My big issue

I know this is long but I wanted to see if anyone has some advice.

I am a 21 year old male that’s sort of been having an existential crisis. Throughout my life I always knew I was strange. I’ve been described by peers as ‘one of the dopiest and smartest’ guys they knew. I’m capable of understanding some of the most complicated concepts in the classroom, but not understand some of the most simple. I’ve always asked questions of basically everything. I’m curious about the world and everything I see around me, everything that I experience.

I’ve been born and raised as a muslim and throughout my life I have been faithful towards it: I’ve read through the quran numerous times, I have prayed 5 times a day from when I was 10, I have memorised many surahs and had been taught by a good Imaan. Ultimately, I clung onto the fact that there’s something about Islam that just ‘feels’ right. By 17 was the first time that I thought I need to understand more. It had become less satisfying reading the quran and memorising surah’s, to make my faith stronger I had to learn, I had to understand the meaning, its history e.t.c. I always knew I needed to, and the time had come. I tried to read the meaning of the surahs and to my surprise I was barely able to understand anything and of those things that I did, little stuck in my head.

By 18 my faith was still strong ,clinging on to that internal belief and that I’ll eventually find the answers I’m looking for. I wanted to understand other people’s perspectives, both muslim and non muslim. At this point I came to realise, in spite of what I have been taught, that the main reason I’m a muslim is because I’ve been born into it. I don’t like the idea of blindly following 1 religion without somewhat understanding other religions/philosophies. I needed to understand more.

By 19 I started reading some more books to gain more of an understanding about Islam and its history but once again hardly anything was filtering through, its as if I had never read anything. I couldn’t understand why this was the case and in the process my hope of trying to gain an understanding of Islam and other religions started become more frustrating.

Unable to find satisfying answers, I would still have the same questions about different topics within Islam that kept distracting me during my final year of university. My faith in it was not as strong as it once was and I had begun to struggle desperately to tackle them in the way that I believed was right. I knew my memory was a bit of an issue so I would make a serious effort to process and understand the things I read. I would annotate/ underline interesting ideas, re read things multiple times in attempt to better consildate these ideas. I would repeat stories before I went to bed, I would write down some ideas/opinions that I have… but no matter how hard I try, knowledge is lost to me to an abnormal extent where I can barely remember what I read.

In the middle of this, I tried to understand my mind more, how it worked. I have quietly asked other people how their minds work, and it was gradually becoming obvious that something obvious was functioning very poorly. So I spoke to a psychiatrist and they diagnosed me with ADHD. There is no method out there that can compensate for forgetting what I say/heard/read 5 seconds ago as often as I do. It takes me super long to understand the simplest of things and even when I do understand, the chances are that I’ll forget what I have understood. It means I can never find the answers that I desire.

I thought if I have strong faith in Islam or any other religion, then I could feel somewhat at peace… but I can’t. Because of this disorder, the more I try to understand Islam, the more I feel myself drift away. I can only look at pieces of the puzzle but never the entire jigsaw. I can’t understand why a man so desperate for knowledge within his own faith would be denied learning and to live by practically any of its teachings because that’s what this condition does. Because of it, I barely know what is right or wrong nowadays. I have to second guess everything (literally) that I do. 99% of the time I have to ask people what to do because I can’t figure out for myself or I struggle. How can someone with this kind of condition be strong in his faith? He can’t, and there is nothing else, no money,cars,possessions, friends, family, holidays, psychiatrist that can fill this hole. Its only one that I can but I can’t. I pray but do not find peace in Islam like I once did, because my faith is out of hope and my reasoning to believe is no longer there. I do not like feeling like this but I have been left to feel no other way and I’m not going to lie to myself anymore. This life does not bring me happiness or peace so long as I have this condition, because I am lost without the ability to get out.

So can anybody tell me where on Earth I’m meant to go from here?

Make duaa for me if you can. Thank you

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