As-salamu alaykum - I cut off my family, lost my husband-to-be and friends, and feel numb; I want him back
As-salamu alaykum. I’m writing because I feel like I’ve hit rock bottom emotionally and I don’t know how to keep carrying this alone. Over the past few years I’ve lost almost everything that made my life feel steady. I distanced myself from my family. I lost friends who used to mean the world to me. And I lost my fiancé - the man I thought I would build a future with. Now I feel empty in a way that scares me. Nothing seems to ease it. Stopping contact with my family wasn’t something I did lightly. These were the people my life revolved around - my siblings, my sisters, my cousins. I was there for them constantly and loved them dearly. But over time the relationship became emotionally damaging. When I was vulnerable I was taunted. When I was hurting I was mocked. When I tried to set boundaries they pushed harder. There was constant provocation followed by denial. No accountability, no remorse. What made it unbearable was the lack of basic respect and mercy. I was expected to tolerate disrespect simply because we were related. When I finally refused, I became the problem. Cutting them off felt like cutting off my own limbs, but staying was destroying me. At the same time I was engaged to someone truly good. He was kind, patient, supportive, and sincere. My parents liked him and still do. They welcomed and respected him, especially knowing he reverted and came to Islam sincerely. The hostility wasn’t from them. It came from my siblings and sisters. They chased relationships that kept failing, and when I found someone good the energy shifted. There was constant antagonism, negativity, and resentment toward my relationship. They spoke badly about us, undermined what we had, and made it clear they wanted it to fail. They even prayed against us openly. My sister in particular showed deep envy and fixation, targeting anything good in my life and trying to ruin it. Being around people who actively want your nikah to fail takes a toll that’s hard to explain unless you’ve lived it. The pressure never stopped. Eventually my fiancé couldn’t take it anymore and left. Not because the love was gone, but because the environment was hostile and relentless. After that everything collapsed. I lost my family. I lost my fiancé. I lost friends in the process. And now I feel like I’ve lost myself. I’ve been in therapy for over a year. I show up, I reflect, I grieve, I do the work. And yet the grief hasn’t lifted. What scares me most is that I don’t feel much of anything anymore. Talking to friends doesn’t help. Talking to family doesn’t help. Even people I once missed do not bring comfort. I wake up sad and I go to sleep sad. Everything feels hollow. I feel emotionally numb, lonely, and disconnected from life itself. I’m grieving people who are still alive. I’m grieving a future I believed in. I’m grieving the version of myself that felt loved, hopeful, and grounded. People tell me to move on, to forgive, to be strong. But no one talks about how devastating it is to lose your entire support system at once. How isolating it is to choose self-respect and still end up completely alone. How depression can settle into your body even when you try to do everything right. I’m not sharing this to attack anyone or to seek pity. I’m sharing because I feel broken and exhausted, and I need to know I’m not alone. If you have cut off family and still grieved long after therapy began, how did you get through it? If you lost your partner and your friends at the same time, how did you rebuild? Does the numbness ever lift, or do you just learn to live with it? I’m trying my best Islamically - praying, tawakkul, and doing istikhara as much as I can. I truly pray my fiancé comes back. He loves me very deeply but the family pressure felt overwhelming to him and he also doesn’t feel ready to support me financially yet. We’re both still studying and we’re 25. I know he loves me and he still prays for me. We also work together, so we see each other often. If you read this, thank you. I really needed to say it somewhere.