A Pissed off Saint: A Middle Eastern Woman's Journey to Freedom

As ongoing war and struggles continue in the Middle East to this day, I can tell you my perspective being a female born into it. I grew up during the Lebanese Civil War amid the battles and the machine-gun fire. Though I grew up as a Christian, I have the authentic experience of what it is like to live among co-mmingling religions; Muslims, Jews, and Christians. After being abducted from school at age fourteen and forced with machine guns to marry a man twenty years my senior, I had no choice but to move with him to the Caribbean island of Antigua, not speaking a word of English. There I was held captive as a teenage mother and wife till I made my escape and started my journey to the United States. This is just the beginning of my long journey to freedom from poverty, abuse, stigma, lack of education, battered woman's syndrome, living from women's shelters to basements, to college without a high school degree, to having multiple careers as a dental hygienist, a women's empowerment life coach. I am a homeowner, a United States citizen who is very grateful to be in this country that offered me the chance to reach up to the sky and opened the opportunities for my willingness to move from shame, hate, anger, blame, to flourish into peace, joy, and unconditional love. www.sumanour.com