My iman has completely disintegrated
As-salamu alaykum I’m just struggling with something that has been bothering me and has been going on for the past two or three months. I’ve always struggled with praying fajr. And I started going from never praying ever to praying five times a day every day and it worked for maybe a couple years, but then this year something changed. First I started to miss Fajr. Then it was Isha. And for a while I was just struggling to wake up to pray and also struggling to stay awake to pray. I always felt tired or discouraged or just bothered and just didn’t want to pray. And then I started to delay prayers. I would sometimes race to go make wudu because I was going to miss the current prayer and there were two minutes left until the next Adhan, and so on. And every time I got my period, it would become worse because obviously when you’re on your period, you don’t pray, so it became harder to integrate prayer into my routine and now I basically only pray one prayer a day. My guilt is nonexistent. Even though I know I need to pray and that it’s an obligation, I don’t feel particularly guilty. And another part of it is I’ve been struggling with a sin and I’m not sure if I can say the sin on here because it would be considered exposing my sins? But basically I’m 15 and it’s a sin that is something that I never started on purpose, but I discovered it and have been doing it on and off for maybe three years. Sometimes there’s months in between the next time I do the sin, sometimes it happens multiple times in a day. And I’m hoping you have an idea on what the sin is, but anyways for that scene I’m not sure I feel guilty anymore. Either. I just feel like talking to Allah has become so hard for me even telling him that I’m tired or telling him that I don’t know how to talk to him. even simple things of what I truly feel feel so performative. And I’m also trying to change my life in a lot of different areas and I guess I’m obsessed with self growth. For example, at the beginning of this year I had a plan, that, unfortunately I used AI for — and that’s something else that I’m struggling with. I basically use AI every single day for every single worry or dilemma. I have to the point where I’m not sure if I have self-confidence in my own choices and sometimes I feel like I’m treating AI as a godly character cause I always turn to AI because it responds and it gives me action and actually tells me what to do and it gets me out of my own head and makes me feel like I have a good idea of what “normal” should be — but anyways, in this plan I had a list of traits and qualities that I wanted to embody and practice for each month. For example rahma, ihsan, and just other Islamic traits for each month in 2026. For September, my trait is Rida, which is contentment and first of all I feel like these eight months of 2026 have been absolutely abominable. I have not grown in the way I wanted to. I have not followed the plan that I set out for myself, and many of the goals and books and just things that I wanted to learn did not happen. I feel like I failed each trait of those past eight months. I don’t feel sincere. I don’t feel honest. I don’t feel full of love. and I find myself in September, in a month of contentment, but feeling not content with my life. I still feel insecure. I still feel like I’m an impostor at school, I still feel like I haven’t grown and I haven’t become the wise mature knowledgeable kind and calm Muslimah that I wanted to be. But there are four months left and my goals for September are to number one read persuasion by Jane Austen, because I really do think books contain all of the knowledge of the world, and even though it’s a classic, and it’s gonna have difficult language I’d like to try. I also just want to improve in my extra hygiene routines, and I’d also like to stop turning to AI. I feel like because I’ve always gone to AI for my problems, I’ve developed this mindset that for me to actually find advice and be helped, the advice has to be deeply personalised to my own life. But I wanna start learning from things that don’t look exactly like my life, so that I can connect different experiences, and see how I can learn to help myself. But yeah, the thing with this year is I just feel really disappointed that I’m not able to look at my plan, look at the traits that I set out for myself, and say that I’ve successfully embodied any of them. And I know that this mindset is kind of like bad and I know I’m not really asking any specific question but I just wanted to share some of my struggles and get some advice.
I’ve always been obsessed with, actually maybe not obsessed but just really fond of aesthetics and instructions.
My brain loves instructions because I just can never figure out what I’m supposed to do without them. And I love aesthetics because it gives my heart something to hope for, but is also unrealistically cinematic and makes me sad when my own life can’t be like what I see or feel.
Another thing I’m struggling with is I feel like I wanna start listening to music. I know music is haram, and while I know this, I still feel like listening to music would heal a lot of parts of me. and I know I should be saying this for Quran, but Quran doesn’t soothe my heart as much as calming audio on Instagram does. Which is really sad to say. And it’s not really like an intense desire to listen to music, it’s more of like a wish that I could just to feel something.
I feel like I just have so many problems, and I can’t even mentally think about them all at the same time. I always feel like I’m losing track of things that I need to remember or else I’m gonna lose myself. Then while in reality it’s not as dramatic as I’m describing it, this is how it feels. And I also know I’m not really making any sense
So right now, the things that are bothering me most is I just feel that overall, my face has really been deteriorating and yet I still can’t bring myself to pray. I feel I don’t have the energy or willpower. Prayer doesn’t make me happy.
Oh also I’m really sorry but another thing that I’ve been struggling with lately, as I feel that all the teenagers around me, and all my friends, have such lively and vibrant lives.
