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    Amrou Al-Kadhi: ‘Being a drag queen healed me’

    Growing up in a strict Muslim family, Amrou Al-Kadhi felt worthless, but found a new freedom and community in the world of drag
    by Amrou Al-Kadhi Oct 20, 2019 5 minutes
    ‘On stage, you demand that the room bows down to your every stitch and sequin’: Amrou Al-Kadhi. Photograph: Lelia Scarfiotti

    I am a therapist couch hopper (sorry to any of my cuckolded shrinks now reading this). I’ve sampled mental health services like a toddler at a pick-n-mix stall, all in the hope of remedying the severe psychological issues that developed during my childhood.

    Here’s a taster. I’ve had cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) to manage my once debilitating OCD, a condition that began when I was very young. In accordance with Islamic practice, I was taught to count my sins on my left shoulder (wanking over Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic = infinity sin points), and to ensure they didn’t exceed the good deeds I had to count on my right. And I became obsessed with counting.

    I’ve been in psychodynamic psychotherapy to help overcome my pathological struggle to form intimate relationships, which have all been shadowed by my childhood fears that the very nature of who I am would lead to rejection (from Allah, my

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