Question:
Assalamu ‘alaykum.
I want to ask a question regarding the pronouncement of divorce in the midst of mental health issues. I was enrolled in graduate school but suffered from severe anxiety and intrusive obsessive-compulsive thoughts that I was dismissed because I couldn’t focus enough to study.
I began suffering from depression, anger towards Allah – astaghfirullah – and even stopped praying for days at a time. I became angry and prone to disproportionately violent outbursts over minor issues, assuming malicious intent behind the smallest errors against me.
I heard my family members discussing with my wife that they were worried about me and wondering if I should pursue professional mental health treatment; I exploded in anger and said two divorce pronouncements and barely stopped myself from the third. I even went so far as to get into physical altercations with family members and took to often punching walls or objects out of anger during that day and around those months.
Did those two divorces occur?
Answer:
Wa ‘alaykum assalam wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh.
I pray you are well.
Divorce In Extreme Anger With Mental Health Issues
No, the divorces did not come into effect. The combination of severe anxiety, depression, intrusive thoughts, bouts of anger all contributed to you not having complete control of your rational faculties.
Usually, when people get angry normally, the anger builds by degrees, retaining some degree of control over their actions. When there is dis-regulation in mental health, one can go from being calm to extreme anger quickly. This explains the violent outbursts too. Therefore, the divorces will not come into effect. (Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al Muhtar)
Seek Healing Through Medicine and Learning
By the grace of Allah, you seem to have improved a great deal. Seek help with professionals and keep asking Allah for wellbeing.
The remedy to the anger you felt towards Allah is a deep understanding of the wisdom of trials and tribulations. Sometimes, things go smoothly, and that is a blessing that we should be grateful for. At other times, the road is bumpy. These bumps, despite being unpleasant, are for our ultimate benefit.
The First Life Vs. The Afterlife
Everyone’s situation is different, but we all have two lives to live. One feels real and is at the forefront of our minds. This life. The other is everlasting and infinitely superior. It may be that the difficulty here will grant you something indescribable there – forever.
Suppose we lose sight of the Afterlife; the pain and loss in this life can hit harder than they should. Someone whose tire goes flat on the motorway might get upset at this setback. The cost, delay, inconvenience, and effort needed to change it; may frustrate him.
However, if he has a beautiful destination, he is headed to, looking forward to the blue seas and the warm sand can ease the frustrations. So what if the flat tire saved him from being in a fatal accident? Or whilst changing tire, he meets someone who gives him a better hotel room or some other benefit?
In that case, the flat tire actually turns out to be a blessing! This is how the tests of this life are. They all bring gifts. Some you see now, and others you see later.
The Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, ”[I am] amazed by the affair of the believer! Allah does not decree anything for him except that it’s the best for him.” (Ahmad)
Please listen to this seminar for more perspective.
May Allah grant you the best of both worlds.
[Shaykh] Abdul-Rahim
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani