Struggling with mental health can be overwhelming, especially when trying to face it alone. One of the greatest challenges is simply understanding what we are feeling. Mental health is complex. Emotions do not arrive classified and labeled for our interpretation. It isn’t always clear whether we are exhausted, stressed, depressed, or experiencing something existential like despair. This uncertainty makes it all the more important to draw distinctions. Not every form of suffering is the same. Naming what we experience can provide clarity and direction for how to respond. In the realm of law, learning to name what we’re experiencing, whether it’s stress, burnout, or something deeper, can be as vital as identifying the right issue in a fact pattern.

With this in mind, I’ve created this guide that will focus on two experiences that are related, though only faintly: depression and despair. Depression and despair are often spoken of interchangeably because they share the appearance of sadness. Yet beneath that similarity, they are ontologically different. A close examination of both reveals that depression is a recognized medical and mental condition, whereas despair remains a psychopathological phenomenon that researchers have only minimally studied to date.

In what follows, I will begin by examining depression, how it is understood in medical and professional terms, and why this matters for law students and lawyers alike. From there, I will turn to despair, a less defined but deeply human experience, drawing on both philosophical thought and personal encounters to give it shape. I will conclude by considering the possibility of hope and faith as a potential remedy.

DEPRESSION

Depression is a recognized medical and mental health condition that affects mood, energy, and a person’s ability to engage fully with daily life. The common features of all depressive disorders are sadness, emptiness, or irritable mood, accompanied by somatic and cognitive changes that significantly affect an individual’s capacity to function. Speaking up about depression can be difficult for anyone to do. Due to false perceptions, nearly 60% of people with depression do not seek medical help. Many of these individuals feel that the stigma of a mental health disorder is not acceptable in society and may hinder both personal and professional lives.

In reality, there is a universal dimension to mental well-being that must be acknowledged, one that offers reassurance in knowing you are not alone. The Survey of Law Student Well-Being (SLSWB), published in the University of Louisville Law Review in Spring 2021, makes clear the universality of mental health struggles. With participation from thirty-nine law schools across the country—including public, private, and religious institutions, as well as schools of varying sizes—the survey revealed that nearly 70 percent of law students reported needing assistance for emotional or psychological struggles in the prior year, a sharp rise from 42 percent in 2014. While this shared experience provides a sense of solidarity, it also demands greater effort to normalize conversations about well-being and to expand access to meaningful support.

As a 3L preparing to cross the bridge from student to attorney, I recognize that the challenges of law school, stress, fatigue, even burnout may also arise in professional life. Acknowledging this possibility is the first step toward building a healthier foundation of self as we enter the field. In 2021, researchers from Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers and NORC at the University of Chicago surveyed 4,450 Massachusetts attorneys regarding their mental health. The findings revealed that 77 percent reported burnout, 26 percent reported significant anxiety, and 21 percent reported depression. These numbers suggest that the challenges of mental health may not simply end at graduation. They can reemerge in the profession or appear for the first time, with the potential to impact your life if left unaddressed.

Despite these alarming rates, resources for those struggling are ever-growing. While seeking help may carry a sense of vulnerability, there is no need for worry. Help is here, and available in abundance—just one click away. 

For those facing depression or any other mental health challenge, whether student or lawyer, Boston College and other organizations in the Boston area provide a wide range of wellness programs, counseling services, and confidential support:

• BC Law Health & Wellness: provides a wide range of resources for law students. It brings together mental health counseling, mindfulness programs, wellness coaching, financial and food security resources, physical health and recreation options, family support, and dedicated spaces like the WellNest Hub and meditation rooms.
• Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers (LCL): A free and confidential service tailored to the unique challenges faced by law students and attorneys.
• InnoPsych: A resource designed to help you find therapists who truly understand your lived experiences. You can search for providers based on race, gender, and cultural background, making it easier to connect with someone who feels like the right fit. 

Understanding depression in its clinical and professional dimensions allows us to see it clearly and address it directly. While I am not a licensed professional, I hope this guide encourages you to feel comfortable seeking one who can provide the care, perspective, and support you deserve.

DESPAIR

Moving forward, I will be leaving depression to licensed medical professionals who are best equipped to address it in depth. Instead, I will focus on despair, a concept less researched and distinct from depression, offering only my own experienced but unlicensed perspective. From my own encounters with despair, I’ve secretly been taking notes to offer you, my trusted reader, with the hope they may guide you in your own moments alone, traversing the ever-expanding universe of law.

The word despair derives from the Latin term desperare, which means “down from hope.” Despite often being treated as only a mere symptom of depression, despair is its own beast. Cognitive despair refers to thoughts indicating defeat, hopelessness, guilt, worthlessness, learned helplessness, pessimism, and limited positive expectations for the future. Despair is different from depression as it can be understood less as a medical condition and more as a psychological concept.

DEPRESSION vs. DESPAIR

Søren Kierkegaard, a 19th-century Danish philosopher often regarded as the father of existentialism, explored themes of faith, despair, and the self in his seminal work The Sickness Unto Death (1849). In this text, he elaborates upon the distinction between depression and despair by illustrating how each unfolds differently in an individual.

