Despair & Forgiveness

Hopelessness & Despair

Hopelessness, despair, meaninglessness & void are words used to describe the feelings that can emerge as you face the changes in your life that result from your loss.

It may be that everything is different, or that all you held dear & true about love or life has disintegrated. You may experience fear & lack of confidence about the future.

This is the central pain of grief. As sadness empties out of you, then hopelessness & despair arise. You may feel there's no light at the end of the tunnel. Other images that people have used to describe their hopelessness are:

• a forest after a forest fire
• a barren desert
• the dark night of the soul 
• an abyss

You may not be able to find the courage to put your feelings into words when you can't believe in a future or you have ambivalence about it.

Your grief may not be the way you thought it would be. Perhaps you never thought you would feel this way. If you see no point in going on & its hard to find a purpose, you wonder how you can go on living in these circumstances.

Depression, suicidal thoughts, or a longing to have life be over may plague you now. Hopelessness & despair can come at moments along the way or be a significant portion of your grief journey.

These feelings are related to depression & you & others might call it that. In grief, your mood is variable & you have a range of emotions, i.e., you have moments when you can laugh.

In clinical depression, your mood is consistently low & you're emotionally flat. Your fear may be that it'll always be this way, but this is an inbetween time - a still place or a transition - in which you integrate what has been with what is now. The stillness or emptiness allows you to move into what is to come.

What forms does despair take?

Despair is:

• An uncontrollable emotional response to loss, which involves reacting to the pain & anguish involved.

• Sobbing & crying, physical responses to the hurt & suffering of the loss.

• Physically tightening the chest & involuntary muscular contractions that occur at the time one "lets go" & feels the total emotion of a loss.

• Often seen as deep depression in which one withdraws completely into oneself & pulls away from others, suffering privately the pain & anguish of the loss.

• Wailing, ranting & invective aimed at God, self, or others in response to the wave of emotional grief experienced in a loss. The sense of being "ungrounded," "unsettled," "lost," "disenfranchised," or "forgotten" as a result of a loss.

• A feeling of overwhelming insecurity & fear after realizing the magnitude of the loss involved.

• The unwillingness of the human spirit to accept the loss & the crying out for justice, redemption, forgiveness & compassion for the loss event.

• Questioning the "fairness" of treatment resulting from the loss & flailing out against it.

• The emotional response most commonly misunderstood as the only response to grief.

What irrational beliefs inhibit the resolution of despair?

• If I cry, I'll show my weakness.

• If I become emotional, I'll reveal my lack of control to others.

• Life should always be fair.

• You must be strong in the face of adversity.

• I must be strong to carry everyone in my family during this crisis.

• If I ignore this problem long enough, it'll go away.

• I must be going crazy or else I wouldn't be responding this way.

• It's not ladylike (or manly) to cry in public.

• I'm the only one going thru this problem; no one else could understand.

• If I let others see my anguish & pain, they'll lose respect for me.

• If I have a problem accepting my loss & let others know, they'll ostracize me.

• It's not normal to be feeling this way.

• There are certain social expectations we have to meet in facing a loss like this.

• If I go thru this anguish once, I'll never have to grieve over this loss again.

• I can't believe I still find myself crying uncontrollably after so much time has passed

• No one should ever have to hurt like this.

• I should be able to resume normal activities as soon as possible.

• It's abnormal to act this way; if others see me act this way they'll think I'm abnormal.

• I'd never admit to anyone how I really feel because it's my personal business & I shouldn't burden anyone else w/my problems.

• If I allow myself to feel & act this way, I'm going to feel guilty later on for such feelings & actions.

What are the results of blocked or unresolved despair?

People with blocked despair:

• have difficulty tuning in to real human emotion.

