What's the difference between despondent and helpless?

Despondent


Definition:

  • (a.) Marked by despondence; given to despondence; low-spirited; as, a despondent manner; a despondent prisoner.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) After she hit the two-year mark, five-month mark, she’s been despondent.
  • (2) It was hard to reconcile Pistorius's despondent figure in black suit and tie and white shirt with the "blade runner" who thrilled stadiums around the world and became the first amputee to run in the Olympics .
  • (3) But actually what we felt as the days and weeks passed – me and Kelly and my father – was a sense of despondency, of being let down, of just sinking through the system.
  • (4) In 46%, the subject had expressed despondency over illness.
  • (5) There is a sense of despondency spreading in Pakistan.
  • (6) The value of Brazil's currency, the real, has ballooned since President Lula took power, leaving exporters despondent and leading Goldman Sachs to classify it as the most overvalued currency on earth.
  • (7) , became a battle manual for despondent Democrats after George W Bush’s second election victory.
  • (8) He told worshippers at Durham cathedral: "It is very easy to be despondent about the church.
  • (9) Pablo Simón, a political science professor at Madrid’s Carlos III University, argues that a fresh election and the attendant politicking could further alienate an already despondent electorate.
  • (10) In Spike Jonze 's Her, set in a near future LA, Phoenix is Theodore, a despondent, solitary writer whose life picks up when he falls in love with Samantha, a portable, artificially intelligent operating system who provides more than he could have hoped for.
  • (11) [It is] all the Ds: despair, depression, despondency.” “Chinese media are under a lot of pressure right now.
  • (12) Jose Mourinho: Rafa Benitez destroyed my work at Inter within six months Read more There wasn’t too much to get excited or despondent about in any of the displays in New York, Charlotte or here in Washington DC.
  • (13) Rob came very close to death many times, and I think part of James's despondency now comes from having saved Rob so many times, only to lose him in the end.
  • (14) They have been left despondent by Francis's occasional comments on the issue, in which he has generally defended the church while condemning the abuse.
  • (15) Despondent MPs tonight voiced fears that Britain may experience a milder ­version of the "clean hands" affair that brought down Italy's postwar political settlement in the 1990s.
  • (16) Strong was despondent over Bilibid but recovered and developed a noteworthy career in American tropical medicine.
  • (17) It has been demonstrated that a small proportion of women taking oral contraceptives develop a depressive syndrome characterized by despondency, tension, and changes in sex desire.
  • (18) A classic portrait of the grieving widower, his despondency did not surprise mental health professionals.
  • (19) For those who don't get the results they hoped for – and their chosen universities – the moments after the envelope are full of dread and despondency.
  • (20) It is easy to see why players bounce off Klopp and indeed it was tempting to wonder if Chelsea’s despondent players were casting the occasional envious glance at the German, whose energetic and engrossing touchline demeanour offered a welcome shade of light next to José Mourinho ’s dark scowl.

Helpless


Definition:

  • (a.) Destitute of help or strength; unable to help or defend one's self; needing help; feeble; weak; as, a helpless infant.
  • (a.) Beyond help; irremediable.
  • (a.) Bringing no help; unaiding.
  • (a.) Unsupplied; destitute; -- with of.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The two groups had one thing in common: the casualties' mostly deliberate posttraumatic reaction; there were only 3 patients in a state of helplessness.
  • (2) For now, the overriding feeling is helplessness, tinged with shame for the last year of passivity.
  • (3) Five needs were reported by more than 30% of the sample as not being met: 1) being able to talk about fears of the future, illness, or death; 2) being occupied and having things to do; 3) having up-to-date information about HIV; 4) having someone to help them with their feelings of depression, helplessness, anxiety, or anger; and 5) help for the patient's family.
  • (4) A rating of helplessness shown in the past just before onset of a prior depressive episode suggested a similar raised rate compared to those never depressed.
  • (5) It is an excruciating fly-on-the-wall witness to Allison's vainglory, Swales's self-regard for his own leadership qualities and the poor young players' overpromoted helplessness.
  • (6) Fibromyalgia patients reported significantly higher levels of learned helplessness, assessed according to a rheumatology attitudes index (RAI), than patients with all other diseases, and scleroderma patients showed significantly lower RAI scores (P less than 0.05).
  • (7) The results showed that both drug treatments blocked the deficit in the escape learning (helplessness effect).
  • (8) Other contributing factors include the high level of helplessness of human infants, the resulting high attachment needs, and the prolongation of development phases.
  • (9) Results demonstrated that action orientation was associated with self-immunizing cognitions during helplessness training.
  • (10) The average Eritrean is now “a helpless victim”, he says.
  • (11) The results demonstrate that patients classified as low helpless were distinct from those classified as normal.
  • (12) One chronically discomposed self-structure, defining itself as polluted and helpless, trembles with the appalling imagery of historical and imminent community disasters.
  • (13) In statements, prisoners later described their feeling of helplessness, of being cut off from the rest of the world in a place where there was no law and no rules.
  • (14) Your feelings of guilt and helplessness may be difficult to deal with, but you may not be what is needed right now.
  • (15) Limited opportunities for exercising self-control while incarcerated may encourage helplessness.
  • (16) It is this sense of being helpless, of being forgotten, of having the social settlement recast in ways that takes away while offering nothing in return, and, above all, of not being heard that so inflames not just students but huge swaths of the British.
  • (17) Instead of feeling helpless, you feel positive and think ‘Well, I made a difference last weekend, sealing up that draughty room.’ There is a wave of change building and people doing things slowly influences governments and companies too.
  • (18) The validity of the RAI was established in comparisons to the Arthritis Helplessness Index.
  • (19) We investigated the relationship between changes in helplessness and depression to disease activity in rheumatoid arthritis (RA).
  • (20) Infants which are born naked, blind and helpless elicit retrieving and nest building and are cleaned and cared for by the female.