As salaam alaikum,

My roommate is out with her friend, a classmate of ours who I'm rotating through psych with.  Seriously, I want them to get together.  Like, really...I think they would make a cute couple...for a couple of weeks.  Hahaha...but I guess I shouldn't want them to get together, because in a way, my love for people finding each other is living vicariously through them.

Taking psych has caused me to be even more introspective and made me analyze myself.  I am now pretty certain that I have delusional disorder in the setting of relationships, which is why I am incapable of a relationship myself.

What is delusional disorder?  According to DMS-IV, it is when a person has "non-bizarre" delusions for over a month.  What is a non-bizarre delusion?  For example, we had a patient on the floor that believed she was pregnant because she was hungry all the time on her new antipsychotic meds, even though she was not sexually active.  Another non-bizarre delusion is that someone's husband/wife is cheating on them when they're not.

A bizarre delusion is that cerebral palsy at 41% causes the bone marrow to bleed into the brain, replicating the symptomatology of psychosis.  I have a patient who believes that about his psychotic symptoms.

But I had non-bizarre delusions and seem to have these every time I like someone.  They are fixed, false beliefs that people can't be convinced against.  So when I liked Taha back in the day, I was convinced that he was going to be my future husband.

It's something that I don't say straight up a lot because I was embarrassed about it for a while, and the rest of the time I believed it to still be a possibility so I didn't want to pronounce it lest to jinx it, but at this juncture, pssh, I really don't care.  Just going to put it out there.

I was 18 and 19 and tired of having feelings for men who didn't have feelings for me back, and thought the whole business of "liking" someone was entirely unnecessary if the end wasn't fruitful.  So I prayed one night, as at this time I was praying at least nightly, that I wouldn't fall in love ever again, until I had met my future husband.  I figured this was safe, a prayer that could be answered no problem.  I mean, nothing's more halal than praying to not like anyone other than one's future husband, right?  I figured I was safe.

A bit after that, I started liking Taha.  In a series of events that take me too much time to explain now, I knew Taha for four months before I knew he was Muslim.  You think the name would have tipped me off?  I really don't have a schema for that like other Muslims do.  I still don't.  I see a Muslim name, I don't assume they're Muslim until they say with their mouths "I am Muslim."

So independently of my knowing he was Muslim, I started liking him...maybe unexpectedly.  We started liking each other, I think, neither of us knowing the other was Muslim, ironically...I mean, there was nothing about me that would identify me as Muslim, and the last thing anyone would think of a black woman that they meet anywhere is that she's Muslim, but I was...

So sometime, at the end of our course together, in April, I found out he was Muslim, and I realized something magical had happened...  I independently started liking a brother, and it seemed as if this brother liked me.  Fast forward to where he nervously told me that he was going to miss me, and I was overjoyed!

And so, I made a mistake.  I thought, oh wow, this could be the answer to my prayer!  He could really be my future husband!

...and thus the delusional disorder began...

...and it persisted for a few years.  It really messes you up.  I was very aware of myself so I didn't do things like start to stalk the boy or anything, but then again, facebook was new right around that time, and he was one of my first facebook friends, so I didn't need to stalk.

A series of events sent me to the looney side.  The first was his sister stating that he should get to know more females of his own race.  This was a day or so after we'd hung out for the first time, and I know it was in reference to me, the black girl.  Devastated, I wrote my last poem.  I should have given up then, and there were plenty of other times when I should have, but I was delusional, I was like, no, this may be my future husband, since maybe I like him now, maybe I love him now, so I have to keep up the pursuit...

And so, by sophomore year, I was psychotic.  I did some questionable things back in the day.  For at least a year and a half, I would intermittently go out for a walk at after midnight, sometimes as late as 1am, up and down the dark campus.  I walked absently around campus because I never felt it was appropriate to call him and yet I wanted to bump into him, so I would walk up and down, hoping that it would be a sign for me to run into him, in the middle of the night.

One night, I came back to my room and my core body temperature was lowered such that I actually made the bed colder instead of warmer as I lay in it.  I finally stopped this ritual one day during junior year when I ran into a glowing-eyed possum in my walk.

I don't like large rodents.

And it goes on.  The result is that I spent the greater part of my college career pretty psychotic.  I think I was mainly back to some semblance of normalcy by senior year.

It was a non-bizarre delusion, but a fixed, false belief.

But the whole situation has left me...questioning, I guess, the nature of prayer.  I mean, it seems pretty innocent and pretty correct for a young woman who just wants to follow the straight way that she doesn't have feelings for any man anymore unless she is going to marry him, right?  I see no purpose of being otherwise, really, except that we are human beings, we love indiscriminately, and our morals govern the correct time, place and circumstance of this love.  But it didn't seem like a lot to ask and I guess even after all of these years I don't understand why it wasn't answered in a way that would help me.

Because I still fell for that guy, and exactly what I didn't want to happen happened.  I got caught up and self-inflicted injury because of my own delusions.

Because really, initially, when I first found out that he liked me, and I first found out he was Muslim, I was like, huh, finally, someone to talk to.  Someone to know about me, de novo, without my background, without my history.  Someone who I felt could understand me, so I could explain how I was, and how I was Muslim, and why I loved my family, and the music I liked to listen to.

I was delusional because for some reason, I believed this poor boy could understand so much about me.  I just felt it.  I couldn't let it go, and I didn't...until I had to.

I often talked about the relationship like it was more than what it was.  I'm pretty sure that at one point in time feelings were mutual, but that time was very short.  It was written.

