Navigating the Depths of Despair: Understanding Depression

Feeling disconnected from one’s purpose in life can feel so empty, and even more so, when heightened by isolation; leaving a person in the despair of their own depression with a feeling of torturous emptiness, staring away into the ceiling. I can understand and empathize with this despair. Depression is not easy for many people.

I’m inclined to think of a client that I walk by all the time. If he’s not being prompted to engage with life, he simply disengages from it, lying day in and day out, staring away at the ceiling.

When you look at him and attempt to speak or connect, he is dazed and confused, and there’s still not much happening. It seems almost as if he has relinquished his Will to live.

Seeing the despair in the family’s eyes, of a family member in such a state, is like grieving the loss of what used to be, filled with depression and sadness. How do they cope?

A parent only hopes for the best. Loved ones only hope for the best. You wonder if your loved one will be okay. You wonder about the future for them and for both of you, about the loss of what could’ve been. All that remains now are the fragmented pieces that you struggle to put back together into a complete whole.

Depression and this disconnection are a form of suffrage. It not only impacts the client or the individual themselves, who is absorbed in the quagmire of this despair, but it also trickles down to the minds and hearts of those who love them.

In these moments of despair and seemingly lost hope, all that is left remains yet to be— that person’s revelation encountered in the barren mind, heart, and soul of their solitary chamber.

(c)2024 John Piedrahita