When I came across your post, I really wanted to help you because I had most of these problems in me and I can really understand how you feel. I am really sorry for the long reply and for the ease of reading I have divided into paragraphs with headings. You were in my mind during my prayers and I really wish and pray that Allah SWT helps you and bring you out of the state what you are in. Know the root of the problem The main problem is to do with our nafs. And I can say shaitan is nothing before our nafs. The problems you and many of us have are to do mainly with nafs and here I will give some solutions that helped me a lot Alhamdulillah. You are able to say here and I am so disgusted at my acts towards others that I don’t even like to say. The first step is to regret and utter hatred towards our actions which I see in you Alhamdulillah. As far as mothers and their love and affection, a father, husband or any relative can’t come close to them. That’s the most unfortunate thing that we end up hurting our mothers. I can understand how you should be feeling to hurt that soul and that is a very good step to seek your mom’s forgiveness. Many times we just don’t accept the qadr of Allah SWT and we are quite ungrateful to Him SWT. This builds up stress in us when things don’t happen as we like and we come out with emotional outbursts. We blame everyone around us and we remove our anger on them. Even though when others particularly our family do more good to us, we build up negative thoughts around few things and build the hatred and try to bring their bad. The one, who thanks people, thanks Allah SWT too. If we do not thank people, we won’t thank Allah SWT too. The result is we will lose the blessings we have and we will lose peace and we will regret a lot. Your islah is in salah The nafs goes very arrogant and it doesn’t humble easily. Now that we regret our action, the next step is to plead to Allah SWT to change us. Duaa, duaa and duaa. Now that we see the problem to be nafsi, here are some steps to deal with it inshaaAllah. Do not abandon salah and pray salah with concentration. Praying salah without concentration won’t help us much against nafs. This I am saying from my experience. When we stand for prayer, keep this firm in the mind that, "My islah is in salah". If I want to change, know that the solution is in my salah and so concentrate on what you recite while standing. Know that when we ask for guidance in surah fatiha while standing, guidance is at different levels. Now when we are worried about akhlaq and regret at bad akhlaq, we are pleading Allah SWT to guide towards good character and akhlaq as those whom Allah SWT blessed like Prophets (AS), siddiqeen, martyrs and righteous people. Keep them in mind, think of their high standard of akhlaq and ask Allah SWT to guide towards that and to save us from our lowly character and action. Similarly before going to ruku, think that our islah is in ruku and do it slowly and completely. Do not haste. Like this think before you go to sujud, when you get up from sujud and so on till you complete the salah. See I can’t express in words how much islahi talluq of shaikh helps. SubhanAllah! Seek islahi talluq of a pious elderly sheikh who can help you inshaaAllah. The bayans (deeni lectures) of my sheikh has profound effect on me Alhamdulillah. The shuyook easily can figure out the problem and give the solution with the help of Allah SWT. Now the problem is with akhlaq, i once asked sheikh how to become a person of soft natured. He asked me to pray salah with oncentration and I will become soft in nature. So I am passing his advice to you. Also try your best to stick to tahajjud inshaaAllah as advised by sheikh. Trust Allah SWT and His Prophet SAW more than anyone. When you hear the words of the Prophet SAW, know that it is a 100% guarantee thing. Now that we want to save ourselves from our evils, see the solution given by the Prophet SWT. Hold it like a treasure and be happy in knowing this treasure and be confident in the words of the Prophet SAW. Our Holy Prophet SAW said, “Remain steadfast to your night prayers as this has been the practice of all righteous people before your time, and this will bring you closer to Allah Ta’Ala and will expiate the evils and keep you away from sins”. See tahajjud is the special time a slave can talk to Allah SWT. This increases our love for Him SWT and a special bond is created with the Creator. Well you should experience this and inshaaAllah you will see the effect by yourself. Let Allah SWT grant us all tawfeeq to stick to tahajjud and grant us istiqaamat in our prayers. Recite more Quran Recite more Quran. Again how much it helps, you can know only by experience. This I learnt from my mom too, I have seen her often reciting Quran from young. She says whenever she feels down, she recites the Quran and she finds her heart going very calm and so she advises me the same. How true are the words of Allah SWT, "Indeed, in the Remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest" I do not know how much you recite Quran every day. If you do not recite, please start from at least half a juzz per day and then increase gradually. I hope you know Quran has been divided into 7 manzils. The regular habit of many Sahabahs (RA) and our pious predecessors was to complete a Quran every week, a manzil a day. Believe me when you stick to reciting Quran 1 manzil a day as our pious predecessors, you will see how peaceful it makes one. You are at home now, inshaaAllah you can recite it easily. If you are beginner I know this can be hard and in that case stick to minimum half a juzz per day and then you will see your heart getting attached to the Quran and how you will stick to it inshaaAllah. Again maashaaAllah I have to say that my sheikh said this in his bayan and today I am experiencing it Alhamdulillah. Blessed are the shuyook. I remember reading it somewhere that just like Allah SWT cures a person physically through the hands of doctors; Allah SWT cures the spiritual hearts through the words of scholars. So please get the islahi talluq of sheikh and keep listening to his bayan and try your best to follow their advice. Seek their help for spiritual cures like you have opened up in this forum Alhamdulillah. The bayans bring us close to Allah SWT. It helps us recognize Him