In my many years of practicing psychiatry, the thought of hopelessness most frightens me when I hear it from my patients.

The feeling that this is the way it is, this is the way it always will be, and no one can help, in my opinion, inform us most about the risks of suicide. I always tell them, "If your lack hope, borrow some of mine."

The key to combating these feelings are precisely what you've expressed: You haven't always felt this despair; you have felt better; you can again.