Category: Self Worth

  • Perhaps…

    Farting against thunder. That’s often the sum total of my state of mind these days. For a moment today I felt as if sharing my thoughts on this and other blogs of mine was in fact perpetuating the whispers of insignificance that taunt me. It’s an insane cycle. Needing an outlet, not necessarily creative or emotional, but just something to release the noise, make space for the clutter to fall into an open space so that I might be able to look for clues on how to unravel it all.

    I sometimes feel repulsed by what I write. At other times, I’m repulsed by the fact that I write at all. I wonder if all my efforts at unlocking the logic behind the ridiculous labels is in fact me denying that those labels actually apply to me. Perhaps I have a mental disorder but my arrogance and obstinacy prevents me from acknowledging it. Perhaps my views on what is or is not good in this world is in fact tainted with a sense of idealism that is unachievable.

    I shy away from debates that used to impassion me. I look at others and recede believing that my attempts at getting them to understand, or appreciate, or simply entertain an alternate view is futile. I seem prone to taking up lost causes as if doing so may spur on some global reawakening about something simple that seems pivotal to the resurrection of old school values that I cling to so dearly. Perhaps I only cling to them out of fear of not being able to embrace the new? Perhaps I’m not farting at all against the thunder. Perhaps the thunder is in fact the clutter in my head, seeing chaos where only randomness exists, and seeking order where none is possible.

    Perhaps the days of my sanity are numbered. Perhaps the purpose of life that always seemed so poignantly obvious to me was in fact a figment of my own imagination. A conjured ruse of a troubled teenager’s aspirations lacking in substance and form, with a life breathed into it from the seat of desperation that wrestles within my soul. Perhaps I was feigning sanity all along.

  • Parenting Gone Wrong

    This is an interaction I had with someone on my Tumblr blog. It touches on the destructive relationships that some parents have with their children. It’s something quite close to home for me, so I thought I’d share it here as well. The content that is bold is my opinion that I shared on the issues being raised. 

    What if a person has a sort-of narcissistic mother? And what if she has disliked the child since the child was young (but loved the child’s younger sibling), and still blames the child (even when the child is now an adult) for everything? So in her heart and mind, her child is the one with problems, the one who is the cause of all pain in her life.

    Narcissistic mothers are more common than you would imagine. I can’t count the number of mothers I’ve seen in my own experiences that openly and aggressively compete with their daughters (usually the eldest daughter if there’s more than one). It’s disturbing to say the least, and not uncommon to find them choosing a favourite between their children.

    What if the reason for the mother having bad feelings towards her child is the child’s fault for not having enough sabr?

    While that is a distinct possibility, given the rest of the scenarios presented below, that sounds almost like Stockholm Syndrome where the victim starts to sympathise with the aggressor’s position and sees them as justified in their actions.

    Let’s say once the child was an adult, they went back to try and fix things and create a relationship with the mother again. But the mother continued to emotionally condemn and hurt the person, but that the person tried to have sabr, and limited their visits with their mother just to keep the peace. What if one time, the person had to stay with the mother for over 5 days due to a specific circumstance. What if during this time, no matter how quiet the person tried to stay, the mother became increasingly irritated and angry with them and started saying horrible things. (And the sibling of the person took the mothers side also, saying that they don’t want that person in their lives anymore – there must be something wrong with the person then, right, and not the mother?)

    I disagree. It doesn’t necessarily imply that there is something wrong with the person. What it does suggest is that the mother has some issues relating to an association with the person in question. In other words, the mother could have been at a difficult time in her life when she gave conceived and/or gave birth to the child that is being pushed aside. As a result, especially in younger mothers, it’s not uncommon for them to project their own disappointments about life on the unborn or newborn child because it makes it easy for them to project their failures on the child instead of accepting responsibility for the choices they made. E.g. So if the mother had aspirations of building a career or having a certain amount of social freedom at that point in her life, and she ended up having an unplanned baby, in her weakness to acknowledge her own contribution to that situation, she would blame the baby for robbing her off those aspirations, and that blame, when nurtured for long enough, could become really toxic in their relationship in later years.

    Then what if the mother physically hurt the person in anger- as if they were a small child again- and what if this time the person just had enough and finally snapped, reacting back to the mother?
    Isn’t it the fault of that person for not having enough sabr with the situation? And now because of that, the mother is angry and holds an even bigger grudge than before and has now disowned that person from the family completely.
    So…. in Allah’s eyes, isn’t the person to blame, since the mother should always be respected and not shown anger towards?