SWT more and will increase our love of Allah SWT gradually. Write it down The other thing that helped me as per advice of one of my friends is to create a private blog. I write there whatever I feel, be the frustration or if I want to thank Allah SWT, to seek His SWT help to get over the frustrations and so on and on. This is like a diary for me. The problem with dairy is there is a possibility someone can read that while this for me is more private as no one can login and read as only I know the password. This is between me and my Lord. Khair this helps me to remove the burden of my heart when I write it down to Allah SWT. This also will prevent us from removing our anger on those close to us. Whenever you get frustrated with someone, don’t show your anger to them but instead write it down and see how it helps inshaaAllah. The wird “laa hawlaa walaa quwwata illa billah” I too had all this temper problems which pushed me to hate myself so much. I felt that I am completely out of control and it is very hard for me to control and in fact I felt it even impossible. I have cried a lot before Allah SWT. When I discussed with my sheikh, I was asked to recite laa hawlaa walaa quwwata illa billah a lot. This is indeed a treasure. Just ponder on this, we can’t do a single good deed and we can’t save ourselves from a single evil without Allah SWT’s help for the strength and power is only with Allah SWT. This is really a blow to the nafs believe me. First this makes one humble as it makes us realize how helpless we are without His help and this wird helps us to rely on Him SWT completely and seek His SWT help. Alhamdulillah this again has helped me. I have thought to the extent and prayed to Allah SWT that it is enough if Allah SWT gives me tawfeeq to stick to this wird throughout my life for this wird alone will suffice me inshaaAllah. No wonder our beloved Prophet SAW told that this is the treasure of both the worlds. See normally we just read hadiths and sayings of the pious and move on. Only when we act and experience, we will know the effect Alhamdulillah. Truly we are blessed to be Muslims. Who has all these treasures other than Muslims? Allahu Akbar! Pray for the azmat of Muslims in the heart Plead to Allah SWT to put azmat for Muslims in your heart. This will prevent us inshaaAllah from harming Muslims with our tongue or by any means. Our pious elders used to value every single muslim for the eemaan in the heart. Let us have that value. We should realize most of the time we end up hurting anyone because of losing azmat for them. Subconsciously we might have more pride in us that makes us neglect others and end up acting arrogantly towards them. If we make this firm in mind, we are lowly than anyone, inshaaAllah our attitude towards others will change and we won’t act rudely towards them. Make this duaa to Allah SWT to protect you from harming muslims by any means. There is a beautiful duaa I will write down here. Before that I want to say there are so many beautiful duas that Allah SWT and our beloved Prophet SAW taught that when I make duaa from that, I used to think it is enough if this duaa alone gets accepted for the weight it has and this I think of many duaas I come across. All the duas you can see compiled in a book called Munajat e maqbool. Try to get that book and train your mind to make duas from that daily. The book is divided into 7 parts of duas from Quran and sunnah. Recite each part every day. Here is the duaa I talked about before: Allahummaj-alni sabooranw waj-alni shakooranw waj-alni fi aini sagheeranw wa fi aayoninnaasi kabeera. O Allah! Make me one who is extremely patient and one who is extremely grateful. Make me insignificant in my own eyes but great in the eyes of people. Normally we tend to use lose patience during trials and we end up regretting at our acts and we lose too much. On one hand we pass through the trial and on the other hand in the place if ajr we earn Allah’s displeasure which is a very unfortunate thing. I heard in the bayan of Sheikh Maulana Abdus Sattar (DB) that sabr is such a great thing that reward for those who have sabr is known only to Allah SWT. As far as the gratitude, if we train ourselves to be grateful, we won’t take trial much to the heart. Most of the depression is due to the fact that we lose hope in Allah’s SWT mercy. If we count His favors and be grateful to Him, we won’t feel very depressed but remain content. Then the part about insignificant in our own eyes, this I told before when we feel we are the worst, we won’t be rude and arrogant to others inshaaAllah More duaas The other duaa I yearn to be accepted is: Allahumma waffiqni lima tuhibbu wa tarda minal qauli, wal fiali, wal amali, wan niyyati, wal hadyi innaka alaa kulli shay’in qadeer. Oh Allah! Give me the ability to do that which y\You love and are pleased with be it a word, an act, a deed, an intention or a method (way) for surely You have power over everything. What a beautiful duaa! What else we need. Recite morning and evening durood-100 times, Subhanallahi walhamdulillahi wala ilaha illallahu wallahu akbar wala hawla wala quwwata illa billahil aliyyil azeem-100 times, istighfar-100 times. Recite the morning and evening duas regularly. Include the following duaa: ya hayyu ya qayyum bi rahmatika astagheethu aslihli shanee kullahu wa la takilnee ilaa nafsee tarfata `ayn O the Living! O the Self-subsisting! It is through Your mercy that I am seeking help. Set right all my affairs and do not make me dependant on myself even for a single moment. I remember reading that the above duaa was taught by the Prophet SAW to his SAW daughter Fatimah (RA) to be recited every morning and evening. One more duaa: Allahumma haadhad duaa’u wa alaikal ijaabatu wa haadhal huhdu wa alaikat taklaan. Allahumma! Laa takilni ilaa nafsee Tarfata ayn walaa tanzi’a minnee saaliha maa a’ATainee. O Allah! This is my duaa and it is upon You to accept it. This is my endeavor and all trust is placed in You now. O Allah! Do not leave me to myself even for the blink of an eye, nor snatch away from me the good that You have bestowed upon me. I really hope this helps and I am really sorry for ending up with such a long reply. Let Allah SWT make this helpful to you and accept it from me. Ameen. Please remember me in your duaas. You are also in my duas inshaaAllah.