Habiba Matsali walks on her way. [Photo/iyaxin.com]

Habiba Matsali's tight schedule started from 7am. Taking her children to school, making lunch and dinner for her parents, visiting her sister in hospital…taking care of her family took up most of her time.

"I am busy like a spinning top without any stop. I feel like my skeleton is broken," she said, tiredly but happily.

Habiba, 39, lives at Luopu county in Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region. As the backbone of her family, her parents always counted on her and turned to her for help whenever they had difficulties. Habiba considered her family as a sweet burden.

But a few years ago, when she was influenced by religious extremism, Habiba tried everything to get rid of her family.

The nightmare started after she finished junior high school and went back home to help her parents with farm work. Before long, she opened a store, where she got acquainted with religious extremists. Deluded by them, she became extreme and indifferent to the people around her.

"In those days, my family was not a place of warmth and happiness anymore," Habiba said when she recalled the past days.

During that period of time, she buried herself in black robes and veils, which were the sign of religious extremism.

Habiba felt like that she was possessed by a demon. At the beginning, her family and friends were disappointed in her. As she drifted deeper and deeper into religious extremism, they felt despair.

When she was about to abandon her life, last year, the leaders of her town and village got to know her problems. They found Habiba and explained the ethnic religious policy. Her parents and the childhood friends also talked about the happy days to her, which made her get out of the illusion of religious extremism.

Finally, she made up her mind to free herself from the religious extremism. "I thoroughly remolded myself. The joy and laughter came back to my family again," Habiba said with a big smile.

Echoing her change of mind, Habiba discarded black robes and veils and took up wearing the beautiful Atlas silk dress, a traditional Uygur costume she longed for.

Even her daughter was surprised about her new appearance when she attended the parents meeting in Atlas silk dress. "Can you dress like this all the time, mom? You are so beautiful," her daughter asked.

After returning to normal life, she offered to work as a volunteer to hold lectures and demonstrate to other women how harmful religious extremism is through relating her own story.

"I want them to know that when you cover yourselves with black robes and veils, you have isolated yourselves from your family and the whole outside world," she said.

Recently, Habiba had another task—to reconstruct her store into a supermarket. Meanwhile, she kept on giving lectures every couple of days. "Every time I talk to the people in my lectures, I feel more relaxed than before. I know that I am doing something meaningful," Habiba said.