Issues with my Mother

Issues with my Mother

I am a high school senior and I am sometimes lazy with my homework. I procrastinate so much and get distracted on the internet. My mother complains a lot and she does not stop when she starts. I have seen a lot of physical abuse in my family and although it deeply upsets me, I get aggressive sometimes, too. I throw objects around the house. I threw a phone and I unintentionally made my mother’s nose bleed and the phone left bruises under her eye. Her face looks terrible and I wonder if I could even be arrested for what I have done because I am no longer a teenager. I want to tell someone what happened, but I don’t know how to approach the situation.

As salaamu alaykum,

First, I commend you for being self aware enough to see that there is potentially an issue that needs to be addressed and for owning up to your actions. It is often difficult to recognize or admit to ourselves that our anger led to an action that we are not proud of. But this is something that most people deal with in different ways, and being self reflective of it and taking action to correct it is the most important thing.
As you said, you have witnessed physical abuse in your family. When we are around others who deal with certain emotions and situations in a particular way, we inevitably learn to take on those same reactive behavior patterns. Whether we like it or not it can become a learned behavior that seeps into our way of coping with things that cause stress. It sounds like this is what could be happening with you and your experiences witnessing people respond with physical abuse and aggression have affected your own reactions, even though it is something you dislike. The positive thing is that you are aware of it and with this post you are showing a maturity in taking responsibility for your own actions and asking for help to make changes.
I think it would be very helpful for you to do some anger management education for yourself. Most ideally this would be in a one on one setting with a professional counselor who can both help you understand your emotions in the context of your family relationships, and address the incident with your mother, while at the same time helping you develop tools and alternative responses to dealing with difficult-to-contain emotions. Basically what you need is to unlearn those aggressive response impulses and learn new, healthier ways of managing and dealing with your frustration and anger when it arises. You can use the resources on this website to help you locate a counselor near you. Alternatively there are also anger management classes and programs that meet in groups or similar set up if you are uncomfortable with seeking one on one counseling at the moment or if it is financially more feasible. You can also seek out educational materials or books on anger management that can help you continue to be self reflective in this way and give you some guidance on how to develop healthy coping mechanisms.
And from an Islamic perspective, we learn from hadith what to do in these instances as the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) has taught us some strategies for dealing with anger. For example, he said:
“I know a word, the saying of which will cause him to relax, if he does say it. If he says: ‘I seek Refuge with Allah from Satan’ then all his anger will go away.” [Al-Bukhari; Vol. 4, No. 502]
And he said,
“Anger comes from the devil, the devil was created of fire, and fire is extinguished only with water; so when one of you becomes angry, he should perform ablution.” [Abu Daud; Book 41, No. 4766]
Abu Dharr narrated: The Apostle of Allah, sallallahu ‘alayhi wasallam, said to us: “When one of you becomes angry while standing, he should sit down. If the anger leaves him, well and good; otherwise he should lie down.” [Abu Daud; Book 41, No. 4764]
Anger is a natural human emotion. And we certainly see many people around us acting out with aggression in response to frustration or even injustice. However, it is up to us to control this human impulse and to take responsibility to get it under control. This takes self awareness as the first step and then the next step is to take the necessary actions and precautions to keep ourselves from this type of harmful response. 
I pray that Allah makes it easy for you to take the necessary steps to get this under control and to find the help you need to support you in this effort.
Sincerely,
Your brother in Islam,
“Fatima Y”

3 thoughts on “Issues with my Mother”

  1. Anonymous

    Did you apologize to your mother, even though it was accidental? More than being arrested, I would be worried about upsetting Allah. Saying “uff” to your mother is not acceptable, so a physical pain you caused her definitely calls for an apology. And you never know, that apology may lead to closed doors opening in both her heart and yours. I get that you are upset with your mother’s behavior but from what I have read, your own attitude is not on par with what you expect from others. BE the person you want others to become. When your mother or family member is showing bad behavior…return that behavior by staying absolutely calm and answering in a normal un-angry tone. You know once when I was young and always angry, once my sister said something to upset and I started screaming at the top of my lungs…in return she kept talking very normally in her soft tone and eventually I began to feel so dumb. SOmetimes it takes a few of these occurrences, but each time control your response and eventually the person in front of you will begin to wonder why they’re acting all hyper when you are so calm. If you can’t control yourself…then ask yourself why you expect the other to? Good luck and please don’t forget to apologize to your mother. Put lotion on her feet when she’s laying down, when she’s the most angry, hug her and say “calm down mommy” with a sweet kiss…sometimes our parents are just so lonely and tired of a long hard life, they don’t know where else to take it out.

  2. HA18

    Salaam,

    I know you feel terrible about hurting your mother and I am sure seeing those bruises makes you feel awful. You might have a mix of emotions, such as why did you do that, you don’t feel like you are acting like yourself, but at the same time you want to feel like what you did was the right thing to do/justified because of some of your mom’s actions towards you, etc.

    I wanted to commend you for being so brave to try to own up to what you did. You recognize within yourself that this is something bad and something that you don’t want. You are also trying to piece together what caused you to do this (history of abuse, mom’s behaviors that make you feel guilty). It’s so great and brave of you to try to face this instead of bury it under a bunch of excuses. Good for you for being so strong.

    You will need to ask Allah for more strength and to guide you to a way to change. If you can’t work with a counselor, try to find anger management resources online.

    This is not something you are going to do for others. It’s easy to say that you want to stop this behavior because you feel bad that you unintentionally injured your mom. Or it’s easy to say that there is physical abuse in your house so you are just keeping with the trend. Really ask yourself…what kind of person do YOU want to be? If you were a third person looking at yourself, would you think it’s fine to throw things around the house because you got really annoyed or you witness this behavior elsewhere? It’s gunna take some time…it will take some failures and have it’s ups and downs, but if deep in your heart you don’t want to be this person, Allah will guide you. Allah will give you the power and strength to overcome an emotion that is extremely powerful like anger. If you can overcome the power that the emotion has on you, you will become more powerful than it. You will be free because YOU are the person in control. You are the strong person and the power is in your hands. The beautiful thing about it is that you have the power to hurt and cause fear, but you choose mercy instead.

    I am so proud of you for taking this first step. Don’t let what happened get you down…keep moving, one step at a time.

    Imam Ali ibn Abu Talib (a.s.) has these quotes:

    “The most powerful person is the one who is victorious over his anger with his forbearance.”
    “Protect yourself from anger for its beginning is insanity and its end is remorse.”

    • Anonymous

      Thank you. I know it’s wrong while I’m angry but I also don’t want to stop when I start. InshAllah I will get better.