I'm forcing myself to be a Muslim

Hello everyone,

I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I need to share all the relevant details to explain my situation.

I (30F) was born into a Muslim family. My parents were never very religious, they only fasted during Ramadan and didn’t pray regularly. My mom, who converted to Islam from Christianity, never wore the hijab, and neither did my sister. Most of what I learned about Islam came from school teachings rather than from my family.

At 22, I officially left Islam and became an atheist. I stayed an atheist for six years, but during that time, I constantly questioned my choice. I experienced existential crises and anxiety, which eventually led me back to Islam. However, that’s when my real struggles began.

My return to Islam brought immense anxiety and sadness. All my family members had left Islam, and I became deeply worried about their fate after death. I couldn’t stop imagining them in hell. These thoughts overwhelmed me to the point where even listening to the Quran would trigger intense anxiety and sadness. I developed insomnia, constant stomach cramps, and severe emotional distress.

Because of this extreme anxiety, I started questioning religion again, The thoughts were intrusive and heavily influenced by my anxiety, even though I had a very strong faith at the time... it was weird, but looking back, it definitely was a defence mechanism, a way for my brain to protect itself from going insane by convincing itself that Islam wasn't real. So, my life became so miserable that I eventually started taking antidepressants. The medication helped improve my mental health, but it also weakened my faith. Antidepressants changed how I thought and felt, and I no longer experienced any emotion during prayer. Eventually, I stopped praying altogether.

After I quit the antidepressants, I resumed praying, but I kept my prayers mechanical and emotionless to avoid falling back into the same state of anxiety. My faith became shallow and perfunctory. I can’t bring myself to read the Quran anymore because it reminds me of God’s punishment for non-believers, which triggers feelings of fear and sadness. It’s almost like I’ve developed a form of PTSD related to Islam.

Islam no longer makes me feel safe or happy, it makes me scared and sad. I don’t understand how others find comfort in reading the Quran because, for me, it has the opposite effect.

Recently, I’ve started questioning religion again. I struggle to understand why God would punish someone for eternity just because they weren’t convinced of a certain belief. It’s not as though they’re evil people. Humans are shaped by so many factors such as upbringing, genes, environment, culture, and even hormones (I’ve experienced firsthand how hormones can affect thinking and emotions because I have PCOS, and the fluctuations can make me feel like a completely different person at times). I mean think about it, we all have different opinions about different stuff, why would religion be any different? I know that Islam makes more sense than other religions, but not everyone has the time, brains or interest to think and search for the right religion. For example, In my family, I’ve always been “the philosopher,” the one who thinks deeply and explores abstract ideas, while the rest of my family has a much more pragmatic approach to life. They all pursued careers in the sciences, whereas I’m the only one who gravitated toward the arts and humanities. This contrast really highlights the difference in how I think compared to the rest of my family. They don’t really concern themselves with thoughts about the afterlife, whereas it’s something I constantly dwell on. My obsession with death began in my teenage years, and it’s a fixation that has never left me.

My family, who left Islam, are kind, loving people. I’m not just saying this because they’re my family, others who know them say the same. They have kind hearts, wouldn’t hurt a fly, and raised me to be respectful, kind to the weak, and humble. They left religion for various reasons, but one major factor was the ISIS uprising. The horrors committed by ISIS, and the way they justified their actions using Quranic verses and hadiths, profoundly impacted their perception of Islam.

Although my family now is aware of the fact that ISIS doesn’t represent Islam, they just stopped believing in it because certain things didn’t make sense to them. I won’t go into details about their reasons because this post is already long enough.

I still pray for my family every day, hoping that God will guide them back to Islam. But I’m terrified of what will happen to my mental health if one of them passes away as a non-believer. I’d need to go back on antidepressants if that happens.

At this point, I don’t feel good about Islam anymore. I’m sorry to say this, but I feel repulsed by it now. There’s this feeling inside me that I can’t shake. I only continue to pray because I’m afraid of going to hell.

I also feel that the antidepressant I took for 2 years fundamentally changed me. Even though I quit it 8 months ago, I haven’t returned to how I was before. I don’t experience emotions the same way anymore, which makes everything harder.

I truly wanted to be a good Muslim, but I’ve failed because of the anxiety, sadness and fear I’ve experienced.

TL;DR: I (30F) have intense fear and anxiety about my non-Muslim family’s fate in the afterlife. This led to insomnia, physical symptoms, and antidepressant use, which weakened my faith and left my prayers emotionless. I now struggle with questioning religion, feeling repulsed by Islam, and praying only out of fear of hell, while my family’s disbelief and the concept of eternal punishment weigh heavily on me.