Islamic marriage advice and family advice

I am a 15 year old girl who hates herself

Woman alone

salam,

I am a 15 year old girl who hates herself more than anything. everything I do bothers me and everything about me makes me uncomfortable and depressed. I know hatred of oneself is a sin, and comes from shaytaan because we should be thankful for everything allah has given us, but I just can't help it. I have a problem with comparing myself to others and I live in the shadow of my almost perfect sister (mA). she is envied by my cousins and aunts and elders and I feel worthless. I feel like I don't belong here on this dunya and I absolutely hate everything about me its overbearing. I want to love myself but I cannot look in the mirror with sobbing and complaining. astagfirrulah I know I should be thankful but it is so, so hard to love myself. I hate my appearance and myself in general with a passion. what do I do? is there a dua I can recite to not hate myself?

waasalamuallaikum

themuslimgirl


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7 Responses »

  1. Assalamualaikom sister themuslimgirl

    MashaaAllah, there is much good in you that you turn to Allah when you face problems. May Allah strengthen your Eiman, calm your heart and fill your life with happiness and contentment.

    Comparing oneself to others in the wrong things is the worst thing to do. This exactly your problem and you are alhamdulillah aware of it. Only compare yourself to other on Akhirah matters.. on religious matters.. that is the competition that is worth doing.

    In Dunya matters you may only compare yourself with the less fortunate, with poor people who can still manage to smile and say Alhamdulillah at the end of the day. with homeless who struggle to find a shelter to sleep on for the night .. or for a meal to satisfy the hunger they had for so long.

    In few more years many of us who read this comment will be gone from this dunya, and that could include you. Always keep the awareness of this vital truth, that this life is temporary, and that whatever you will have in it is also temporary.

    Here are practical things to do:
    - Get involved in charity and volunteer work. whether in the Mosque or in school or in the community neighborhood...Anything that give a chance to extend help to others. Try to enjoy sharing the little you have and drawing smiles on other people faces.
    - Make friends with religious people who remind you of Akhirah and remind you of your religious obligations
    - Spend some fixed amount in charity to poor people weekly / monthly ... spend it with the intention that Allah cures your heart of the challenges you are facing.
    - Spend less time online and on social media.. specially with the show off people ...
    - Help your parents with the small things they need in their daily life and allocate time to talk to them regularly ... Allocate time to help your mom in house chores and ask her to make duaa for you.
    - Make this duaa always “I am pleased with Allah as my Lord, with Islam as my religion, and with Muhammad as my Prophet” (peace and blessings be upon him)...... “O Allah, make me content with what you have provided me, send blessings for me therein, and replace for me every absent thing or lost opportunity with something better”

    - whenever you see your image in the mirror say ... " O Allah, as you have perfected my creation, perfect my character, and save me from Hellfire".

    May Allah give you a content and happy heart.

    -

  2. Salam alaikum sister,

    Being alone with yourself is hard to do when you are young, but once you can learn to enjoy your own company then most of the the self loathing and hate goes away. I don't know any duas you can recite to definitely get rid of self hatred, but I highly advise you to get a hobby. Write or read or become your mom's right hand in the kitchen or volunteer or get a part time job. My hobby is mystery shopping. You just need something to keep your mind slightly busy when you feel like you are not good enough. You don't have to share what you do in private with anyone, because then that gets you into fearing what other people think of you, but just enjoy what you do alone. Make it your "me time", and make it special for yourself in some way. For example, if "me time" means riding your bike, then set goals for how fast or how far you want to ride, or paint your bike, or put stickers, ect. Sometimes your hobbies are what make you stand out from the crowd, even if they just make you stand out TO YOU. Take all the creativity and gifts that Allah swt gave you and put them to good use. Being young is hard, but it passes with time. Don't beat yourself up too hard if you don't get things exactly right during this time, just strive to get better a tiny bit each week.

    Salam,
    Shereen

  3. Assalamalaikum little one, stop comparing yourself to others, when you feel someone is better than you look down and see people you're much more better than, don't look at yourself and think you're ugly, Allah didn't create any ugly soul it depends on how you present yourself and how you think of yourself, and stop looking at the mirror too much to see the wrong sides try to look for the beautiful side of you. There is this saying that looking at the mirror too much makes even the beautiful ugly. Because you keep seeing the wrong side

  4. Salam!
    There are quite gud suggestions already given to u ..i just want to add few points :
    1-u r a teenager and in this stage of life ..raging hormones compel human to seek his particular identity in relation to other ..so its particularly normal for most of the people in ur age ..just believe me that there is lot more in ur life that is yet to come..search hormonal impact on teenagers
    2-ur sister may b a perfect girl in some way but no kne is perfect except Allah almighty..Allah must have given u something equally good than ur sister ..u just have to find it..may be ur good heart would be that..there is a saying of Hazrat Ali R.A that mean one should look downward to b thankful to Allah ..u can search poor children jn the world on google who are deprived of basic facilities n needs ..Aren't they humans like us?
    Try to count blessings u have ..believe me u would have so many of them.. there are motivators in the world who have their physical disabilities so prominent that they can't perform daily routine tasks ..still they are hopeful not only to live but motivate others to live too ..if still u dont find any reason to love u than try to live for others ..thts the best acheivment any human can make

  5. Sister, nobody is perfect, we all have our flaws. Only ALLAH SWT is perfect.
    Alhamdulilah, you know that feelings of worthlessness and sadness are from Satan. He wants us to feel sad, dejected, depressed so that we are unable to go about our daily activities, our worship and efforts to better ourself. As others have pointed out, look up to people who are better in terms of religion. Instead of comparing yourself to your sister, be happy that a good girl is your sister. After all, you will have exclusive rights to her that others do not. You can take tips from her on things she is better at and trust me, there will be things she will know you are good at. Become a team, not competitors.

    Dearest, value yourself, all of us are unique, no two of us are identical in anything. Each one of us have our roles to play that no one else can.
    If you are unhappy with your looks, what is it that bothers you? One can always improve one's appearance with stylish clothes, clean and healthy skin, healthy figure and a clean self that smells good.

    Give yourself a break. I think you are being
    hard on yourself. Instead of comparing yourself with others, compare your present effort with your past and try and improve your ownself each time. Soon, you will find yourself in the frontline.

    You are quite young right now and still evolving as a person, but, remember with time, you will realise that certain things are your strengths and there are certain things that just do not come easily to you. One needs to just accept them. One of my seniors is a brilliant doctor but she is a very bad cook. She doesn't fret about it. Rather she laughs it off. She knows that she cannot be a master of all.
    One of my friends is an excellent seamstress, she is not much of a scholar. But, that doesn't make her a less of a person.
    All the best my dearest. Find your USP. I Pray to Allah SWT to give you positive thoughts and to remove your sadness. Ameen!

  6. Assalaamualaykum Sister,

    I'm so sorry you are feeling bad. In addition to the great advice given above, I just wanted to point out one thing.

    You write:

    " [My sister] is envied by my cousins and aunts and elders and I feel worthless"

    You are worthy because Allah created you. How much someone is envied by others does not define their worth. In fact, it is not always such a positive thing to be envied at all, as one can become a target of negativity as such. In the last line of Surah Al-Falaq, we seek refuge in Allah "from the envier when he envies."

    So know that you are worth much for the simple fact that Allah created you.

    Hugs,

    Nor

    • This is very true! You should never compare your inside personality to what someone else presents on their outside.

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