Stressed out

First of all I would like to wish all my friends a belated Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. I have been really stressed out lately since I came out to my family about my apostasy. It's been over two months now that I haven't seen my brothers and their wives and the kids because they disowned me completely when I told them on Oct 26 2012 that I had left Islam a year ago and months before I met John.

I know it wasn't a very wise thing to do, but frankly, they were getting on my nerves with their convert him convert him convert him chanting. As if a record got stuck while playing and just would not move on. I had to tell them that basically their theory about my relationship or marriage with John not being halal in the eyes of Allah is no longer applicable to me, since I had left Islam long before I even knew John existed.

I don't understand why, but my family members actually think that by punishing me like this by ostracizing me from the community, they would make me come back to Islam. In fact, whenever my mum calls to check on me, she never fails to ask "Shakila, you haven't converted to Christianity, have you?" and each time I lie, saying no, mom, I haven't, and I am still an agnostic. She then heaves a huge sigh of relief and says alhamdullah, which means thanks to Allah. I guess they are still thinking I am going thru a phase and one day eventually I would revert back to Islam, and according to them if I convert to Christianity, or for that matter any other religion, it means the door to reverting back to Islam is shut for good.

These days my aunt from the US, my mom's younger sister, is visiting her for a few days, and she insisted she wants to see me and my fiancé, so this afternoon John and I went over to my mom's place with James, and I have to admit, they were pretty nice to him and treated him waaaay better than my parents ever did. For a moment I almost started to believe things were going to be fine, but alas, that was just wishful thinking. As soon as James left after an hour or so, my aunt started her emotional stuff, begging me to come back to Islam. She even went as far as to say to me that I don't really have to be a devout practising Muslim as I used to be and and as long as I say the shahada in front of everyone, they would be fine with it and would never expect me to pray or fast or do any rituals like I used to, but she kept on insisting to just go back to Islam, nevertheless very non practising.

I was totally out of my wits when she was saying all that, because I really didn't know how to react. This was the most insane thing I had ever heard from a Muslim person's mouth. She kept on about her kids, who are totally non practising, being born and brought up in the US, but nevertheless they would never deny or reject Mohammed, because one day they do want to come to real Islam. Gosh, Muslims are really screwed up people, I have to say. Everything is fine with them whether u pray or not, fast or not, do hijab or not, but at the end of the day they want you to recite the fucking shahada so that you won't end up being in hell for eternity, of course the most kind and merciful Allah would definitely burn u in hell fire for few centuries for not practising proper Islam, but then eventually, he would forgive you all your sins and place you in the garden of paradise, why? Just because you never denied the holy prophet Mohammed no matter what else you did.

This is how twisted the mind of a Muslim is. Totally screwed up people..