    The person was bound to snap at some point, because as human beings, we have an inherent need for reciprocation, appreciation or gratitude. Our efforts must yield some beneficial results at some point or else we’re bound to snap out of anger at feeling incompetent or insignificant in the situation we’re trying to resolve. While being disrespectful towards a parent can never be condoned, I don’t believe there is anything wrong in maintaining a healthy distance in order to discourage a situation from arising that would lead to such disrespect becoming unavoidable. Islam is holistic in its approach to everything, and therefore, in this situation, the mother would need to fulfil her duties and responsibilities in order to enjoy the benefits of the elevated position that Islam affords her. In this case, the mother would always find a reason to justify her view about the merits and qualities of the person in question because she would need that to avoid taking accountability for her own actions that led up to the toxic situation between the two of them.

    And how would it work out on the day of judgement? Because ultimately it’s her word against the child’s and from the importance of the relationship with the mother in Islam, doesn’t that mean that the child of the mother has no chance on the day of judgement to enter Jannah? No matter how much the person repents, ultimately, isn’t it the word of the mother against theirs?

    I don’t think the Day of Judgement will be about one person’s word against another’s because all our deeds are clearly recorded. Our own bodies will act as witnesses against us, so no one’s opinion will carry weight on that day. Allah will judge fairly between the two, and we will not be held accountable for those situations that are out of our control. We will only be accountable for that which we could have done but didn’t do, within reasonable limits. 

    Of course Allah knows best, but I’m just wondering.

    P.s. At the same time though, the mother is a practicing Muslim, a kind and generous person in general. So it’s very confusing for the child, they wonder if it really is them with the problem, since the mother is a good person and practicing Muslim in general. So if that’s the case, does the child have any chance of entering Jannah, since the only time the mother becomes abusive and angry like this is when they are around. Therefore, there must be something wrong with that particular child of the mother’s, right?

    Again, it’s not necessarily due to a fault on the part of the child. Some parents, for whatever reason, just take a natural dislike and develop a very competitive relationship with their child/children. There’s nothing any child can do to change that because the one with the predominant power and influence is the parent. Until the child attains a level of independence and success as an adult, it’s hardly likely that the parent will see them differently. Even then, the parent could choose to continue seeing the child’s success as a result of their sacrifices rather than acknowledging their child’s efforts to make a good life for themselves. So the best is to just recognise the constraints and dynamics of the relationship for what it is, and take the needed steps to avoid further contention.

    This reminds me of the incident between the Prophet (SAW) and Wahshi, the man that killed Hamzah (RA). After asking him for an explanation of what happened, Rasulullah (SAW) forgave him and asked him never to show him his face again. The reason I’m reminded of this incident is because a similar theme could play out here. The person could accept that the current circumstances are just not conducive towards a healthy relationship with the parent, and so should avoid unnecessary contact without severing family ties. Insha-Allah in time, the absence and independent growth on both sides may lead to a thawing of the ice in the relationship and result in mutual respect developing, Ameen. 

    P.S. It’s normal for the favourite child to be sympathetic towards the parent’s views, until they reach an age of maturity where they are able to view the relationship more objectively.

  • Is this the real life…

    I’ve been faced with a daunting realisation these last few days. Perhaps I’m not so average after all. I’m not better, nor am I worse, but I’m starting to realise that I’m probably just fundamentally different. This may sound like a romantic notion to some, but to me this is potentially life altering. The reason it has such an impact on me is because it calls to question every observation or piece of advice that I ever offered anyone. If my disposition and point of departure is so significantly different from most others, it means that my criticisms and insights are distinctly biased and potentially useless for most of the people that I ever engage with.

    These are troubling thoughts for someone that has found much comfort in being able to offer advice to others so that they may avoid the mistakes that I’ve made. But this realisation now suggests that my mistakes are not likely to be repeated by others because I am not part of the normal crowd. I guess in many ways I’ve been resisting this realisation all my life. I’ve thought of myself as normal but different. Now I just think I’m different, and I’m not sure I grasp the concept of normal at all. I doubt I ever did.

    My ability to detach my emotions from reason is a quirk not appreciated by most. It helps in times of crisis, but it causes me to look distinctly uninterested and often annoyed when others are freaking out while I fail to see a reason to freak out just yet. Given that most people don’t live in true crisis mode all the time, it makes this skill of mine somewhat tedious to deal with. And surrounding myself with people that are in fact living in crisis mode continually will just drain the last drop of optimism from my gut. So I guess I’m in limbo.