• feel guilty for the hidden feelings of despair they're harboring

• feel uncomfortable when others despair over a similar loss

• become guarded about letting others know their feelings

• can fall into a deep depression

• often withdraw from others & keep to themselves

• can become "autistic-like" in their response to life's ups & downs

• are unable to accept their loss; therefore they don't adjust to the changes which result

• keep up a "happy face" or "mask of strength" for others but are scared inside

• are often never able to seek or accept help in dealing w/their loss

People with unresolved despair:

• become hysterical in response to any human emotion displayed openly to them

• become crusaders of a "cause" trying to change the way things are in the hard, cruel world

• find it difficult to associate with others who have or are currently suffering a similar loss

• are in a constant state of letting others know about their loss & how much anguish & pain has resulted from the loss

• believe that they're responding normally to their loss & deny their behavior is a form of clinical depression.

• seek out an audience to whom they can ventilate their despair

• become "self-centered,"  ignoring the needs & wants of others, & pursue only self-interests

• mask their lack of coping with their loss in a veneer of strength & gusto

• are never able to cope or adjust to the changes in life resulting from their loss

• become convinced that no one can help them & so they become "lone rangers" & begin to challenge the system to change things

How does one recognize an inappropriate response to despair?

We know we're having an inappropriate response to despair when we:

• Can't think of anything but our loss

• Feel guilt for our loss & find no end to the contempt we feel for ourself & others

• Find it difficult to carry on the normal course of our life

• Find it difficult to face life as a result of our loss

• Feel lost & unable to find the answers to resolving our despair

• Can't speak to anyone about what we're feeling

• Find that our only topic of conversation is our loss

• Have lost all hope or trust in finding a way out of our problem

• Have withdrawn from all of our old friends & social network

• Can no longer enjoy life, find meaning in life, or find a reason for carrying on

The ultimate inappropriate responses to despair include:

• Suicide: overwhelming unhealthy despair response can lead to this final solution

• Divorce: a couple dealing with despair at different levels often can't reconcile their differing viewpoints, leading to dissolution of their marriage.

• Mental illness: unresolved despair can lead to a mental breakdown or break from reality. Psychotic-like behavior is one possible result of uncontrolled despair.

• Physical illness: the physical response to unresolved despair can lead to acute or chronic illness.

• Acts of violence: in a wild rage of despair a person can commit an act such as murder, physical, or sexual abuse to relieve the pain & anguish of the loss.

• Chemical dependency: alcohol or drug abuse can be used to mask the pain & hurt of the loss.

• Food addiction: food becomes an end in itself, not only to satisfy hunger but to gratify the need to relieve the stress of despair.

• Extreme risk taking or self-destructive behavior: gambling, taking foolish chances & avoiding normal precautions can result when one's mind is clouded with the pain & anguish of despair.

"We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed."

2 Corinthians 4:8-9

Steps to resolve blocked despair

Step 1.        Take an honest inventory of your behavioral response to the target loss; identify your inappropriate or unhealthy responses to despair. If you find you have unresolved despair, go to Step 2.

Step 2.        Identify the irrational beliefs blocking the resolution of your despair.

Step 3.        Systematically refute each irrational belief keeping you from resolving your despair.

Step 4.        Seek help from someone to assist you in dealing with your irrational beliefs openly & honestly. Such helpers can include:

• parent
• a trusted relative or friend  
• a church person
• an allied health professional
• a mental health professional

Step 5.In working with a helper, share the cause of your despair. Be free to reveal your inner pain & turmoil. Don't hold back the emotional tide. Trust the helper to respect your emotional response. Ask the helper to provide a "rational" thinking & emotional approach to the loss.

Step 6.            With the assistance of the helper, imagine or picture the loss & allow yourself to feel the pain & hurt of your experience. Use this simulation to bring out your feelings of despair. Bring the simulation to closure by substituting a rational response to the loss, such as: 

• Forgiveness: forgive the real or perceived perpetrators of your loss
• Permission giving: give permission to yourself & others to suffer the loss appropriately & to adjust to the changes resulting from it
• Guilt reduction: free yourself from the guilt that's exacerbating your pain & despair.
• Gentleness & kindness: treat yourself & others kindly & softly, don't be hard on yourself or others, give up trying to be so "perfect."
• Transferring of responsibility:-give up the need to carry the responsibility for others' feelings & reactions, free yourself to be more open & honest in the response to your loss.
• Recognition of self-worth: allow yourself to believe that you deserve to grieve openly, you have the right to adjust to the resulting change & the right to be given the understanding & respect of others as your cope with your loss.

