uncivilised people in general.
If i say Jee and Salam, or I serve guests or do anything normal or decent, I am scared of the taunts. It’s so messed up but that’s my reality.
(Btw as a daughter, I am expected to sit there in front of guests and my mother tells my brother to serve. It’s so weird because I’m being viewed as useless and my brother is seen as wow beta madad kar raha hai and if I try to do something toh again they might come after me with taanay)
Even with elder servants, we’re supposed to just say Guard not even guard uncle; it makes me uncomfortable, genuinely.
Posted Feb 18, 2026, 2:25 AM UTC