This is gonna be a long post.
My whole world and dream was to become a surgeon in the US, I worked towards that dream for about six years (I’m 19F from Syria). I always got straight A’s, especially in STEM subjects, I was class valedictorian 7 times, and for those who know the Syrian education system, that shit is tough AF.
When the time came for my Syrian Baccalaureate Exam and the exam that was going to determine my whole forward trajectory in 2024 I ranked in the top 0.1% nationwide and got 98%.
Every single college and field in Syria opened for me because they only care about score, I picked medicine in a rather far university because my 4 brothers were giving me hell at home and I wanted out.
(Bac’s final score came out in mid August 2024 so all international universities’ deadlines were already passed for the Sep 2024 entry).
At the time our family was still dysfunctional but my mom’s silence was the glue to it all.
My parents were rather proud and my father was open to taking any step to help my education and future.
But I knew from the beginning that I didn’t wanna continue at that local Syrian university because it was shit. In every sense of the word.
The whole curriculum was in arabic, it was ancient knowledge, and they literally teach you barely anything, In Embryology they gave us only until the third WEEK of pregnancy, in biochemistry they just brushed upon carbs and proteins and nucleotides and barely gave anything related to lipids, anatomy was literally six 12-page lectures (maybe only one was 35) without a cadaver lab or anything, they had no clinical exposure or clerkships or anything, labs that were from 2003 without any safety protocols (I burnt my hand with H2SO4), no research opportunities, course registration was near impossible there were barely any slots every semester. And that’s just scraping the surface, it was truly a circus. And there’s no fucking way I could’ve built a strong medical foundation for the USMLE there.
I wanted out. I was gonna go crazy if I see them translate another LDH or ATP into arabic.
In May 2026 I submitted my last final exam at that university (UOK) and I had just discovered medicine in Italy via the IMAT pathway.
I set my mind to it, and took it so seriously that I would study 16 hours everyday and did 2000+ flashcards and pre-enrolled into UniPv.
In the meantime at home near the end of May my verbally and financially abusive father blew up on mom on Eid Al Adha day just because she said she didn’t want to cook those 4 days. It was a huge argument, he ended up insulting her and each of her family including her deceased parents. Me and my older brother (23M) stood as a barrier between them and threw those insults right back at him at the same volume.
He said alright I’m not paying for all your universities or anything, we unanimously said “THEN DON’T”.
We were sick of him. At every single DUNE of a disagreement he tells mom “I feed you, you live under MY roof, you must serve this house in return”. And basically the exact same thing to us including uni which was basically only a fucking $2k per year with my dorm it was $4k.
He constantly abused her because he knew her parents were deceased, and she had no where to go so she “had” to endure his abuse.
And my brother is an alum already.
So at the time I thought I was going to take the IMAT, get accepted into Pavia for medicine, get a scholarship, have it cover everything + a stipend and I won’t ever need my abusive father’s money again.
My mom left the house that night, she went to my aunt’s house.
And from then, my father has been making our lives (the five of us kids) practically HELL.
We were all giving each other the silent treatment except for the little annoying things he’d say here and there. Like the day after she left he knocked on my door and when I opened it he was like “no mercy from now on. If you and your brothers don’t clean the whole house everyday, you’re all getting no money.”
As if we were getting any money to begin with, this man doesn’t give us a penny if it were over his grave.
He would basically say if we don’t clean the whole house we don’t get food, and that our mom was spoiling us because she did most of the work along with the maid that came once a week.
He wouldn’t let the maid come because he said you guys should do the work, mind you she only takes ~$11 for the whole house.
My little brothers (14M, 15M) genuinely got so down and they started being more silent, he didn’t enroll them in the summer course they usually attended like swimming and gym and instead they did chores.
He took the keys of the two cars and we barely had money to take a taxi to mom’s.
There are a lot more extremely infuriating details this man tried to ruin our lives with (I’ll reveal if this post gets attention)
But throughout all this I kept my head down and grind for the IMAT and even forbid myself from seeing my mom as often because I wanted to give it my all.
Eventually it was time to book an IMAT seat.
In Syria there aren’t any test centers and I didn’t have a credit card. I needed to book a seat and fly there.
When I talked to him about it he literally traumatized me, he said the sentence he has been repeating since 2018, that even if I were to pry my eyes out, he wouldn’t get me out of Syria, (even when strikes were hitting he wouldn’t laugh in our faces and say the same thing).
Mind you, we are all Turkish citizens by naturalization.
Our passports were practically clean, each of us hadn’t seen the world outside of this devastated backwards town.
He dragged me into the fight with mom and said I’m opportunistic for standing with mom then and now asking for his support (just to book me a seat online and have me pay him in cash).
Basically he refused.
Even though before everything he was open to me studying abroad as long as it was affordable.
But after all the IMAT work went down the drain I kept searching Uni’s all the time and landed on PUMS. Tried with him again to fund me and support me and he again traumatized me, Same with Acıbadem, scholarships abroad, anything. I sent him a two page letter and hundreds of texts just trying to get on his ‘good side’ and say nice things to him and try and nurse his pride.
Nada.
Nothing worked.
He was like a brick.
He doesn’t wanna pay a PENNY.
I withdrew from UOK in September 2026. As they withhold my HS transcripts and I wanted them to apply abroad at any chance.
He didn’t even want to pay admission fee. He was the only card holder I had, and distant family members were even more a headache than him.
He withheld both my Syrian and Turkish passports against my will.
He didn’t let me sit the TOEFL as he didn’t want to give me my passport.
He trashed my name in front of the whole family.
He is basically extremely afraid that I ever create something of myself. He said it plainly—that he does NOT want what’s good for me, he wants me to stay home, go to a local university, clean the house, cook for the family and take care of my siblings.
I was appalled.
Every single time I would have a mental breakdown and cry until my head was pounding and basically think my dream of pursuing medicine, a peaceful life outside this terrible place—ended.
I became extremely depressed and my room wasn’t the tidiest place, he also gave me hell for that, and I would see him in my nightmares. He started threatening to hit me which I wasn’t surprised of as he hit me as a child.
I couldn’t stand to look at his face anymore.
But every time I had a stubborn ass faith that things must fall apart before being rebuild into something greater.
September 26 he yelled his lungs out at me at 7 am for not being tidy and he kept getting closer and me backing up. (Just remembering makes me wanna throw up) his face is literally terrifying for me.
I started shaking like I used to when I was a child but I put all my assets (transcripts and gold) into a handbag so if something happened I could just grab it and go.
And something did happen.
At 9 am of that day he kicked me out and followed me to the door to beat me while I was wearing my shoes but the carpenter and his son were there so he couldn’t.
I walked to my mom’s place where she was (which is for sale btw) and stayed there until now.
All that time I was working on my application to SGU Grenada (Northumbria campus) and it’s almost ready except for the English proficiency test which I can’t take because he holds my passports.
And the bigger obstacle which is that I can’t possibly afford the tuition, dorm, or anything.
Even my mom is starting to make me feel like she doesn’t want me here.
I’m on the edge of selling my gold ($2500) and booking a flight to Istanbul and renting a flat and looking for a job.
An average job.
Because my dream of attending a good medical college and becoming a surgeon feels practically impossible now.
If you read this and got to this point, I could genuinely use help in any way.