Overcoming despair, the poison that gradually extinguishes joys, motivations and energies

Despair slowly kills joys, motivations, and energy. A constant crust of disappointment, a thorn that makes us breathe through the bitterness until it traps us in a perilous psychological trap. These emotions make us vulnerable to depression and other emotionally costly disorders over time.

We know from clinical practice that many psychological issues have recognised treatments. We know what therapies and tactics to give patients with anxiety, PTSD, phobias, etc.

As strange as it sounds, other realities challenge experts. In these cases, a person enters saying they have lost the meaning of life, is locked in despair, and suffers without knowing why.

The DSM-V does not usually list this condition. Many people have yet to reach this clinical illness stage. They are in an abyss, on the edge of a cliff, and need immediate action to avoid falling.

Despair is losing life's meaning, as we all know. Believing that everything is lost is risky and foolish.

“Despair is based on what we know, which is nothing, and hope on what we do not know, which is everything.”

Maurice Maeterlinck

Look at this image. The Pre-Raphaelite painter Evelyn De Morgan called it Hope in the Prison of Despair. A woman leans over and hides her face in a gloomy dungeon. In front of a window, she doesn't lean out to see the sun. This number represents despair.

A young man behind her holds a lamp: hope seeks to illuminate, comfort, and give him optimism, courage, and inner strength. The painter sought to show this inspiring deity we must invoke to escape our personal prison of disappointments, regrets, frustrations, and emptiness.

In essence, hope implies breathing. Thus, despair would indicate the loss of spirit, which makes us human, as well as the loss of breathing.

This feeling's objective reality lies beyond its symbolic meaning. Despair is a labyrinth of strange internal movements and processes.

This is why hopelessness is hard to describe.

Seeing all this symptomatology, one thing is clear: if these psychological and behavioural dynamics remain, the person will develop depression.

Despair is intermittent. It's like a parasite that bothers us at certain seasons of the year but disappears when we change our perspective or routines.

Studies like the one at the University of Twente in the Netherlands show that personality type is associated to despair. Pessimism and susceptibility characterise some profiles. However, depression is not inevitable.

Everyone has the chance (and duty) to fight despair using own resources. We can consider these keys:

Get in touch with yourself and name your feelings.
Tell yourself that despair generally follows the rule of three: unhappy, annoyed, disappointed, making me fatigued. Finally, it accumulates. This implies that we have ignored several issues. Thus, these few points should be investigated to determine their origin.

Some behaviours increase despair. Repeating this will worsen the situation. Therefore, we need new habits. Try to connect to reality differently, innovate, start new projects, and be creative (as much as feasible).

Finally, when we're in Evelyn De Morgan's painting's prison of despair, the most important thing is to develop alternatives, open new doors, and journey to new horizons. It's apparent that sometimes we can't escape this psychological state.

Cognitive behavioural treatment helps. Please consult a professional.

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