It was all I could do to keep him from despair.
Only those visits had kept her from total despair when the program produced no results.
But this is where the opera turns from despair to hope.
Such instances save us from utter despair of our kind.
Work was all that kept Gordon from despair, in the next days.
Her hope kept her from complete despair, but only just.
Another perspective, one in which an individual can find some measure of freedom from despair, is available for the person with religious "faith."
Maybe, he thought, it's from despair at having lost everything.
From despair itself he got a cold feeling of nothing to lose and decided to finish it.
And nothing remains to offer freedom from despair except the act of killing.