Sinner

I am a young woman turning 18 in a few days. I have the habit of sinning with the intention of repenting, which grew more these past few days since my way of thought was that I could sin such as by watching and listening to haram material and masturbating, up until I’m 18, and then I wouldn’t do it anymore. Even as I’m writing this I still have that mindset. How can I get myself to care about sinning? I don’t feel so guilty.

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Assalamu ‘alaykum, 

You identified a tricky problem with growth. It’s important to break up what you want to do into chunks, but if you don’t have the support and structure around you so that you can hold yourself accountable, then it’s easy to change the rules for yourself — which means that you can avoid actually doing the work it takes to grow.

It sounds like you have a tough problem that is really hard to give up.

Sometimes we stick with things that are bad for us because they are feeding some hole inside us. For example, some people eat to distract themselves from unpleasent emotions, to make themselves “feel better”. Many addictions start this way – whether it’s to food, or drugs, or pornography. Yet, those behaviors don’t deal with the underlying issue, the underlying feelings that are asking to be heard.

Once behaviors become habits, or even addictions, they are very hard to deal with on your own.

It takes a process of figuring out what is under the behaviors, ways to manage the behaviors while you deal with what is under them, and figuring out ways to build your strengths so that you can avoid falling into the unhealthy behaviors again. In addition, filling the hole with something healthy is important. For some this might mean also filling yourself with worship of Allah (swt) and a relationship with Allah (swt). 

Whatever direction you take, this process requires working with someone who knows how to help you, guide you, and will hold you accountable to your plan for health.

If just stop the behaviors but don’t deal with the underlying issue, then when you get rid of one unhealthy behavior, sometimes a new one shows up, and it won’t take long for you to be right back where you started. That’s why it’s important to work with someone who is trained in addition to having supportive family members and/or friends around you.

wa ‘alaykum salam,

Your sister in Islam

“Fatima Z”