Step 7.            If, in working with your helper, you're unable to resolve your despair, return to Step one.  Use a professionally trained helper, e.g., a mental health counselor, in addressing this unresolved despair. Shop around, if necessary, for someone with whom you can relate.  

The Weapon Of Despair

By fanning the flames of despair, Satan can lead us into the greatest of sins, because desperate people do desperate things.

At the moment a person gives in to despair, one has suffered a loss of faith & trust in God. In the case of abortion, the desperate woman has lost faith in the promise that God has a plan for her life, much less a plan for her child's life.

Desperate people try to take control. They try to save whatever they can by doing whatever needs to be done, which may include betraying their own values.

For example, when the Nazis undertook the extermination of millions of Jews, the sheer magnitude of their task required them to develop ways of soliciting the cooperation of the victims. There were too few soldiers to contain millions of rebellious Jews.

So it was necessary to manipulate their victims so that they would choose to cooperate for at least one day at a time. The Nazis did this by exposing the Jews to limited threats; the victims were always left with the bit of hope that by submitting to the present indignity, there was something else which could be saved. According to sociologist Zygmunt Bauman:

At all stages of the Holocaust, the victims were confronted with a choice (as least subjectively - even when objectively the choice didn't exist any more, having been preempted by the secret decision of physical destruction).

They couldn't choose between good & bad situations, but they could at least choose between greater & lesser evil... In other words they had something to save. To make their victims' behavior predictable & hence manipulable & controllable, the Nazis had to induce them to act in the 'rational mode.'

To achieve that effect, they had to make the victims believe that there was indeed something to save & that there were clear rules as to how one should go about saving it.¹

These choices were presented in a way that discouraged reflecting on the decisions from a moral perspective. Instead, the victims were pressured to make rational decisions based on the rational need to "save whatever we can."

Using this demonic strategy, the Nazis encouraged the empowerment of ghetto Jewish leaders who would see to the needs of the people, coordinate distribution of medicine & materials, maintain morale, etc. These same leaders were then manipulated into cooperating with the Nazi extermination program.

They were confronted with the agonizing choice of cooperating with the Nazis or witnessing the slaughter of their people. At first the cooperation was in "small" things, maintaining a ghetto police force, providing lists of names, selection of ghetto residents to be sent to "resettlement" projects, providing transportation to pick-up points & the like.

In some cases, when the Nazis wanted to punish the entire community for some infraction, Jewish leaders were even forced to select & arrest the desired number of victims who were to be publicly executed by the Nazis.

And always, no matter what the request, the leaders were told that by cooperating they were saving the lives of the majority who remained. Leaders who didn't cooperate were eliminated. Leaders who did cooperate saved their own lives, the lives of their families & the lives of the dwindling majority of Jews under their leadership, at least for a time & were left to agonize over their complicity.

The similarity between Nazi manipulations of the Jews & the abortionists' manipulation of women faced with crisis pregnancies is striking. Just as the victim - Jews were forced to choose between losing everything, or just a little, so abortion counselors encourage the victim-woman to view "this pregnancy" as a threat to everything she has, her relationships, her family, her career, her entire future.

She is assured that by sacrificing this one thing (a tiny unborn child), she can save the rest. During this process, the victim-woman is urged to view the abortion decision not as a moral choice, but as a rational choice of "saving what you can."

But in fact, just as those who reluctantly cooperated with the Nazis discovered, the bargain is a false one. The demands on ghetto leaders to sacrifice more & more victims never stopped. And so it is with the post-aborted woman. After her child is destroyed, she faces:

• self-condemnation
• lower self-esteem
• difficulty with relationships
• substance abuse
• career problems
• a cycle of repeat abortions & more

Often she experiences an intense desire for replacement pregnancies to atone for her lost child & she becomes a single parent, the very problem she sought to avoid in the first place - but now she also has to deal with the emotional scars of an abortion.