[littlePen]

Brother, may Allah ease your situation. Amen.

You must understand a few things:

1) No one is perfect save Allah alone. Our worship, prayers, recitation etc, will all be always deficient in one way or another. Even if we were able to perfect everything, which it self is an impossibility, it would still fall short of what Allah is truly deserving of. This is not just us, but also the sahaba, and there is a hadith, that even the Prophet (saw) will not get into paradise based on his actions but only through the divine mercy. This tells us that while striving for perfection is important, its attainment is impossible, and even if it were possible you'll still rely on the mercy of Allah to accept it and to grant us Paradise. Our worship is of no benefit to Allah, it neither increases nor decreases his kingdom nor his majesty. and Perfection in every sense in every way is reserved for him alone. Even if you perfected your salat, who was it that gave you the ability, will power, knowledge and blessing to be able to do that? Allah of course! He who gave you your very limbs and mind to perfect salaat, so the debt to Allah is not absolved by perfect salat, it only grows. Ultimately we are needy to him in every way. If he blesses us with perfect or excellent salat it is only through his mercy that he has granted us that, if he had not granted it we could not achieve anything like it on our own.

2) Perfection of faith lies in the middle of two things, hope and fear. Fear that our deeds are not accepted, fear of his punishment, fear of the reckoning, and then in hope. Hope that our deeds are accepted, hope in his reward, hope on an easy reckoning. If you are too much into fear then you are in the present state you find yourself in, essentially in despair. If one relies on hope too much they become careless in their actions, and gain false hope in Allah that he will forgive all despite our blatant efforts to sin. You must bring your faith into this equilibrium. Read about the mercy of Allah, his qualities of mercy upon his creation, his forgiving etc.

3) Scholars say that even after we do a good act we make istigfar, then they say we should make istigfar for our istigfar. because even our istigfar is lacking. you see we are poor slaves knocking on the door of the Most Generous One. We have nothing to offer that would be of need to Allah, that is simply our state. Regardless of how good or bad your salat is, make 3 istigfars that are sunnah after salat. and then hope in divine mercy. They say if you have begged for forgiveness it is incorrect to continue to ask for forgiveness for the same occurrence of the sin, as though you believe your istigfar was not accepted, but he is Oft-Forgiving and Most Merciful. What the scholars say is only to make us realize our own neediness to him and our absolute deficiency in every good we do.

I pray that reflection on these points grants you relief. Amen.