Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.
Proverbs 3:5&6 (ESV)
In 2021, there were over 100,000 “deaths of despair” from drug overdoses, an increase of 15% from the previous year—and deaths from suicide and liver disease also increased, the latter a symptom of the same kind of self-destructive behaviors.
Ellen Meara, health policy professor at Dartmouth, told the Washington Post, “There’s something more fundamental about how people are feeling at some level… People are feeling worse about themselves and their futures, and that’s leading them to do things that are self-destructive.”
The word despair derives from the Latin word desperare, which means “down from hope”. Despair in any form can not only affect an individual person but can also arise in and spread through social communities.
There are four basic types of despair:
Cognitive despair denotes thoughts connected to defeat, guilt, hopelessness and pessimism. It may make a person perceive other people’s actions as hostile and discount the value of long-term outcomes.
Emotional despair refers to feelings of sadness, irritability, loneliness, and apathy and may partly impede the process of creating and nourishing interpersonal relationships.
Behavioral despair describes risky, reckless and self-destructive acts reflecting little to no consideration of the future (such as self-harm, reckless driving, drug use, risky sexual behaviors and others).
Biological despair relates to dysfunction or dysregulation of the body’s stress reactive system and/or to hormonal instability.
Living under the influence of despair for an extended amount of time may lead to the development of one or more of the diseases of despair, such as suicidal thoughts or drug and alcohol abuse. If individuals have a disease of despair, there is an increased risk of deaths of despair.
As a contrast, we read in Proverbs 3 that God blesses our obedience by enabling all who trust and obey Him to live in the comfort of uplifting hope. Obedience brings the blessing of walking within the bounds of wisdom, free from the curses of a despairing and destructive existence. Obedience—even without understanding—enables a person to trust God, who will prove faithful each time that trust is exercised—completing and strengthening our much-needed circle of hope.