Gordon Flett

And the example I gave of somebody who would be having this sense was back when she was still with us, Sinead O'Connor was very suicidal and the world knew about it.

And at the start of the anti-mattering paper from 2022, which I encourage people to find, it's open, it's available to the public.

I gave the quote about her saying, I don't matter a whit to anyone.

I don't matter a whit to anyone.

So then later on, I followed up and she had a son and a daughter.

The therapist would say, well, do you matter to your son?

Oh yeah, I guess I matter to my son.

Do you matter to your daughter?

Well, yes, of course I matter to my daughter.

So this is the thing about mattering is it can be an appraisal.

It becomes very absolute, but it's not grounded in the actual ways that people feel about other people.

And that's why it's good for people to express

their care and appreciation of people so that they get those reminders.

And some people need these reminders more than others, but you know, I'm sitting there going, there is a reason why the suicide program is built around the you matter concept, because ultimately you need that reminder that you matter to somebody where you matter to us to help blunt that and get away, make, make the sense of insignificance and not mattering a little more bearable, at least.

and not in such an all or none way.

I think it's because it goes right back to our early experiences where we have to back up a bit and say that mattering, one of the key elements of mattering is the feeling that you have other people's attention.

And that's critical from a survival perspective early on, again, in terms of getting the attention of one's parents or caregivers for infants to be fed and get the nurturance and the nourishing that they need.

And I believe that there's a reward value that's set up for the attention and

the importance of somebody showing you that they're paying attention to you.

And I think that can be very hardwired for people so that when they get older and they lose that sense, they know at some level that it's what provided them with a sense of comfort, allowed them to survive and to thrive in the early days.