“Observe that we speak of a man contracting a disease, maybe through carelessness. Then the illness sets in, and from that instant it affirms itself and is now an actuality, the origin of which recedes more and more into the past. It would be cruel and inhuman if one were to continue to say incessantly, “This instant thou, the sick man, art contracting this disease; that is, if every instant one were to resolve the actuality of the disease into its possibility. It is true that he did contract the disease, but this he did only once; the continuance of the disease is a simple consequence of the fact that he once contracted it, its progress is not to be referred every instant to him as the cause; he contracted it, but one cannot say that he is contracting it. Not so with despair: every actual instant of despair is to be referred back to possibility, every instant the man in despair is contracting it, it is constantly in the present tense, nothing comes to pass here as a consequence of a bygone actuality superseded; at every actual instant of despair the despairer bears as his responsibility all the foregoing experience in possibility as a present. This comes from the fact that despair is a qualification of spirit, that it is related to the eternal in man.”

In simpler terms, unlike a physical illness you catch once and then carry, despair renews itself in every moment. Each instance of despair is fresh and active, making it inseparable from personal responsibility and intertwined with the deepest part of the self.

Despair also tends to cast an illusion. At first, it convinces us that we are despairing over some external, material thing. Yet this is only a surface appearance. In truth, when we despair “over something,” we are really despairing over the self itself. For example, I once thought my despair was over grades. I told myself, ‘Either a certain GPA or nothing.’ When I fell short, I believed I was simply despairing over the number. However, in the same moment, something deeper revealed itself: I was really despairing over my-self. Because I did not achieve the specific GPA, I felt I could not bear to be who I was in the present. My despair was not about the grade itself, but about being me without it. In those moments, I believed that without such a GPA, I no longer had the same possibilities available. 

UNDERSTANDING THE ‘SELF’

Why is this the case for despair? Because despair is not merely a condition of the body, it’s a condition of the self, i.e., conscience. One’s selfhood is constitutive of multiplate factors in terms of “self-shaping and self-acceptance.” Infinity, eternity, and possibility represent the dimensions of our selfhood that are open to our free will and imagination, i.e., the future courses we select, the career paths we pursue, and the goals we set for ourselves. By contrast, finitude, temporality, and necessity represent the dimensions of selfhood that are fixed and constrain our choices, i.e., the grades we have already received, the year in which we entered law school, and personal circumstances such as finances or family obligations.

The self is a synthesis of these two dimensions, shaped by the way one relates to them. These aspects exist in a constant, dynamic interplay, a tension that can never be fully escaped or discarded. One cannot step outside the relationship with one’s own conscience. As Kirkegaard put it, “The self is a relation that relates itself to itself.” That is to say, our sense of self is never detached from how we experience life emotionally and mentally. Our moods are not just passing feelings “on top of” who we are; they are part of how we relate to ourselves.

If you are anxious, hopeful, or despairing, that mood colors the way you see yourself, your possibilities, and your limits. In Kierkegaard’s sense, the self is always in motion, always interpreting and shaping itself through these moods. Thus, when hopelessness arises in the face of present or future circumstances, it may signal a condition of despair. In reflecting on my own experience, I have come to recognize that such moments often revealed a misrelation in how I was relating to my-self.

CURE TO DESPAIR

According to Kierkegaard, despair cannot be cured by distraction or avoidance. Its remedy requires two things: first, that an individual recognizes the nature of themself as a self; and second, that they seek their ultimate cure in a power higher than themself — namely, God. However, for those of you who have a different belief or secular perspective, place your trust in that higher power, whether it be fate, luck, or chance, and assume they are in your favor.

Personally, and similarly to Kierkegaard, my faith rests in Yeshua, my Lord and Savior. Despite my failures, even after those moments, infinite possibility remains at my behest. This rests on the absurd fact that with God all things are possible. The form of this possibility may not arrive in the way I first imagined, nor on the timeline I demand of it, but I trust that the impact I hope to make in law and in the lives of others will unfold on its own time. Until then, my task is to remain faithful, pursuing the path set before me tirelessly with joy.

What does this look like? It looks like taking action when despair tempts me toward paralysis. When the voice within insists that I am not enough, I choose to act. I act by writing another page, preparing another case, sending another email, praying, walking, or even just breathing. In these moments, I remind myself that thoughts are not commands. They are passing visitors in the mind. I am not required to absorb every thought that enters consciousness, especially those soaked in regret or impossibility. Instead, I step back, observe them as they pass, and choose to internalize only those that hint toward hope and possibility.

Despair wants you stuck in the past, staring at what has already happened, and believing it is the final moment of your life. Yet the present tugs at you, begging for your attention, and reminding you that there is work to be done now, in this instant moment. And up ahead, the future calls out to you, inviting you to step into possibility rather than retreat into regret. To respond is to accept the pull of the present, to act faithfully in small steps today, while also keeping our eyes lifted toward the future that still awaits. 

In this way, the cure to despair is not found in passivity but in practice by observing, discerning, and doing. We now have a cure that requires a continuous synthesis of two things: reflection and action. Reflection creates the distance needed to see clearly, to release the grip of the past, to resist distractions of the present, and to orient ourselves toward the future. Action is the positing of the spirit and conscience to the physical world. No one knows what you think or will to do unless you actually speak or do.

WITH LOVE

I write this out of love for everyone. Peers, professors, faculty, professionals, any individual accidentally coming across this, and lastly, myself. What other way to demonstrate my love than writing passionately about the struggles we may face as law students, future lawyers, and above all, humans? With love, there is vulnerability. Therefore, I speak upon my experience with despair sincerely. Love also requires sacrifice and loss. That is why they say if you love something, let it go. So, out of love for yourself, let go of all doubt, fear, and regret. Cling onto hope and be thrust into the future.

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Staniel Brutis is a third-year student at BC Law. Contact him at brutis@bc.edu.