What I Learned About Freedom Living Without It!

I learned the meaning of freedom by living without it.

I didn’t read it in books or hear it in speeches. I learned it the way many women in my part of the world do by feeling its absence in the quiet moments of everyday life. Like when I wanted to ride a bicycle and was told girls don’t do that. Or when I asked too many questions and was met with silence, or worse, shame. Or when I watched boys walk out the door without permission, while I was taught that my place was inside safe, unseen, and silent.

I was born and raised in Pakistan, where the word “freedom” doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. For girls like me, it was never about rights or independence. It was about restrictions wrapped in the language of protection. I was told that good girls don’t talk too much, don’t go out too much, don’t study too much, and certainly don’t dream too much. We are to be emotional, soft-spoken, obedient. And we are told we must be careful because outside, there are men who wait to devour us with their eyes and intentions. That is our reality.

I want to be clear: being a housewife, being a caregiver, building a home these are beautiful roles. But when those roles are forced on you not chosen, they become a prison. Not because the walls are visible, but because they live in your mind, stitched into your identity so tightly you forget who you were before they were placed there.

As a child, I would sometimes watch shows from Western countries on television. I saw girls driving cars, speaking freely, laughing in public, studying science, becoming lawyers and astronauts. They weren’t afraid to speak, to lead, to exist. I didn’t know the full context, but it stirred something inside me. A question began to grow:

Why can’t I have that too?

I didn’t know it then, but that question was my rebellion. Quiet, invisible but powerful.

I wasn’t allowed to go far for higher education. I was told that girls who study too much become “too opinionated.” I was told my future would be inside a home not in classrooms, not in offices, and certainly not on public platforms. But my mind refused to shrink. My world was small, but my questions were not.

So I found freedom in the only place left to me: writing.

Writing didn’t need permission. It didn’t need transport. It didn’t care about how I looked, or what hour it was. I could write at midnight or at dawn. I could whisper into the page all the words I wasn’t allowed to speak aloud. Slowly, my pen became My protest. My voice. My way out.

Through writing, I’ve begun to touch the world beyond my walls. I’ve connected with women across countries, cultures, and continents many of whom have lived their own versions of confinement. And in that connection, I’ve found not just empathy, but power. Because the act of sharing my story is my freedom. Every word I write is a brick removed from the invisible walls around me.

I still live in the same society. The roads are still dangerous. The stares are still there. The judgment has not disappeared. But I have changed.

Now, when I write, I don’t just write for myself, I write for the girl I was, and the girls who still sit silently in corners, hiding their dreams behind their eyes. I want them to know that even if you can’t escape the cage, you can build wings inside it. You can grow ideas in the dark. You can find power in the page.

I once believed freedom was a place maybe a Western country, maybe somewhere else. But now I understand: freedom is a mindset. It begins inside you, when you dare to question, to resist, to dream. I’ve never stood on Western soil. But in many ways, I live that dream: not of wealth or luxury, but of becoming the author of my own story.

And that is what I’ve learned about freedom by living without it.