How You Can Regroup When Hopelessness Takes Hold

Times have been tough. Conversations have been challenging. Transition and change have been unrelenting.

And if your mental health has suffered, you aren't alone. Of course, that doesn't mean you don't feel like you are not alone. Your feelings, in fact, may be pretty hard to manage right now. The low, dark moods you're struggling with may often give way to feelings of hopelessness as you review the past, contemplate the future, and just feel stuck in the middle of it all.

Try to hold on to the idea that your feelings are not necessarily the truth that grounds you right now. They do provide important information but consider the fact that hopelessness arises when our ability to assess and interpret our lives objectively is compromised.

In other words, when hopelessness takes over, we feel like everything is going wrong. We succumb to self-criticism and blame, believing that and there’s nothing we can do to turn things around. Yet, relief and a brighter outlook lie in your ability to look deeper at your thought process. It’s important to challenge automatic, negative conclusions.

How do you do that when you already feel so low?

You can start by examining the experiences and thought patterns that contribute to hopelessness. Doing so, with the help of a qualified therapist, will lend you the solid support necessary to start living in hope again.

Awareness: What Am I Dealing With?

Is my hopelessness short-term?

In the short term, feelings of hopelessness can be a normal part of the grieving process or a brief part of a depressive episode. Symptoms may include a lack of voluntary responses, sad affect, low energy, apathy, sleep disruption, poor concentration, and more. With the help of time and nurturing relationships, symptoms abate, inner resilience can rebound. If the situation persists for more than a few weeks, the problem may be deeper.

Am I wrestling with something more long-term?

In some cases, hopelessness is a deeply ingrained, long-term pattern of thinking, feeling, and relating to others. This feeling of powerlessness can develop into a chronic depressive state without attention. Everything may seem to require too much effort or feel doomed anyway. When all the world looks bleak, climbing out of a mental black hole may feel impossible. Work with a counselor skilled in depression treatment can provide beneficial guidance for recovery. 

Is my hopelessness linked to something physical?

One important step toward discovering a cause for hopelessness is a complete physical exam. In addition to therapy, a thorough evaluation by your physician can help rule out medical explanations for your depressive symptoms. Physical maladies or medication interactions or side effects can certainly impact your mental health.

Acceptance and Reinterpretation

Accepting the impact of your experiences can go a long way in helping you cope with anxious and depressive thinking. Acceptance is not simply acknowledging that a bad thing happened and that it affected you negatively, though that's part of it. It's also accepting that whatever happened changed you and changed your perception of yourself in ways that may not be helpful, useful, or true.

Hopelessness is often rooted in all sorts of interpretation biases regarding the past and your current situation. Perhaps you experienced the stress of the pandemic, financial strain, and the breakdown of a significant relationship all at once. It wouldn't be usual to experience a disproportionately negative response to any further stress or transition. 

You may think, "what's the point of trying" or "who cares about tomorrow?" You may be caught in a loop of interpreting uncertainty, disruption, loss, and in negative, unhelpful ways.

To recover, it is often helpful to look deeper:

Are there Trauma's You Haven't Resolved?

Long-term feelings of hopelessness, are often linked to unresolved trauma. Many people hold beliefs about life that, while true in the context of the event or series of events, are not valid or rational in later life or in unrelated situations. 

Do You feel that a Healthy Relationship is Unattainable?

If you feel hopeless about the possibility of finding or keeping love in your life, you may be the victim of distorted thinking that actually keeps you isolated. It's important to identify unproductive thoughts and beliefs that affect your self-talk and communication to help move your ability to relate to yourself and others in more positive ways.

Is Low Self-Worth Damaging Your Mental Health?

You may be undervaluing yourself routinely, which can easily lead to powerlessness and hopelessness. If you cannot recognize your personal worth, you may start to discount the value of your presence at all. You may get in the habit of diminishing your successes and amplifying your failures. This undermines hope and forward movement in life. 

Is an Inability to Forgive Holding You Back?

If you believe others are holding you back, hopelessness may have become a default reaction. Thoughts focused less on someone else’s behavior and how you've been harmed (and more on letting go) could help you regain more personal control and hope for what lies ahead.

Seek Help to Move from Hopelessness to Hopeful

Transform feelings of hopelessness with a compassionate counselor. Someone who can help you acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses in a safe place is invaluable. Together, you can reprocess some challenging experiences and set goals for the future, both of which will help you feel less stuck right now. In time, depression counseling can help dislodge thoughts and emotions that keep you from the life you want and restore your confidence.  You deserve to live in hope again. Let us help. Please reach out soon for a consultation.