Am I right to speak up to my family? (Salam)
Assalamu alaikum - I need some honest advice. My mom and my sisters act, honestly, like their pride is out of control. We’re about eight people living in the house, but only my younger sister and I do the cleaning, and it’s driving me crazy. The main fight is always about chores. My mom treats washing dishes or tidying up like it’s no big deal and often downplays our complaints as childish. But the issue isn’t whether someone can do the dishes once - it’s whether they can do it every day when they know others are always cleaning up after them. My mom has also convinced my brothers that they’re somehow above the women in the house, and I don’t get it. Once she kept me up until 1 AM to clean the basement. I told her I wouldn’t do it because I had school the next day, and my older brother, who’s grown, said, “Isn’t that why you were born?” My older sisters have sadly bought into this system too. They weren’t treated the same once they were older, so they act like the brothers now - sometimes worse. It’s gotten worse for me. Even on days when I’m fasting, I’m expected to do all the housework. When I said I would do it after breaking my fast, I was thrown down the stairs for “talking back.” They wait for me to come home from school and then tell me to clean, and if I refuse they try to hit me or make things miserable. I feel like no one is on my side. In my family they team up against me and my younger sister when I’m exhausted from school or work. I’m 17, and it eats me up alive. I’ve tried asking for advice, tried talking, protesting, even crying when I explain how hurt I am, but they just laugh. Some nights I go to sleep wishing I’d been born into a different family or not born at all. I really have no hope right now. The only thing keeping me going is that I graduate this year and hope to live in a dorm for my freshman year of college. I’ve already stopped talking to one sister and one brother because of how they treat me. Please, brothers and sisters, any Islamic-considered advice on how to approach this? How can I stand up for myself in a halal way, keep my patience, and protect my mental health until I can move out?