We all have our own definitions of hope and hopelessness, but the emotions we experience are real and valid. Feeling hopeless may be a natural, universal response to personal and world events that impact our lives. It can also be a symptom of depression, adjustment disorders, and other mental health conditions.
Overall, hope is an optimistic emotion connected to positive outcomes. When you feel hopeless, you may have a sense that things won't improve, you'll never be happy, or you're stuck in life. Feeling hopeless can also feel like helplessness, sadness, apathy, or despair.
Hopelessness is frequently associated with a desire to isolate, and with negative feelings such as helplessness and powerlessness. Feelings of hopelessness may be caused by a variety of events such as financial issues, relationship problems, health concerns, or other such negative circumstances.
Some common synonyms of hopeless are despairing, desperate, and despondent. While all these words mean "having lost all or nearly all hope," hopeless suggests despair and the cessation of effort or resistance and often implies acceptance or resignation.
If the future feels intangible, consider talking to a therapist. They can offer help, support, and treatments that can help you change how you think and make plans to support your goals.
I read a quote from Hal Lindsay, author of the Late Great Planet Earth. He said... “Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air...but only one second without hope.”
Hope is the one thing that guides us through the process.
Accept that tough times will happen to everyone and that you are not alone. Keep in mind that nothing in our life is will remain permanent, we are always growing and changing and you can rely on hope as your support throughout your lifetime.
Much of this is rooted in pain from the past and fear of the future. We spend so much of our time thinking about what we didn't get done yesterday – or what we need to do tomorrow – that we lose sight of today. As a result, we're very rarely fully present in our lives.
When you lose the ability to feel or express any emotions, this is called flat affect. If you feel numb only to positive emotions but are still able to feel negative emotions, this is called anhedonia. Anhedonia is a common symptom of depression and shows up in a lot of mental health conditions.
Emotional numbness, also called “affective blunting,” is most commonly associated with depression. It can also occur with other mental health conditions and medications.
Hopelessness is a feeling of despair or lack of hope that life can feel better than it does. These feelings may make you pull back from your life and avoid doing things you usually enjoy or being with people you love. If hopelessness becomes severe, it can lead to suicidal thoughts.
If you are despondent, you are discouraged, very sad, and without hope. If you are depressed, you might describe your mood as despondent. This adjective is often followed by over or about: "He was despondent over the loss of his job." If you want a noun, use the words despondency or despondence.
not endowed with life; having no life; inanimate: lifeless matter.
For some people, a negative, stressful, or unhappy family life can lead to depression. Other high-stress living situations — like poverty, homelessness, or violence — can lead to it, too. Dealing with bullying, harassment, or peer pressure also leaves some people feeling alone or anxious.
We don't know exactly what causes depression. However, we do know there are a number of things linked to its development. Depression usually develops because of a combination of life events, personal factors and changes in the brain. It doesn't usually develop because of one issue or event.
There's no single cause of depression. It can occur for a variety of reasons and it has many different triggers. For some people, an upsetting or stressful life event, such as bereavement, divorce, illness, redundancy and job or money worries, can be the cause. Different causes can often combine to trigger depression.
Negative Self-Talk
If our self-talk becomes negative towards ourselves, it can lead to anxiety, depression, stress, and burnout, making it feel like life is hard. Awareness of our thought processes and practicing challenging negative self-talk when they arise can lead to a more neutral or positive view of life.