I Feel Like I Can’t Keep Going
Salam everyone, I don’t usually share things like this so please bear with me. Lately, it feels like the pain just won’t go away. I’ve been deeply depressed for six months, and it’s like one bad thing after another-not a single moment of happiness in all that time. It began when my father, who has always been harsh, broke my nose. I haven’t had surgery yet. For years, he’s treated me this way. I stopped talking to him for two months to protect my mental health, but then he started mistreating my mother. Even though my mother wasn’t blameless, that doesn’t justify his behavior. As the oldest daughter, I felt I had to step in and talk to him to try to stop it, but it didn’t help, and my own mental state got even worse. Things are a bit calmer now, but I still have to speak with him because he thinks I’m not upset anymore and believes he didn’t really break my nose-that I’m just being overly sensitive. During all this, I gained a lot of weight from stress, and I feel ugly and disgusting. My nose is visibly crooked. You might wonder why I focus so much on my appearance. Well, as a child, my father would shave my head, so I didn’t have long hair until I was 16. I never felt pretty growing up, and that deep insecurity is still with me. Right now, I’m in the middle of an exam that will decide my future-twelve years of school come down to this. But my physics paper went so badly that I may not get into medical school. Becoming a doctor has been my dream since I was little. I can’t express how much that dream kept me going through tough times. And now it feels shattered. I’m someone with strong faith-no matter what happened, I never lost hope. Even when my father broke my nose, I prayed through the pain and made sujood the same day, thinking that if I pass this test, Allah will surely help me achieve my childhood dream. But somehow, maybe Allah isn’t pleased with me. I don’t know what I did wrong. Yes, I miss prayers sometimes, and I feel so guilty for that-it’s my recurring sin. But do I deserve all this as punishment? I always feel terrible when I skip salah. Now I feel trapped in my own body, unable to escape. I think about ending it all constantly, but I can’t because it’s haram. I can’t focus on studying either, and exams are still happening. I’ve resorted to harming myself, but I don’t want to do that-I just can’t bear this pain any other way. I truly can’t go on like this. I’ve always been optimistic, believing things would get better, but they haven’t, no matter how much I try or pray. I don’t understand why Allah is putting me through this when I’ve always had so much love and faith in Him.