It is typical to feel that things are hopeless and will never get better if you have had a significant loss or significant life change, or if you have a mental health condition like depression. Hopelessness is the absence of optimism that life can be better than it is. You could withdraw from life as a result of these emotions and avoid engaging in your favorite activities or spending time with the people you care about. If hopelessness persists, suicidal thoughts may develop.
It might be time to seek help from a counselor or therapist who can assist you in identifying the source of the problem and working through it with you if you’ve been struggling with a sense of hopelessness and it isn’t getting better—or it’s getting worse. Now is the time to get assistance if you are thinking about harming yourself or ending your Life and Feels Hopeless.
Why We Need Hope
Hope is what gets us through the tough times, difficult times, and mental health issues that we all endure in Life Feels Hopeless. We require hope because it enables us to access the optimistic conviction that things can improve, even when they are beyond our control. It is crucial for our overall health.
When you begin to feel hopeless, it’s crucial to pay notice, seek support, and make adjustments that will enable you to regain or rediscover hope.
How to Feel Less Hopeless
We can’t always avoid circumstances that can leave us feeling hopeless, like a loved one’s passing, a job loss, or financial strain. However, we can improve how we respond to challenges. Here are some practical strategies for overcoming feelings of helplessness when you are dealing with a trying circumstance.
Reframe Hopeless Thoughts
When you’re depressed, catastrophizing—imagining the worst case—is a regular occurrence. When you overestimate how severe a situation is or assume that a challenging circumstance will always exist, you are catastrophizing.
Learning to reframe hopeless thoughts is one of the most effective ways to deal with this mindset because it can reinforce feelings of hopelessness.
That can look like this:
- Understanding that the difficult emotions you are currently experiencing, such as extreme sadness, guilt, or grief, will pass eventually. While it is intense, learning how to be kind to yourself can really help.
- Realizing that, despite how unjust or upsetting this shift or loss was, there will be many more kinds, tender, and joyful times in the future than you can currently imagine. It is therefore preferable to be present for those moments than not.
- Finding and emphasizing the good things in life allows you to live less severely without forgetting or discounting hardships you’ve faced.
Let’s imagine that the college of your choice rejects you. If you automatically imagine the worst situation, you can start to think you’ll never get into a decent college or have a successful profession.
If you’re willing to consider different perspectives, you can allow yourself to consider different scenarios that take into account all the upcoming changes, experiences, and individuals. For instance, you might decide to take a gap year and have completely unique experiences as a result. It is useful to keep in mind that there are several ways to achieve your objectives.
Practice Positive Coping Strategies
You might be tempted to divert your attention or look for other means of avoiding the thoughts of hopelessness because it might leave you feeling numb or empty. It’s beneficial to understand that, despite being understandable, this inclination is unlikely to make you feel better. Using risky behaviors to cope, such as self-harm, drug or alcohol abuse, reckless driving, or unsafe sexual behavior, is likely to make the sense of helplessness you’re trying to escape even more intense.
It is much more beneficial to develop coping mechanisms that will both divert your attention and assist you in ending your sense of helplessness. You could experiment with artistic means of expressing your emotions, such as writing in a journal, creating art, singing, or moving in a way that makes you feel wonderful. Being gentle to yourself no matter how you are feeling and practicing thankfulness for the things you have can also be very helpful.
Conclusion
It’s normal to require support when things are tough, but when things are really bad, it can be difficult to accept assistance or have faith that it will help. Tell the people in your Life Feels Hopeless the truth if you’re struggling and let them know how you’re feeling. It makes sense to hide our emotions because we might be concerned about bothering other people, but doing so drains a lot of our energy and prevents us from receiving help when we most need it. The ones who love you want to be by your side. Additionally, by allowing them to support you when you need it, you might encourage them to ask for help from you and others when they do too.