Demoralization disorder is a condition that emerges together with feelings of inadequacy and helplessness in coping with life problems, accompanied by hopelessness, meaninglessness, subjective feelings of insufficiency, and a decrease in self-worth.
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Consistency and the success gained as a result of this consistency in a productive life make a person happy and increase hope for life. However, in the opposite situation, the individual begins to feel useless, unhappy, and hopeless.
The most important consequence of hopelessness is the emergence of feelings of meaninglessness. The individual begins to feel worthless, and these feelings of worthlessness lead to feelings of inadequacy. If this situation is not worked on, these feelings of inadequacy begin to become chronic. Every person feels emotions of inadequacy or deficiency within themselves. But through efforts, work, and the products that emerge as a result, a person feels happy and meaningful in life.
They give meaning to life in their own way and do not fall into meaninglessness. The feeling of meaninglessness is an emotion that occasionally appears within a person. However, we try to eliminate the conditions that cause these feelings to arise in life. In even the smallest moments of emptiness, these emotions reveal themselves, and we distract ourselves to avoid feeling them.
If situations arise in a person’s life that they believe they cannot cope with or perceive as such, the individual suddenly finds themselves in a sea of meaninglessness. Demoralized individuals cannot see a reason to continue their lives; they believe they no longer have a purpose to move forward, and the thoughts caused by purposelessness bring them to a complete point of hopelessness. These thoughts and emotions can pose a threat to the individual's existence. They begin to be imprisoned by thoughts that life is empty. The situations that cause these emotions and thoughts may sometimes be receiving news of an illness, grief after a loss, or for the elderly, an impatient expectation of death.
These feelings of hopelessness and meaninglessness may lead to increased social isolation, distancing from people, finding interactions meaningless, and further intensifying the vicious cycle, creating feelings of being unloved in the individual.
Diagnostic Features of Demoralization
- Existential distress symptoms; feelings of meaninglessness and the hopelessness created by meaninglessness
- Feelings of pessimism, reduced motivation to cope, helplessness
- Reduced social interaction, social isolation, alienation, lack of support
Differences Between Depression and Demoralization
Demoralization is characterized by loss of meaning, feelings of inadequacy, and purposelessness, whereas in depression there is primarily anhedonia (inability to feel pleasure), diminished interest in oneself and surroundings, and withdrawal from daily activities. Although anhedonic symptoms—loss of pleasure—may also be seen in demoralization, they are more situational. In other words, demoralization and sorrow are different emotional states from depression. For example, cancer patients may experience anhedonic decline associated with their illness, but the inability to feel pleasure in depression is a different condition. Demoralization that is not treated or worked through may progress into clinical depression and later major depression.
The example below helps us understand how distress and unhappiness become chronic in an individual and spread throughout their life, and how the individual systematizes these experiences:
Distress devalues life; it is easy to detach from what is devalued. What loses its meaning becomes meaningless. What is meaningless is without value. If I do not live life, it becomes easier to detach from it. The idea of death becomes less frightening. Experiencing happiness creates disappointment. The end of happiness brings sadness, which means disappointment. Distress makes one brave, because it makes me feel superior. If I am not happy, I owe nothing; I do not pay the debt of living, just as I would not pay the debt of death. Distress protects me from pains I would not experience anyway. Dying in a happy and carefree life is very difficult. Leaving that life is hard because leaving something good is difficult. When I render what I cannot understand meaningless, meaning loses its value. But I know that what is valuable becomes devalued. Valuing distress and keeping it alive protects me against hopelessness like a shield. Distress is the remedy for hopelessness. Distress makes me feel alive. Because death is a part of life. To be strong against death means “not taking pleasure,” so that life and death have no meaning. While devaluing life, I also devalue death. At the end of unhappiness, there is no surprise. But at the end of happiness, there is disappointment, separation, and again unhappiness. Do not be happy so you will not be disappointed!
Finally, what Kierkegaard says about hopelessness summarizes all of this in a few sentences: According to Kierkegaard, “Hopelessness is the sickness of the self; hopelessness is the mortal illness.”
The hopeless person is mortally ill—more so than from any other illness. This illness is an attack on the most essential core of existence. Here, death is not an end, but an unending ending.
References
K. Sören The Sickness Unto Death, 1997
Surjeet Sahoo1, P. K. Mohapatra 2
1I.M.S & SUM Hospital, Bhubaneswar.
2Mental Health Institute, SCB Medical College, Cuttack, Orissa-753007, India