    Silence is the only comfort I seem to enjoy these days. Everything else demands a presence of mind and a demand of my attention that has become quite an effort. I’m distracted most of the time with thoughts of…everything. What was, what is, what might be, what might not be, what could have been, what should have been, what I’m glad hasn’t been, and it goes on. It goes on painfully and tediously. But through it all I’ve managed to remain somewhat functional and able to offer some purpose in my presence. The more I experience, the more jaded is my response to life.

    Is this what a mid-life crisis feels like? No, it can’t be. If it were, it would negate the realisation that prompted this post to begin with. I look at others my age and I struggle to relate to their frame of mind. In some ways I relate to the mind set of those 15 years my junior, but I find myself at odds with how they approach their sense of purpose in  life. I’m disjointed from society, from the community, and often from my family. But I’ve been revelling in that disjointedness until now under the misconception of it having been a valuable skill that allowed me to view the world with a fresh perspective.

    Who was I fooling all this time? I’m cynically jaded. There is no fresh perspectives for a jaded one. Suddenly Bohemian Rhapsody is mocking me.

  • Society’s Slaves

    People in general will see you as they fear themselves to be, but those with good hearts will see you as they aspire to be. Having been on the receiving end of significant criticism recently, I almost forgot to remind myself of that age old wisdom that says that your actions define who you are, not who I am. And so the same applies with your comments and your criticism.

    It’s rare to find people who criticise sincerely, but more importantly, it’s even more rare to find people who criticise from an informed perspective. Our penchant to want to be proven true about something insightful often leads many to offer their uninformed opinions cloaked in bookish bombast (I’ve always loved that phrase that I know will make people think me to be even more pretentious than before). The truth is, our search for significance drives us towards less than admirable behaviour more often than we’d care to acknowledge, and often even more than we would realise.

    I probably am guilty of much of the pretentiousness that I am accused of, but the truth is, I don’t care since it’s mostly with a deliberate intent. While reflecting on all the criticism that I’ve received lately most of which was subtle and not as overtly obvious as it was intended, I had to remind myself that my inclination to contradict the mainstream is not an adult fetish but rather a trait that has accompanied me and served me well my entirely life. Of course, that is entirely subjective given that many would probably classify me as a recluse, but the truth is, this same attitude of mine is what has seen me through many life threatening and life altering experiences, a fraction of which has literally caused many others to crumble under the sheer burden of it.

    So it’s unlikely that I will choose to change my approach to life, and people any time in the near future, if ever. People have proven to be inconsistent, just like me, because the same way I doubt myself so often, so do they. I guess the burden of being inherently introspective and somewhat socially averse (not to be mistaken for anti-social!) is that it inevitably paints a target on my back that makes me fair game for those seeking to pacify themselves about their own shortcomings and prejudices. But that has had no influence in dissuading me before, and I don’t intend to give it much credence now either.

  • I think you're intelligent and you're opinionated. You also like to make sure everyone knows it too, not just with your wide vocabulary but because of how you carry yourself. You like to stand out and you also refuse to be a part of "The Sheep Herd" and so you choose to do everything different. You always strive for perfection and you get very upset when things don't meet your standards. So when you struggle in life, you become frustrated and you start to reevaluate everything.

    Thank you for your candidness. There’s very few people, unless they’re trying to get the better of me, that offer such candid feedback. So I really appreciate it. I understand completely why you, and many others, would get such an impression of me, and I guess that’s been the struggle of my life. Getting people to understand where I’m coming from rather than what appears to be my motives. 

    I’m always surprised at comments about my use of language because like I said in previous posts, I don’t read that much. Most of the reading I do is online, and that’s usually articles of interests, blogs, or news items. 

    I am opinionated, but the motivation for being so is not as obvious as most may think. I actually hate being the centre of attention. It makes me awkward and self-conscious. But I love challenging people’s ideas and views because so few people take a critical view of themselves. We’re conditioned to believe that being critical is a negative thing, when in fact it’s the root of growth. In my opinion anyway. 🙂

    I don’t strive for perfection. I’m incredibly lazy to be honest. So in my laziness, and my idealism, I get easily frustrated when I see someone doing something in 10 steps when it can be done in 2. Simplistically, that is what drives my behaviour and my attitude. It’s my desire to simplify things, to avoid unnecessary effort, and to do more with less. When we complicate things, we waste energy and create issues that take up valuable time. 

    I know this all must sound so clichéd, but the truth is that I have got death on my mind most of the time. So when I see people exhausting themselves over things that may be inconsequential to the outcome of their lives, or to the legacy that they need to leave behind (not related to wealth), then I grow impatient with them because I want them to focus on what’s important instead. At least what I have found to be important based on my life’s experiences. 