For example, most of my friends are either Lebanese or Pakistani. Those two cultures are full of gatherings, and parties, and events. I have no family friends and while I do have friends at school, I can’t really go out with them. And family is just a whole other major issue.
Today my dad told me that if I wanted to, I could message my auntie and set up a day with her to hang out. And this to me feels like a part of the life that I’d like to have, but it also feels just so unnatural to me. This auntie is the only family that I have in this country, and yet I barely talk to . The only time when I talk to her or see her is when we go to her house which is occasional, and I would love a cute aunt and niece relationship, and an extravagant day in the city with her for example, but I just don’t have a close relationship with her yet. And this is the thing I feel like I struggle with as well, I feel like I don’t know how to create close relationships with people. Whether it’s friends, people that I like at school, or even my own parents, I don’t know how to form close relationships with other people. Sometimes it feels like everyone just doesn’t like me, and that’s exaggerated but it’s like a mild feeling.
And I feel like there’s so many other things that I need help with, but I can’t think of them right now. I just feel stuck and unaccomplished. And I feel like I have a lot of interest and a lot of desires and a lot of ambition, but it just goes away and I become lazy or demotivated. I think I have the idea in my brain that if I just gain a lot of knowledge, and read books, and etc, I would become someone more likable and liked. I want to learn, and I want to learn stuff like psychology, how everyone’s brains work, social studies, and deep, philosophical concepts. In my plan that I made at the start of the year I also included one book for each month, and the majority of those books were self-help books, and I was never able to finish a single one. And I think that’s because they were just very long summaries, and long chapters that described why I should want a certain quality, or certain thing, but never told me how to attain or achieve that thing. I’m just tired of trying to be better and I wish I could just be secure and self-confident. I’m worried that I’m so crazed into wanting change, good change for myself, that I’m sabotaging my own ability to learn properly. One of the books that I started to read was the courage to be disliked and it was really annoying, I really don’t like that book. It has some similarities with Islam, but otherwise I find Adlerian psychology to be quite harsh and dismissive, and also black-and-white. Another book I tried to read was the seven habits of highly effective teenagers, as well as the four agreements, the alchemist, and why did no one tell me this before. All of those books are unfinished and that’s why this month I decided to change to fiction. Sorry I don’t know why I’m talking about this so much. I’m lying down in bed and honestly very tired and my voice feels tired and my head feels tired. I’m just gonna post this.
I’m just really tired. And I’m sorry if this writing has any typos or looks weird, I’m using the dictation tool on my phone to talk to type
Anyways, thank you so much in advance for any advice
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Response from a “Fatima Counselor”:
Wa ‘alaykum salam,
I can understand the tired side of you; it has been working so hard, but doesn’t have a clear map of what to do and why to do it. After trying so many things, it feels like you have become overwhelmed and a bit frozen and unmotivated to keep trying and striking out.
First, I want to say, the fact that you are posting and asking means that your imaan has not disintegrated completely. It is still there in your heart.
When we are building a building, we start with a blueprint, then we pour a foundation, put up the frame, install the plumbing and electrical, then we work on the drywall and flooring, we paint, and then we decorate.
It sounds to me that you are trying to do it all at once. You have piled on so many goals that you are doing a little of them all and not finishing any of them.
I would recommend that you sit back and organize a bit.
First – what does your heart need to notice and appreciate Allah’s presence in your life? Practicing the noticing, and offering gratitude helps to build the connection with Allah. Some questions to start with might include:
What blessings are in my life?
What have I been protected from? (ex. Allah has not exposed the sin you mentioned in your post. That protects your honor and gives you time to address it.)
Where do I feel most connected to Allah? (ex. Outside? When I learn about the natural world? When I listen to audio tracks?)
Next, I would suggest you expand on what you learn.
If being outside helps you feel connected, find time to go outside and engage in gratitude for the things around you. As you do this, take deep breaths and feel the gratitude in your body.
If music is soothing to you, perhaps there are voice-only songs that don’t violate your values and also bring you a deeper connection to Allah. For example, there is an artist (Saeed) whose songs are built around du’a that are commonly recited in the Islamic tradition.
Throughout, continue to try to reach your goal of keeping up with your prayers, and if you can’t get yourself to pray at least sit and remember Allah for a few minutes at the time of prayer. This is something you can do even when on your period to keep the habit of the time.
I would suggest you not reach for the next goal until you are in a rhythm with the current one. When you add too much it is like asking a horse to carry more and more people. The fun thing about our internal horse is that its capacity to carry keeps growing as long as we don’t exhaust it. We need regular rest and sometimes dropping back down a level to get ourselves stable again before we ramp things up.
May Allah help you have clarity and confidence in moving forward,
Wassalam,
“Fatima FM”
Here are some additional posts on this topic that you may find helpful:https://www.stonestobridges.org/tag/selfesteemworth/
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