Sakinah's Corner

84 days ago I was married. Mashallah. 81 Days ago my husband was picked up for violations of his conditions for release. I knew before we got married that he had violated and that there was a possibility he would see some consequences. I accepted that.

When our world got shaken up my iman did not waver. We both love each other for the love we share for Islam. We understood that sometimes with barakah comes tests, so during these past 81 days I have prayed and made dua, intentionally remembering Allah through this entire time. Inshallah, my husband has been doing the same.

I stood up and I said, "I am just going to go home."

Pacing the room, those were the only words I could find to say. I was visibly upset, but I was trying so hard not to be. I was fighting back tears which caused my heart to ache.

I didn't feel enough. I felt bamboozled. I felt stupid for feeling anything at all.

His face had disappointment and sadness written all over it. Feeling misunderstood, he sat down and calmly asked me to sit with him.

"You're upset," "Don't be impulsive," "What can I do to make you feel better?"

He had no idea, that he was doing everything I needed him to do in that moment. He was mindful of my emotional state, he was calm, showed concern and was willing to make an effort in the situation.

I didn't have the words to tell him what I needed, I don't even think I knew at the time. He asked me to move closer, which I did. And he gave me every bit of assurance I needed.

Who She Is Now: I left what was hindering me.

Who She Was: You changed.

Who She Is Now: I became who I am supposed to be.

Who She Was: You don't miss me?

Who She Is Now: I have made peace with my past, and I am content with where I am.

Who She Was: You traded freedom for restrictions.

Who She Is Now: I traded chaos for peace.

Who She Was: You use to be loud.

Who She Is Now: I was hurting.

Who She Was: People admired you.

Who She Is Now: If God is pleased with me, that is enough.

Who She Was: You've really changed.

I think my BIGGEST downfall in life has been second guessing myself.

The tea is warm. Let's pour.

My mom called me yesterday. That didn't go well. She is exhausting to be honest. I love her dearly, but she drains me of my peace. And maybe it's ME. Maybe I should just bite my tongue and allow her to be delusional because I know she is sick - mentally. I don't know why I try to be rational when she is in complete delusion. Reality won't change her delusion. I guess it is just hard to hear someone you love suffering and living in a false reality. I want more than anything for my mother to be normal again, or at least to be medicated. She has Bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder. When my mom is medicated she does really well, she makes sense, she can hold a conversation and I don't know, I just really miss her.

When I was a little girl, my mom and I were pretty close; at least that is the way I like to see it. The reality of it is, she was a single mother, she didn't have much of a support system and it was always just me and her, so how could we not be close? My mom was everything to me. I admired her, but as time would pass the further shed grow a part from me. I remember telling someone that looking back it's like I was just a doll to my mom and once I began to require more care and attention my mom grew more distant. She was always very male centred, so when she had a partner, I was always on the back burner. When she was single, she clung to me. My mom was rarely every single.

I never did crack or dope, but I have heard some stories about how when a person first did one or the other it was the best high ever and every time they get high they're chasing that first high. I think that is how I would describe the yearning I have always felt for my mothers love. When I was her little doll, she gave me all the love, care and attention but when I became a child in need of her mother, I began to chase those earlier feelings of motherly love that just stopped one day.

As an adult my mom and I have had our share of ups and downs, but from around 2018/19-2024 our relationship was going really good. We spoke almost daily. We were spending time together almost weekly. Things were just very smooth between us, even when we had disagreements we would agree to disagree. Things got rocky again when she moved to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. I had a feeling that my mom was being impulsive, but when I asked her if she had everything figured out and under control she assured me that she did. Unfortunately, a week into being there she was moving hotels, and scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to survive in hotels with my oldest son. I helped how and when I could, but it was only so much I could do. I didn't agree with a lot of the choices she was making and I was very vocal about those feelings that I had. Speaking up ultimately caused a few arguments over time. Unfortunately my moms choices affected my oldest son, and I wasn't willing to just stay quiet about what I felt she should be doing, and yes my oldest son could have came to live with me but at the time my oldest wanted to be with his grandma cause he didn't want her out there by herself.

My mom had disclosed with me that she had done some ICE with some associates while out there, but of course she tried to sugar coat it up by saying it was just a few times and she don't mess around no more. She also had got her a little boyfriend who is known to have a bad ICE addiction. My mom had section 8, and while living in motels she was trying to find a place and when she did I told her I didn't think it was a good idea to have her boyfriend move in with her, but of course she moved him right on in. Low and behold they were in there getting high and tripping and lost the spot, not only did my mom lose the apartment but she lost her Section 8 voucher as well. For the last year my mom has been homeless sleeping between hotels and outside on benches and in parks.

I kind of just accepted that this was just the way my mom wanted to live now that she's in her mid 50s, but she would swear up and down she was looking for places and trying to get help from here and there for her situation to remain the same for an entire year. My godmother, who is my moms best friend had been offering my mom to come to California to live, but my mom kept saying she wanted to see how things would work out in Myrtle Beach. But really she was just chasing them drugs and that boyfriend of hers, but finally she agreed. She is now in California and I am so happy that she's there where she can be in doors and away from a man who don't give not one fuck about her.

