Dear Sister Hana,

I am a Muslim brother who recently got into a car accident. This accident has caused me paralysis in my two legs. Ever since this happened to me, my life has been going down hill. I need help from everything to get things done, I feel tied down to this wheelchair and my wife and I are having problems as well. I can help but be very hurt and angry at what happened and I feel very miserable everyday. I don’t think that there is anything that can happen or that I can do to help me feel better, but I know that I am sick of feeling this way. Is there any advice you can give me that may help me in anyway?

Dear Brother,

Thank you so much for sharing with me and the readers your story. My heart goes out to you, you are going through a truly rough situation. There are things that happen in our lives that we might never understand why they happened to us. Islam gives us peace of mind in that sense, if we don’t understand why we are going through what we are going through, we should trust that everything happens for a reason and that we may never understand what that reason is, or we may understand it later on in our life. I know that at this point there may not be one good thing that you can get out of being in your situation. At the same time though, your reality does not have to be as miserable as it is. There is a difference between living a challenging reality and accepting it, or living a challenging reality while suffering through it. The difference between the two situations are not the reality of the matter, but how you can perceive and choose to live in your reality.

When ever something happens in our life we have four choice and only these four choices. We can either, 1) solve the problem, 2) change how we feel about it, 3) accept it, 4) stay miserable. When thing happen in our life that are “good”- we have a an easy time accepting those things. However when things in our life happen that are “not good” and in your situation, you cannot solve the problem or really change how you feel about what happened, your only two options are accepting or staying miserable.

It sounds to me that you have been living miserable ever since it happened, and its not working out and you sick of feeling this way as you said in your question. Therefore you only other option is to accept what has happened to you. acceptance does not mean that you will love or like what happened to you, but that you are able to be at peace with it and feel neutral about it. You have to find a way to make your life worth living with the situation that you are in.

To help you with this, think of a someone that you know that has a disability and still is able to find meaning in their life. There are many people like this that are on TV because people admire them for making their life worth living with their disability. Think to yourself, what do they do that you are not doing?

The answer is they accept their reality, they don’t fight their reality. Reality is what it is and fighting it will not change it. You also have to help yourself think thoughts that help you accept, for example, instead of thinking thoughts that may make you feel worse like, “why did this happen to me, I hate my life” turn your mind to thinking thoughts life “I can get through this, I am worthy of a good life and love, my situation could be worse….”etc.

Another suggestion that I have is to every day make a list of things that you are grateful for in your life. Remember that Allah promised that if we thank him for what he has given us, he will give us more of those things. So try to think of things that make you happy and things that you are grateful for having in your life.

In conclusion, you are going through a really hard challenge, prayer and duaa can be really helpful for you and I pray that Allah gives you the patience and the willingness to apply these ideas to your life to help you feel better. May Allah reward your for your patience. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Sister Hana