by Doug Clore

Created on: December 02, 2009   Last Updated: December 03, 2009

The strongest emotion is despair. For some who experience this complete lack of hope, despair comes to live with them and never goes away. It becomes the last emotion they ever feel as it rips their lives from them. People who become long term prisoners of despair are in danger of losing their very lives, as depression and suicide are often close on the heels of this emotion from hell.

Imagine an emotion so strong that it is immune to all other emotions. Victims of despair are often powerless to escape the grips of their personal hell, even in the face of their love for their family, and their family's love for them. Even a mother's love is no match for despair. Anger cannot touch a person wrapped in hopelessness; it does not affect them at all. They are not influenced by anger directed toward them, nor do they feel anger themselves. Hate takes way too much energy for a person with no hope; they often find it impossible to even answer simple yes or no questions. Any emotion which is directed outward toward others disappears as despair causes the individual to look only to himself and his pain.

There's a reason for the term "depths of despair". A person experiencing despair often feels as though they are existing in a bottomless pit, a dark hole from which they cannot emerge. They can barely hear what others are saying, and feel as if they themselves are speaking from far off and cannot make themselves heard. They are moving in slow motion through thick fog. Life becomes a dream where they are moving their arms and legs, but getting nowhere. They are completely convinced that nothing will ever change the living nightmare world that has become their reality.

Despair can be a brief, fleeting emotion that leaves as quickly as it comes, such as a situation where you fear a loved one has died, but find out he has survived. Despair can settle over a person like a blanket, and make itself so much at home that in order to recover, it takes professional help, perhaps medication, and sometimes even seemingly miraculous intervention. What else can take a strong person, living a life full of joy and love, and bring them so low that they are able to overcome their nearly insurmountable survival instinct and attempt to end their own lives, sometimes successfully. Despair is definitely the most powerful emotion.

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