It was hard for me to return to faith after that, as silly as that make me sounds.  I felt for a while like God had mocked me by allowing me to fall for exactly the thing I didn't want to do.  And it may sound like I'm hard on myself...after all, when the story is told, I just liked a boy and kind of flipped out becaues I allowed myself to do something so...so...horrible, but...

...if only it were that simple.  If I didn't get delusional disorder every time I fell for someone, maybe it wouldn't be such an issue.

While we're on the subject of truths?  You know how I occasionally through out statements like, "I'll never get married," or "I'll be single for the rest of my life" or things like that.  I usually say because I prefer to expect worst case scenario and then be pleasantly surprised.  Not really.  I actually say those things in the hopes that someone has the answer, the magic words that will make me feel better about the whole thing until it happens...someone who has the answer to anticipation, loneliness and indefinite waiting.

I should stop saying them, though, because I should realize by now that no one knows the answer.

But yep, delusional disorder.  I wouldn't wish it on y worst enemy.

Wasalaam.

As salaam alaikum,

Sem Resposta

I'm seeing a lot of blogs that are discussing the shooting in wherever-it-was, Texas.  I wouldn't have known anything about it, as I usually get up and barely have time to read my email, let alone the news, if I hadn't walked in on the psych residents and here them saying, "Yeah, he would have to be a psychiatrist, too."

Then my classmate told me about the shooting.  Funny, he didn't even mention the guy was Muslim.  He didn't mention the guy was Muslim until I typed in Texas shooting into google, clicked on the news tab and I saw a security picture of this guy in a kufi and a thobe in the store I guess moments before he would begin his rampage.

And I was livid.  Yes, that was my first reaction...I was tore the hell up, excuse my language.  Not only is this dude Muslim who did this, but he was wearing a kufi while he did it?  Gaaaahhhh-leee!  Are you serious?

So yes, I could say a lot.  I could talk about how I, as a Muslim, condemn the attacks, but seriously, who the hell am I but a random Muslim that even some Muslims don't want to accept?  A lot of people are upset, as I am, that this is a setback for Muslim image campaigns, but let me tell you, if Muslim image campaigns were doing anything, it shouldn't be a setback.

I'm going to harken back to what Hamza Perez said after the screening of "New Muslim Cool," kind of.  I do not think the negative image of Muslims in the West is the fault of the Muslims, as he would.  But there's certainly a lot more that we can do, more than official statements or forewarded emails or banners or posters or marches.  I don't know if Muslims realize this, but you're preaching to the choir.  You're preaching to people who already know enough about Islam to know that Islam does not endorse this violence and you're preaching to people sympathetic to Muslims, aka your own non-Muslim friends.

The biggest Muslim image campaign is by living the example and portraying the peaceful Muslim that the majority of us are.  "But we are," you may answer.  And I'm like, yes, to whom?  To the other Muslims at Muslim events?  To your Muslim family?

People who receive routine medical care at Muslim-run free clinics are probably less inclined to believe that this violent act carried out by a singular, Muslim man is representative of the nearly 2 million Mulims on the planet.

Our duty to others extends out farther than other Muslims!  I mean, alhamdulillah that we're able to take care of our own when we are, but seriously, we are part of communities and I think assuming service roles within our communities is better than any chain email or public statement.  Will it take time?  Yes.  Is it worth it?  Not necessarily for our image, but the good of our own souls.

It's ironic...I was just thinking today if I should go into psychiatry and in the course of my studies perhaps for fellowship do some Islamic Studies and perhaps become a psychiatrist for Muslims, fusing the understanding of mental illness with religious understanding, but man, never mind...after the stabbing last week at MGH of the psychiatrist and this, I should steer clear of the field.  I'll let that be someone else's battle, but I think it's needed, regardless.

Nonexistant World

The more I think about it, the more I realize that my parents raised me for a world that no longer exists, or never did...it just doesn't exist right now.  On the secular side, I've rejected every man that has been interested in me partially because I know they would pressure me into sex and frankly, I wasn't that interested in them, anyway.  Men these days aren't raised to respect a woman and wait because most women by this age are sexually active, so why should they wait for me?  So I save them the trouble and usually reject them immediately after they inquire about me.  Yes, dysfunctional, but most of them aren't Muslim anyway.  Of the Muslims...man, friends keep setting me up with these dudes that can barely speak English.  And seriously, nothing against immigrants...I'm second generation, after all, and I actually prefer other langauages to English, but in a relationship their needs to be communication, and...no, that's not good.  And then other Muslims...well, I think the only way I'll end up with a Muslim is if I arrange marriage, which I have no idea how to do and therefore may never do, because if the brothers are always on the other side of the room then I'm never going to get to know any of them enough to think, hey, maybe we should think about marriage.

So I find myself at the intersection of two very different courtship/marriage standards, secular and Muslim, and they are completely incompatible, yet I am not fully part of either, because I was raised between them.  Therefore, I am an entirely dysfunctional human being unlike an infertile hybrid of sorts, like a mule.

Someone once told me not to settle, and at this point, marrying anyone would be settling, because what is not settling?

Seriously, what is not settling?  Right now, I can't imagine myself in a relationship not but for settling.  Settling because he has somewhat similar values, looks okay, and I don't mind being the father of my kids is what it's going to boil down to.  Love?  Love in my relationship, I think, won't even be a second hand emotion, haha.

This is what I see for myself.  Why?  Because my parents very gleefully raised me a dysfunctional human being for this world, only functional in another that existed in their minds that doesn't exist.

Can't you tell that bothers me?

Wasalaam.