When the present seems intolerable, and the future holds no hope.
Despair is a profound feeling of hopelessness, often accompanied by a sense of helplessness and the perception that circumstances will not improve.
It can stem from various sources, including personal struggles, loss, or overwhelming challenges.
We sometimes say we despair, but what we actually mean is that we need or want something strongly and urgently.
If the person who wants something strongly and urgently still has hope despite, perhaps, a few unsuccessful attempts at securing the desired good, that person may feel desperate but is not in despair.
The person in despair, by contrast, has not simply lost hope but judges the pain of the current situation to be intolerable.
There is no prospect for a better future, for sunnier days, but neither can one continue like this.
It is precisely this subjective sense that the cross of life has become too heavy to bear, that one does not have enough of a fight left within, that we call despair.
Despair is a profoundly lonely burden that when shared with someone else is typically not seen as too heavy to bear.
But if the burden is truly shared, people generally stop short of despair.
There is passivity about despair.
True despair leads to loneliness and estrangement, and weakens the ties between the despairer and the rest of the world.
A person may sometimes make a pact with death and suicide, aa a way out: the pain can be ended and ended at will.