Funny thing about wearing the hejab was that I didn't mind it so much. I mean it would get really hot in the summer wearing a long dark manteau and a scarf, so much so that when I would walk in to my house I couldn't even make it to my room to change in my swimsuit. I would just peel my shoes off and jump right in fully dressed into the pool to cool down. And of course no one can really look attractive wearing the hejab. But in a way it took away some of the anxiety of having to figure out what to wear everyday. I no longer cared how I looked to anyone, particularly boys. It was too stressfull. I was never a girly girl, so it was always an effort for me to try to be what I thought was attractive to guys. I was tom boy, every boys best friend and I was comfortable with that. But being in a co-ed school there are a lot of pressures to be paired up with someone. Well the hejab and going to an all girls school solved that. Everyone looked the same, effortlessly by wearing the same drab uniform. Another added bonus especially for me was how it would cover up everything I was trying to hide.

When I was 11, the first summer after we returned to iran, I got a nasty strep throat. I hardly ever get sick, and I rarely have a fever, but if I do then it's really really bad. The first time I had a fever was when I was one. It landed me in the ICU. Apparently my Mom's effort to bring me up in a protective and sterile environment, didn't really help once I was released to the wild outside of my bubble. My immune system went into shock. The next time I had a fever to the best of my knowledge was when I got my strep throat at the age of 11. Apparently I have a very high pain tolerance so it takes alot for me to get knocked out by anything. Anyways this strep throat was bad and I was battling a fever for a few days. When my fever finally broke, we noticed all these spots all over my arms and back. It looked kinda like chicken pox, but I had already had chicken pox. So we made a trip to my pediatrician, who correctly diagnosised me with psoriasis. Psoriasis for those who don't know is an auto immune disease, that effects the skin. Basically your skin goes into overdrive with it's cell renewing themselves at an accelerate rate of 2-3 days as opposed to 10-15 days for normal skin. It is not life treatening, it is not contagious. It serves mainly to torture it's victims with flaky skin, something that makes them very very self conscious. So it's skin deep but the wounds emotionally can go very very deep. For me, it was horrifying. In one fell swoop I went from beautiful smooth brown skin, to blotchy, flaky patches all over. The spots would move around my body. First it was my arms, them my back, then my torso and finally my legs. Even my scalp was not immune to it. So what was the cure, well there is no cure. Just alot of steriod creams and lotions. Alot of smelly coal tar medication. I was still in Iranzamin when my skin decided to turn against me. And it was tough being a teen, around other kids and specially boys and having to worry about who would see you skin and cry out in horror. I tried everything to try to hide it. From wearing long sleeves shirts and long pants even in the dead heat of summer. And of course I didn't take the word of my pediatrician who told me there was no cure, that this was something that I would have to learn to live with. That in time I would figure out what aggravated my skin to breakout and then maybe I would be able to control it. Noooo. He was wrong. And so started my very long quest of finding the doctor that would make me all better.
Well it was hell. I don't know how many doctors I saw,in how many different countries, and how many different and crazy treatments I allowed myself to go under. To this day I will never know what kind of damage was caused to my system from all the steroids.
But back to my story of the hejab. The hejab was my sheild and protection against wary eyes. They would never have to see what I didn't want them to see, and so I could relax and be myself. The only people who got to see me without the hejab were people I wanted to see me, like my friends and family. People who wouldn't judge me. As for strangers, well the hejab preotected me from their judgements. And it let me let go of looking for a treatment, and let my skin just be. By the time I was older I read enough about it to know that none of the treatments I had gotten were any good. I found out that stress was not good. Great, well what do you think stressed me out, my skin! One doctor told me this is a worriers disease. What does a young girl like you have to be worried about. Ha!! Everything!!! It like my brain never shuts off, it's constantly on the go and with a million different thing popping into it every second. Every once in a while when I would start dating someone, I'd go on a crash course of steriod creams to clear up any spots. Because I was convinced if they saw me any other way they wouldn't want to have anything to do with me. So stupid. Why is it that we accept everyone elses flaws so easily yet we're hardest on ourselves. Eventually that stopped too. I figured if my skin was going to scare anyone off well then I really didn't want to have anything to do with them either. After all, my friends seemed perfectly fine with a less than perfect Marjan. Over the years like my pediatrician predicted, I came to understand my body, and why it behaved the way it did. The same nervous energy that made me full of life, wanting to tackle everything all at the same time, the fast pace of my everyday life, the multitasking that I thrived on, the always on the go, that nervous energy was making all of me rush, rush, rush. Including my skin that was in such a rush that it was renewing itself at light speed.

I figure I have 2 choices. Either stop being me, and slow down, and hope that the rest of me slows down as well, or just accept that this is who I am and get on with my life. I choose the latter. Plus I've learnt thru alternative medeicine and healthy eating and exercise how to keep things in control. I'm almost clear all the time and the few little spots that I have, I regard with fondness because they remind me of how far I've come. They humble me, they remind me that I'm not perfect, they remind me to never judge a person by what's on the outside.

So in a ways the hejab saved my sanity, even if I hated the idea of being told what to wear, the lack of freedom to choose the simplest thing, how you wish to present yourself to others. And in a ways it helped me understand why some women would voluntarily choose to wear the hejab. It offered them a kind of protection from what ever it was that they feared. But eventually we all need to face our fears and come out from under the hejab and face the world in all our glory!! Yes!!!!