Unwanted and Unappreciated

Salaams Fatima,

I am a 26 year old male medical student in the United States – raised here since I was about 2 years old. I have issues with feeling unappreciated and unwanted, and I feel inferior to other people.

It begins with the fact that I have a stammer that makes it difficult for me to talk to people. Even though I get by, I can’t say things the way I want. I can’t use the words I want, I can’t speak in foreign languages, and the stammer impacts my body language. Yeah sure, I don’t get teased anymore. But no one respects me. I can say the same joke or same comment as someone else, but because of how it is presented from my mouth it never gets appreciated from me, whereas when the other person says it it has a better impact.

Secondly, I am Bangladeshi. I am sick and tired of the whole world thinking I am nothing because of this. The Western world looks down on South Asians in general, anyways, but the Ummah itself looks down upon my country. I am tired of Pakistanis saying things about me eating fish all day. I am tired of Arabs and Iranians and Indians and Afghanis all looking down on me and treating me like something small. I am tired of all these people marrying Bangladeshi girls but they all refuse to let Bangladeshi men marry their daughters. I am tired of Bangladeshis themselves preferring foreign men over Bangladeshi men.

I never got appreciation from my parents when I needed it the most. They yelled at me for the stupidest things, and when things went badly in my academic life they blamed me and yelled at me and said horrible things instead of giving me emotional support. I need a hug, not their curses. They are better at it now, but the damage has been already done over the years.

I am tired of Muslims either thinking I am too religious or not religious enough. I am tired of looking in the mirror and seeing my unaesthetic countenance everyday.

I feel the only way I can ever have friends or get married is to compromise my desires. I will never marry the girl I want or have the friends I want – I will only marry the girl who is unfortunate enough to be rejected from everyone else and only have the friends who can’t be with the cool kids.

I know I shouldn’t care. I should care about the akhirah. People will say that “oh well this is just Allah keeping you away from people who are not good for you” or “Allah is teaching you to not care about this dunya” or whatever. And they may point out that I am lucky to be in med school and that I have food and shelter and parents and etc.

The thing is, I see other people who are getting their fairy tale lives come true. They marry who they want and the have the friends they want. I would much rather have the people I want in my life and not have as much money than have money and success but be alone.

Why am I in this situation? Am I just supposed to let go of my desires and focus on the akhirah? Am I supposed to compromise my desires and just be happy with what I get? I am tired of being rejected and ignored.

I can’t even hang out with people anymore because I am tired of seeing all Bangladeshi female acquaintances with non-Bengali men, Muslim women with non-Muslim men. I am tired of saying things and people just nodding dumbly because they either don’t respect what I say or they can’t understand it, and yet others get appreciated for their words.

I hate being friendly to people only to have them not care about me or take advantage of me. I am tired of being attracted to women who couldn’t care less about me.

I am tired of the world putting me “in my place”. I want more. If they can have more, why can’t I?

I don’t know how to find a dialectic between making du’a with trust that He will grant you what you ask for with the notion that we shouldn’t even care about the dunya anymore than a traveler cares about his time at an inn. Everyone around me seems to have a better inn than me – or more accurately, better travel company than me.

Assalamu ‘alaykum, 

I am really sorry that you got teased for your stammer and that your parents were not a safe spot to go to for emotional support. I am really glad that, despite all of the negative messages coming at you, that you were able to hold onto the fact that you deserve respect and that you don’t need to be confined to a “place” that the world wants you to occupy.

It’s true, there is racism in our community, and there is only so much that we can do to help those who are stuck in that ideology make the emotional hijrah (journey) that is required of them. It’s also true that people make fun of what makes them uncomfortable. However, each of us is responsible for trying to work on ourselves to make this world a better place. Working for a better world is part of thinking about the akhirah in addition to doing the traditionally “religious” things like praying and fasting. 

It seems like all of your experiences have come together to create in you a general feeling of ” I am unappreciated and unwanted”. Though you have great reasons for why those feelings have showed up, the challenge is that sometimes when things happen over and over, we begin to expect the same results. So in a new situation, you might be quick to interpret your interactions with others as them looking down on you, or not appreciating you — rather than spending the time to see whether they actually like you or not. You may also come into new situations with your guard up, which protects you in some ways, but also hides the true you. This might prevent people from meeting the real you and coming to appreciate you for you are.

It takes a lot of courage to keep trying to connect with others, especially when you’ve had trouble in the past. And it’s easy to give up hope that you will ever find people that “get” you. I would like to offer that the struggle for connection is one that many, many people experience. So you are definitely not alone in that place… 

Here are a few (practical) thoughts based on what you wrote:

1) You are clearly an articulate, self-reflective person, who writes well. Have you considered trying to meet people online? It would both widen your pool of potential prospects so it’s easier to find people that would get where you are coming from and how you see the world; it would also allow you both to get to know each other a bit before the nerves of talking in person get in the way.

2) The Qur’an tells the story of Musa with such power. He made a huge difference in the lives of those around him… and he struggled with a speech impediment. The movie “The King’s speech” showed the struggle of managing a stammer so that the king could get on with the business of leading. So perhaps you could consider tackling the stammer head on so you can get on with the business of living our life. There are clubs like Toastmasters or professionals like speech therapists that might offer some simple skill building techniques so that you are more confident in your joke delivery, and so you can manage in situations where things like stress make it harder to express yourself.

3) Try (I know it’s hard) to gather evidence in each new situation. I’m sure you are learning this in medical school – how to gather information about symptoms and make sure that you are diagnosing the situation correctly. Try to answer the questions – am I showing my true self or am I hiding? what specific thing did the other person do to make me feel unappreciated? (You may benefit from reading some of Brene Brown’s work)

4) Try to find things that you are grateful for, as gratitude is one way that we appreciate Allah (swt), and gratitude for things including the difficult things helps us approach life with less anger, and therefore more possibility of happiness.

5) Perhaps ask yourself, is there a pattern of the type of people I am trying to connect with? You say “I’m tired of being attracted to women who couldn’t care less about me” and you say “I had being friendly to people only to have them not care about me or take advantage of me.” In another part of your post, you say that you don’t want to hang out with those who have been “rejected” by others. This thread could lead to some very deep work that you could do with a counselor if you choose to do so.

The last thing that I want to say is that there is a theme running through your post of advice that people have given to you around not caring about the dunya, letting go of your desires, and wanting what you don’t have. I would like to offer that it is because we care about the dunya that Allah (swt) provides us opportunities to see inside ourselves. All of these desires link back to places where we could grow, and they are opportunities for us to outgrow the things that hold us back. I can’t say why you were given the particular set of circumstances that you were, but I do know that there are deep lessons in it for you. So perhaps you have a lot more power in this situation than you think and you can change the question from “why is this happening to me” to “which of my (many) strengths can I bring to this situation so that I can (1) become a better person, and (2) help others also become better people through compassionate connection?”

Your Sister in Islam,

Fatima Z