My Apocalypse

Dear Fatima,
I’ve been cutting for a while, i feel that it’s a way i can release my pain without anyone else getting hurt, I feel its a better way to do things than exploding on my parents or being hurtful to people. I’m 15 and i’ve been home schooled for 3 years now. My parents like to paint their own picture of me & i just want to be able to paint my own self. I dont really have many “friends” or people i can go to that completely understand because my parents like to pick my friends for me & they only want the best for me. I have amazing friends, but i just feel like they don’t understand sometimes .__. … Im sick of people telling me that all the love you really need is from “Allah” & that i need to become “Aware” of his presence. I think essentially everybody needs to feel loved & the reason why most cutters cut including myself is because there not loved, even though i want to feel loved, I find it hard to find that love in Allah… and the reason why i putt my Title as “My Apocalypse” is because i know that if i cant find love in god ill just keep destroying myself. I’ve tried investing my love into people & it never really worked out… but me being stupid >_> i still try and find love in places where it cant be held. I found other alternatives to invest my love in, one of them is music, but i dont really think thats working out either, just cuz it putts you in different mood swings… depending on what you’re listening to. But yeah… honestly i feel like no one can really save me from myself & that i can’t be influenced by some hadith or an Ayah in the Quran… i need to feel loved & im not necessarily ready to find it in god.
One last thing, i wanted to thank a sister that came up to me and introduced me to this site at an ISNA convention in Houston… She was trying to get ideas for the website & she was asking for my help. little did she know that i needed this, WALAHI i want to thank the people who made this website, i never really thought id feel this comfortable expressing myself on this website or any website, & walahi i want this website to go be extremely popular… A LOT of youth need something like this.
Jazakallahkhairan

Click here to read how Stones to Bridges helped this user!

As Salaam alaikum

Dear My Apocalypse,

I am so happy you met the young lady that introduced you to the site – God works in mysterious ways – He has heard your cry, and inshaAllah has sent you along to this site to get the help you need.

First it takes a lot to acknowledge and verbalize problems you are facing, and to come forth with news of you cutting is huge. I would like you to know you are not alone, in fact not too long ago – a young individual also posted about cutting. Self harm or cutting is away of expressing how one feels and is a way for some to deal with their problems. The thing is, you aren’t going to find love through harming  yourself. I am sure you  have heard over and over again you must love yourself – and its absolutely true. You deserve to be loved, but you have to find love for yourself first.

My first suggestion would be to talk to someone in your area to help you cope with your emotions and help you understand better ways to express what you are feeling. Perhaps talk to your parents or a really good friend. Or if you’d like we can help you find a trained professional that you can talk to and get help that you need.  [If you would like us to refer you to a therapist or even just want to talk to someone who cares, please feel free to email us your contact info, including city and state to info@nuryouthforum.org].

Next with this trained professional or a good trusted friend, try and understand why you cut. It takes time to come to the actual conclusion, but talking about it can sometimes help with the urge to cut.

Also look into alternative ways to deal with the emotions rather than cutting. For example write out your emotions, paint or draw, and or exercise (this can help release anger and frustration).

Next, find ways to boost your self worth. You are a beautiful person, its apparent in just this short post. Let yourself see the beauty.

Here are a few ways you can do this:

Recognize and embrace your positive qualities. Start by making a list of all your qualities including skills, experiences, talents, and anything else that makes you feel good about yourself. Add to the list the compliments that others have given you as well.

Understand and accept that you are a desirable package rather than any one individual item. Also, accept that you are not perfect. Don’t let any one particular shortcoming negate that you are a complex, multifaceted desirable human being.

Trust that you are competent. Remind yourself of all the problems you have faced and tackled. Have faith that even if you cannot deal with a problem yourself that you will have the ingenuity to get the help, skills, or knowledge that you need.