    I don’t like exhaustive circular debates, so I choose my words carefully most of the time because while responding to questions or criticisms, my mind is automatically jumping two steps ahead in trying to pre-empt what my response may prompt. So I end up explaining myself two steps ahead just to prevent an unnecessary debate. It’s difficult to explain really, but I think it stems from my work in the legal space regarding drafting of contracts between organisations.

    I think it’s my exposure to dishonest people in the work place, and in life, and the bad after taste of dealing with them is what drives me to be so pedantic at times. It’s an arrogant desire to want to shut them up decisively so that they have no graceful exit from the conversation at all. But it takes a lot to push me to the point where I respond so callously towards someone. 

    So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I don’t try to do anything differently, nor do I like to attract undue attention to myself. I just grow easily frustrated with people living unconsciously and I’m naive enough to believe that people in general are as driven as I am to improve the way they do things. So I volunteer my opinion or advice which is often misconstrued as arrogance. But I can’t help myself. 

  • The Odd One

    One of the problems of assuming familiarity with people too easily, especially online, is that I tend to volunteer my opinion on very personal and sensitive issues without realising that I’m probably still a stranger to them, or at best, an acquaintance. My ability to sometimes grasp the essence of people’s current state, especially emotionally, often leads to me feeling more deeply concerned for their well being than would ever be considered normal. As a result, I tend to freak people out when I formulate an opinion about what they’re experiencing and how they should deal with it, despite them hardly having discussed the details with me. 

    I feel like a weirdo at times. Perhaps I am. But it seems to work for me, most of the time anyway. Perhaps I’ve just grown comfortable with being the odd one out, and as a result, I’ve had enough time and a really good vantage point to see the tediousness of being normal and fitting in. Conformance has rarely appealed to me, and given that conformance most often leads to complacency, I tend to loathe it, quite visibly at times as well. But it’s not just loathing it to be difficult, but because I see how lethargic people become about life when they grow complacent and try so hard to fit in and be accepted. They give up everything that makes them beautifully unique and only hold onto that which is overtly celebrated by others. 

    Ramblings of a madman indeed. 

  • Another Anon but same OCD…

    I have to wash my hands sticf´tfully and sometime more than two times and it injures my skin. If I take a shower I don’t really feel the need to be strict with my body but my hands always have to be clean. Or if I feel like something that touched my pubic area(awra) I feel like crazy washing that part. I just feel very impure and non of my deeds will be accepted. And yes I am wasting so much soap. I don’t know you said find the reason and I tried – part 2;

    Continued…SO I thought about my past and I found out that I was masturbating without knowing that it is wrong. When I got a guilty feeling after some time after doing such stuff I told my mom and she got mad at me. And since then it is a BIG NO NO for me. And since I did it with my hands they got kind of “ugly and impure”. I never touched my down there even if it was for cleaning purpose I would wear gloves and what not. But I try to learn that my body isn’t something impure. I am a teenager now and I got a boyfriend, I regret it and I didn’t have sex or anything I broke up befor but he was very sexually, like his jokes and stuff. And I didn’t have the power to say stop it. But one day I did and blaah. But now I felt like because of my loneliness that I have to masturbate. I did it without knowing. It just happened. And I got a feeling and I was WTH was that. And I just did it till one told me that you have to do ghusl. Soo.. this plus my OCD is freaking me out. I am loosing my self trust I start to question everything. Did you reallllyy wash that part, did you wash your mouth did you do it 3 times. And it is just exhausting. So I kind of got addicted to masturbating but I have to take ghusl after it but I can’t. Actually I do now since I know but it is like going through hell. Why do I have to masturbate? I have to think on sexual stuff all the time. I can’t controle it anymore. I just don’t want to do anything else than sex… it’s so embarrassing I don’t know what to do

    Assalaamu Alaykum,

    For starters, I would set the labels aside. OCD, although it may be a fairly good description of the behavioural tendencies you’re feeling about cleaning yourself, has such a huge stigma attached to it that without realising it, you end up trying to deal with the stigma more than you’re dealing with the actual problem. The real issue is what is driving you to feel so dirty or impure, and secondly, why the need to pleasure yourself as often as you do.

     

    I’m not going to go into the issue of labels again, because I think I’ve debated it ad nauseum recently, so having said all that, I think you need to start by accepting that the past is the past. Whatever you did then is done and cannot be undone. So rather than reminding yourself about past mistakes, limit yourself to referring to the past only to explain present behaviour, but not to undermine what good you may have achieved since then. And more importantly, accept that your duas for forgiveness have been accepted and trust in Allah’s mercy. Doubts around that are only encouraged by Shaytaan because that’s his way of convincing you to feel helpless which makes you do things to distract yourself from the guilt or persist in what you’re doing because you don’t see the point in stopping.

