‘’If I knew opening that chocolate bar would also open doors of hell for me, i would have said I’m on diet‘’

Says Salma, a 26 years old medical college student where she first met her victimizer that almost ended hers and loved ones lives.

I was sitting by myself in that bench at the corner, using a palm’s tree shadow waiting for my mother with overwhelmed feelings that somehow made me cry.

And that’s when my professor interfered, he was as polite and nice as possible, he asks, ‘’I hope everything is alright ’’, I reply with a soft voice I’m okay, it’s just the exams stress I guess.

He smiles and says, don’t worry, I was just in your shoes back then and look where I am now, everything will fall into its place. And then he handed me a bar of chocolate, and oh how much I love chocolate.

I was expecting nothing but a professor being nice to his student, which made me think, maybe I should believe him and accept his attempt of being nice and take the chocolate with no doubts of hidden intentions.

Days went by and every time we cross, we smile and say hi to each other, it’s like that chocolate made its magic and created a bond between us, and to be honest looking back at how things were, you could tell it was going somewhere, I started to attend his classes more, reading each other, I read him through his way of observation and he’s reading me through my grades.

‘’ asking me to wear niqab and to be his halali was an expected shock for me, I said yes to many things before, so why not.’’

When things reached the level of us having each other’s numbers and social medias, our relationship developed from awkward chocolate and exams talks to us talking about our future together, and he always described his future wife in a way that he was describing me, not too tall, blond and fair skin complexion, the typical beauty standard Libyans look for, he always mentioned he wanted me covered, so only he gets to see me, and because I trusted him I was okay with it, I started wearing niqab after we got engaged and I remember seeing my mom being completely against what I’m doing but she preferred to not interfere with my decisions.

I was a young girl, and during our engagement phase, I was catching more feelings for him, as I started to do anything just to please him, I listened to anything he said, and started to also send him nudes just to see his reaction, seeking his pleasure to fulfill my ego.

‘’The unexpected shock was finding out about him becoming a member of ISIS back in 2014 in Benghazi‘’

Our wedding day is getting closer, I found out about him being a member of ISIS, we went through a lot of arguments about how could he do that, and the more I fight about it the more he becomes aggressive towards it, I reached to the point where I wanted to call the wedding off and actually be done with him, and that’s when everything went crazy, he started to abuse and threat me, first he was telling me that he’d bomb my house and kill all my family members and then he started to threaten me with posting my nudes online, which he did, He created a page using my identity and started to post my nudes all over, I couldn’t bare the shame I was put through and my family’s struggle of not knowing how they will handle this, it’s either he marries me and god knows what I’ll be expecting if I ever got married to him or he keeps making my life a living hell for me and my family.

I didn’t give up, I did what it takes to get him out of my life, I reported him and back then ISIS were losing their fights so he had no other option but to run away, but the trauma of everything that happened still occurs.

‘’ Two years later, I met another guy, with the same background as mine, he was super gentle, we got to know each other, I’m no longer a niqabi. ‘’

We got engaged, things were going smooth and too fast, I like him but,
Somehow I felt that there was something off, maybe because I liked spending my time with my friend amal more and the spark of the interaction that was happening with amal was different than what I was feeling with him, I’ve always had the attraction towards men and women but I never thought I’d ever start being with a girl due to the beliefs I was raised to.

I started to know myself better and I became more aware of my decisions, knowing for a fact that it feels so much better when I’m with amal than anyone else, gave me closure that chocolate bars and gentlemen or my beliefs, can do nothing compared to what it feels when you’re with the right person, currently I’m dating amal, pursuing my dream job and i can finally say I’m mentally stable of what I’ve been through.
Many girls end up having even worse stories than mine, I was lucky I didn’t end up being another victim of men abuse and domestic violence who didn’t speak up, I was heartbroken, scared, I had a lot of anxiety, I was worried, I felt weak, and I had no idea how I was ever going to come up with the strength. But I just closed my eyes and took a blind leap. I knew I had to get out of this, and now I see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.

You survived the abuse, you’re going to survive the recovery.