Converted as a child

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Many of these “alternative” religions have a tendency to be cultist in nature.

My dad's mum (never met her so not gonna say grandma) was in one.

They didn't believe in democracy.

Apparently voting got in the way of God's will...

Unless what he's afraid of is the possibility of being murdered by some of his former co-religionists.

Or, worse, perhaps he lives in a country like Saudi Arabia where the state imposes a death penalty on people who convert away from Islam.

Personally for me a huge issue was belief and fear of God and Hell that made the process of giving up faith really difficult. But with gathering more facts and predictable human behavior and needs, it became more and more clear it is fake so the fear diminished. I also had a great deal of help finding good things on Earth to believe in. That was the edge that allowed me to fly freely. And of course the youtuber darkmatter2525, his son is on the spectrum, I kinda suspect he is too.

But yes mental work isn't as hard as having to move out especially in a country like mine, plus not being able to keep jobs. Having no backup and support, even so emotional of the only people closer to you from birth, it's really hienous. Especially if you were taught by deeply religious people who usually do the opposite than to raise an individual to be self sufficient, strong and handle life independently.

That's of course a shame, but how would Libyans know you used to be muslim? You don't have to tell anyone. You could also act appropriately, as if you still were.
The latter might not be a long term solution, but if you think there's a legitimate threat to your life, if people knew you had committed apostasy, and it's safer if you told them you never had been a Muslim in the first place...
Of course, your relatives might leak the info, but in general: I don't see why you shouldn't be able to travel to muslim majority countries like any other non-believer.

But I might be missing crucial information, of course.

Forced conversion is not conversion. I was a Christian believer about the age of 5 years old, made that decision public at about 11 or 12 years old, had plenty of time since then to question the authenticity of my faith, and have no reason at all to believe differently now than I did then. Your parents cannot "make" you a Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Bahai, etc. at any age. Depending on what a religion teaches, you can slip in and out of some like changing your underwear. I happen to believe that there's only one true religion. If you are able to abandon Christianity, you were never really a Christian in the first place. My children all wanted to profess their beliefs early, much earlier than I did, and we watched out children struggle when we insisted that they wait. It was a "losing" battle in the end, but we really did work harder to talk them out of becoming Christians. We wanted to be sure that decision was entirely theirs and not ours, and we frequently enjoy discussing religion and the Bible now.

I've known kids who "grew up Christian" or Mormon or something else and ended up leaving it for one reason or another. I've noticed ex-Mormons in particular seem to be especially resistant to ANY religion, mostly due to bad experiences in the LDS church and feeling they have no reason to think any self-professed Christian church would really be any better. Ex-Christians of various denominations usually "deconvert" because of similarly bad circumstances, or something like their parents divorced when Christians are supposedly so anti-divorce. There are all kinds of reasons, yes. But it seems to be a lack of understanding why bad things happen to good people, that they don't really see or understand God's providence in their own lives, and rejecting God because, basically, they didn't get what they prayed for. Faith is faith and is unconditional by nature. With faith, you either know something or you don't. You either know God exists or you don't. If you KNOW God exists and accept God's existence along with everything else that goes with that, you can't possibly turn away from your faith. Your knowledge compels you to believe. To apparently abandon God, one either has to conclude God doesn't exist after never knowing for sure that God does, or one gives in to wishful thinking--an agnostic idea that maybe God does exist, but he's irrelevant. You KNOW God exists, you just don't WANT him to exist.

But it still boils down to a conscious decision to accept or reject God. I don't know Islam well enough to say how this applies, if at all, but just like I always thought it was risky that my own kids wanted to become Christians at a crazy-early age, forced conversions and early conversions in ANY religion make entirely too many presumptions about the minds of individuals and how things change as people get older. If you're questioning a Muslim upbringing, I'd say that's a good thing. My faith does not teach that you're going to hell for rejecting the religion you were brought up in. If you CAN doubt your faith, that's a strong indication that something might be wrong. The main point is that's not something your parents or even a government can do for you.

I'm simultaneously amused and disturbed when I hear about young people being forced to convert to something. I would rather die than be forced to be something I'm not. But at the same time children never really have a choice when it comes to adults who make decisions for them. If a child is just saying all the right words and performing all the right rituals because that means they stay alive, that doesn't mean they are genuinely accepting of the religion behind all those words and rituals. You can do all sorts of things to keep up appearances when you're actually secretly networking with others who can only practice their faith in hiding or underground. If you were converted as a child but really had no will to believe or follow your religion, were you really converted? Even the Muslims I personally know will say you have to make up your own mind about this stuff.

On a side note, it's interesting to me that Muslims tend to be much more supportive of new converts to their religion than Christians are to ours.

I agree with Kraftie. You're grown and free to do your own thing.

I'm sorry I didn't see this before my previous reply.

This is awful, not being able to visit your family safely.

What matters here is not how genuine the conversion was, but what constitutes "conversion to Islam" under Libyan law.

True. From what I understand about Islam and Islamic states, which is admittedly little, the qualification for Muslim is fairly open. You could hypothetically be both Muslim AND Christian from the Muslim POV, but then you'd be apostate if you ever openly claimed Islam was wrong.

My stepfather forced me to only use the bathroom his cousin assaulted me in, despite there being other bathrooms in the house that everyone else was allowed to use. I'm an now a grown adult and free of that as well.

What I'm saying is that's beside the point. It doesn't change what was done.

Sorry to hear about the assault you've been through and the abuse of your stepdad.
And your mom baptizing you despite the danger to your life, it's definitely not how a mother should act. She should be ready to give her life to protect you.
Sending healing thoughts.

I'm not sure what various countries' laws say in this regard. But under Islamic Sharia itself, simply reciting the Shahada alone is sufficient for a person to be legally considered a Muslim. And thus, if that person were to leave Islam afterwards the apostasy law would be applicable. There's a story in the Hadeeth about a companion of Mohammed who was visiting a group of Muslims in Yemen. While he was there he noticed a prisoner who was being held in chains. When he asked about the prisoner, he was informed that he was a Jew who had converted to Islam and later recanted. Upon hearing this the companion immediately lifted his sword and killed the prisoner, citing Mohammed's ruling "whoever changes his religion, kill him."

I think this might help you

It's a group for helping people deal with religious trauma and people who escaped religion

They are also from the US

They also have video conferences and online discussion

https://journeyfree.org