    The positive thread through all of this is that you appear to be genuinely concerned about changing the behaviour that is proving to be destructive for you, so that’s a good starting point. The problem with attaching negative labels to yourself is that it makes you feel inherently unworthy. In your case, that appears to be triggering a vicious cycle because you feel dirty, you try to clean, you touch yourself to clean and then get drawn into pleasuring yourself, which results in the guilt, which results in you trying to clean yourself excessively, which is leading to physical harm to your skin, etc. The cycle needs to be broken, but that’s always easier said than done.

    The sense I’m getting is that there is a low self-worth underlying both issues, i.e. the ‘OCD’ as well as the masturbation. If you’re feeling disgusted about yourself for whatever reason, it would stand to reason then that you would not be able to imagine yourself as being attractive to anyone else (or at least not anyone that you would want to find you attractive), so automatically that would lead you sub-consciously to want to ‘take care of yourself’ since it’s unlikely that anyone else will want to take care of you that way. However, you’re also committed to your moral obligations, which leads to the guilt associated with doing what you’re doing, so that just adds to the vicious cycle.

    To break it, I think you need to consider a dual approach. Firstly, you need to identify what are the ideal circumstances under which you are able to masturbate without fear of being caught. You’ll probably be able to find some helpful ideas and information here about ways to break the habit. In fact, read through some of the posts relating to masturbation on that site and you’ll realise that firstly, you’re not alone in this, and secondly, it is possible to break the cycle.

    The problems you’re facing with excessively cleaning or washing yourself needs to be dealt with slightly differently. You’re doubting whether or not you cleaned a certain part of your body already, which suggests that there is again a lack of confidence or self-worth, hence you doubting yourself so easily; and secondly, you need to establish a fixed routine about how you go about bathing, or making ghusl. What I mean is, if you fix a routine that says that you’ll start with your hair, then wash your face, then your ears, then your arms, etc. and you ensure that you follow exactly that routine every single time, you’ll have less reason to wonder whether you cleaned a certain part already or not. Another option is to not rinse the soap off any part until you’re completely done. That way, if it’s still soapy, you know you already cleaned it.

    Insha-Allah as it becomes habit/routine, the confidence will improve and the self-doubt will decline, which will allow you to assume a more flexible routine around cleansing yourself. If you want to discuss this in more detail, please email me directly. You’ll find my email address on my homepage. I hope this helps, and please don’t hesitate to discuss this further with me or my wife, if you’ll feel more comfortable going into more detail with her.

    Insha-Allah you’ll overcome this and realise that your shortcomings do not define who you are, how you deal with them is what determines your character and your self-worth.

  • Question – Choices

    seinedoll replied to your post: seinedoll replied to your quote: Our past only…

    This is exactly what I mean. Perhaps I’m paying for the past with living in perpetual anxiety. Perhaps it will resurface too. Who knows. Either way I’ll pay for it.

    We always pay for it, one way or another. So it’s hardly necessary for us to torment ourselves about it in the process because I believe that if we’re sincere, the trials that befall us in life is a direct result of that which we previously perpetrated against others. It always reminds me of that verse from Surah Baqara that says:

    Allah does not charge a soul except [with that within] its capacity. It will have [the consequence of] what [good] it has gained, and it will bear [the consequence of] what [evil] it has earned. ~ Qur’an 2:286

    The verse that immediately follows it is probably the most important plea to Allah that any believer can make (in my opinion anyway):

    “Our Lord, do not impose blame upon us if we have forgotten or erred. Our Lord, and lay not upon us a burden like that which You laid upon those before us. Our Lord, and burden us not with that which we have no ability to bear. And pardon us; and forgive us; and have mercy upon us. You are our protector, so give us victory over the disbelieving people.” ~ Qur’an 2:286

    Feeling guilty or expecting to pay for what you did, and letting it show in the way you handle similar situations in future is reflective of remorse. Those that lack remorse are usually arrogant, condescending and inconsiderate in their demeanour. The world is full of people like that. Excessive guilt over past mistakes can be unnecessarily damaging to the point where it prevents us from pursuing good actions as well. It’s a vicious cycle that usually has no end in sight, which is why it’s important to remain grounded about it. That’s why we’re taught that:

    None of you should die without expecting good from Allah.

    [Sahih Muslim, Book 40, Number 6877]

    This is starting to sound like a bayaan. 🙂 But I guess I need these reminders more than anyone else, since like many others, I am my own worst enemy. Besides, we live in a world where there is no shortage of people that want to rub your nose in your past mistakes, so why do it to yourself?