So she calls me and we were having a very normal conversation, just catching up and what not. Some how she ended up telling me about how bad the mosquito and sand flea bites were when she was homeless on the beach. She then follows up with, "But I still wanna live on the beach." I mean, don't the majority of us? Anyways I go to tell her that unfortunately she can't afford that. She starts fast talking saying that I just want to argue and she is going to just hang up. My intention for saying she couldn't afford to live in a place on the beach was not to argue but just to redirect her to realistically thinking about where she should be looking for places to live. In her mind I was attacking her.

She really does not like the truth. The last time we got into it like this I simply asked was she on drugs, and while I don't think there is any "nice" or "gentle" way to ask that question, my intention of asking was to gain understanding so I can meet her where she was at. That lady went tf off on me. I get it, I do, but she didn't talk to me for over 6 months, that's the part I don't get. During that time of her not speaking to me a lot was going on in my life. A specific situation was coming to a head, and I needed my mother but she was absent - yet again. I spent a lot of my childhood and teenage years in foster care, that's when I needed my mother the most. But she was convinced the system could raise me better than her.

Now I am not perfect. I am not completely innocent. I have my flaws and character defects. When my mom called me yesterday, she went off on me for telling her she couldn't afford to live on the beach, my response to one of her texts was not nice at all, in fact I said oh you want to cut? Im going to gauge - and I went for the jugular. I did apologise, but of course I didn't get a response. I probably won't here from my mom in 6 plus months again, and I can deal with that. Although what I responded with wasn't nice, it came from a place of hurt - and that doesn't justify it at all; it's just to explain where it came from.

She is always trying to compare our lives, and prove a point that hers was so much worse than mine. But in that moments she had the nerve, for the first time, tell me that she had it so much better than me and that I needed to "catch up to compare notes." That was my trigger right there...I went tf off. I definitely do not want to catch up to someone who is regressing mentally, on drugs and has literally lost everything to one impulsive decision that led to a bunch of other bad decisions ?

I have been there and done that already in my 20's, so I am not saying I am better than or anything like that. But I am growing and maturing, and I would pray, inshallah, that I will be stable and thriving in my mid 50's. I wish the best for my mom, and I truly hope she can get whatever it is she wants out of life, but I also hope she can get her mental health back stable so that she can live a somewhat normal life again. I would hate to see my mom on skid row, but it is a likely possibility if she doesn't get the help she needs. But when a mentally ill person does not think they need help, they see any offers for help as condescending, an attack or a threat. And that is how my mom takes anything I say to her, so I think it is just be we don't speak for a while. And when we do speak I think our conversations should be limited to no more 10 mins.

If anyone happened to read til the end, thank you for taking the time out. I just really needed to release these feelings and thoughts somewhere and I don't have therapy until next week.

Soooo, I don't even really know where I am going with this - but hey, I am here! So I guess to start I can introduce myself....

My name is Sakinah. I am a 37 year old woman, but I often times still feel like a teenager. I don't quite know what that's about but I thought I would share anyways. I have lived many lives, worn quite a few different hats, and I have certainly walked my share of winding roads.

When I was a teen I use to keep journals and wrote in them multiple times a day. I would write about how my day was going, how I was feeling and sometimes I would write letters to people I couldn't reach; like my dad or a friend a lost touch with. I just loved to write. There was just always so much going on in my little brain, and as I have aged that hasn't changed. My mind is always running. I don't journal as much any more, but I always find myself trying to get back into the groove of it but life can get busy and well yeah sometimes I just let my grip slip.

Somewhere a long the way, after falling in love with writing, I fell in love with poetry. Actually - I am not quite sure which came first, the love for writing or the love for poetry. I just know I have always loved writing, like even just the physical act of gripping a pen or pencil and stroking the tip across the paper - that literally brings me joy.

But of course I love the mental part of it; being able to combine words into sentences and write how I feel or what I did that day. And then the art of it comes to play when I begin to arrange the words meticulously and rhythmically to make my thoughts and emotions look and sound just the way I want them to - that there is where my passion lies; lyricism and poetry.

I also love to cook. I didn't pick this skill up early on the way that I did writing. I remember my mom telling me "You'll learn to cook when you have kids of your own." My mom didn't really like help in the kitchen, but I still have some memories of her teaching me things like how to scramble eggs, or peeling potatoes, chopping vegetables, stirring meat and little stuff like that.

When I had kids of my own, I definitely learned to cook, but I didn't really enjoy it. I didn't really know how to shop, and I made very basic and simple meals cause I mean what else do you need to be making when all the kids will eat is sketti, nuggets, and pizza ? JKJK lol we ate more than just that, but it was very repetitive and kind of boring. Now that I think about it, that is how meals were during the times I was living with my mom as a child and that can possibly be because I would only eat certain things, I was kind of picky come to think of it.

I started really getting into cooking more around 2017 or so. I started expanding my horizon, getting creative and trying new things. By 2020 I can say I had gotten pretty good at it and began slowly but surely working on my presentation. Now, in 2026 cooking is really "my thing."

Also, photography has always been something that I have loved. For many years I would take photos with my phone, of any and everything that I saw looked interesting or cool. I have a lot of photos of the sky taken with my phone. I just absolutely love the sky.

A couple years ago I finally got a camera. It was a birthday gift; probably the best birthday gift I have ever gotten. I am still learning it, but nonetheless I love snapping shots and seeing what I have captured. Seeing what edits can do to photos is so intriguing as well.

Soooo I guess that a nice little intro, right? Well, I sure hope so.