Lastly, look in a full size mirror and pick five things that you are looking at that make you feel good. You can pick five things you see on the outside such as your physical attributes: eyes, lips, hair, nails, legs, feet, toes, or smile. You can also pick things related to your style such as: your hairdo, clothing, or stance. Or you can also pick items that come from the inside such as: your sparkle, spirit, energy, compassion, or kindness. Try this every day for a week.

Remember  your strengths and keep moving forward. I have faith that you will be able to overcome this. Its ok to breakdown every now and then, but remember you are strong enough to overcome it.

– Fatima SD

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Dear My Apocalypse,

Assalamu ‘alaykum,

One of the places that I have always found an overlap between the mental health field and Islam is that both point to the fact that there is an inner wisdom in people that most can uncover by stepping back and listening to their innermost knowledge.  In Islam we give it a name – fitrah – what I like to refer to is that inner light that is trying to guide us closer to Allah (swt). It is clear that you have a strong inner light.

It’s telling you that you have deep feelings of being unloved, alone, and without someone who understands you and that you are expressing those feelings by hurting yourself.  It’s telling you that this method isn’t going to help in the long run – just provide temporary “relief” that doesn’t get to the main issue. It’s also telling you that pouring yourself into music, people, and head knowledge isn’t going to solve your problem either.  Your wish is a heart wish, and it will require a heart solution.

The journey you will need to take is into yourself, to discover why you feel unloved, to discover why you feel like nobody can save you from yourself, and to discover what drives the part of you that isn’t ready to accept Allah’s help.  As you begin to understand those parts of yourself you will be able to ask yourself whether those things need to be true, or if there are other ways to understand the world and other ways to feel.  When you ask yourself those questions, though, it’s going to make a lot of feelings come up that might make you feel worse at first.  So you need to build in support to keep yourself balanced in the process – like finding a spiritual song that keeps you grounded, finding a friend that bring you joy, exercising, etc.

It’s hard for me to give you specific advice without being across from you having a conversation about how you got where you are.  I would highly recommend seeking counseling because that person will be able to have those conversations with you and because working through these issues will be multilayered and will take time.  [If you would like us to refer you to a therapist or even just want to talk to someone who cares, please feel free to email us your contact info, including city and state to info@nuryouthforum.org].

At the same time, I would invite you to see that God’s hand in our lives is more than just the “high” we sometimes feel when we listen to Qur’an or the excitement that we get when we see the Ka’ba.  Allah’s hand in our lives sometimes takes the form of someone who comes up to us unexpectedly at a conference and tells us about a resource that turns out to be a way to change our lives.  Those doorways are opportunities for us to grow and change – and what else does Allah (swt) want from us but to reach our potential?

–       Fatima FM

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Dear MyApocalypse,

I think you are talking about few things that are all interrelated. First we are talking about cutting, which clearly shows that you are in pain. It appears that your pain stems from having difficulty with finding your identity and finding ways to love yourself. You are at time in your life when you are learning to question things and think about everything abstractly and decide what and who you want to be and what you to believe. As we get older and begin to form our own identities, some of our opinions vary from our parents and that’s okay and only reasonable; we are growing up in a totally different set of circumstances from them. Right now what is important for you to do is figure out who you are, what your identity and what kind of things you love to do. Try different activities in your community, like sports, clubs, volunteer work, or anything that really appeals to you. Once you start figuring out who you are, you need to learn to love yourself. You have to say to yourself no excuses, no apologies I am who I am and I love myself. Once you can achieve that it means you have conquered your pain.

Also I would encourage you to talk to an adult near you about cutting and let them in on your secret or perhaps speak to a counselor in your area. It is important you are safe, physically and emotionally and a counselor can best assess that and give you coping skill and techniques to prevent you from hurting yourself. I believe that you can get through this, especially since you had the courage to write this post.

My prayers and thoughts are with you.

 –       Fatima NI

[You may also like to read the responses to a similar Dear Fatima question we received previously. Check out the post entitled “Self-Harm” in our Dear Fatima section].