Gordon Flett

And some people have a series of that.

If somebody seems to be doing too well, I'd want somebody to check in on that person and say, you know, is it the case that maybe you're just putting on the front that hides a lot of this pain?

Because wrapped into this sense of unbearable insignificance and loneliness is a deep sense of shame where people then say, well, there must be something about me.

People try to make it more controllable by convincing themselves that they're defective, that they're really

not somebody that other people want to be with and not realizing that people actually do.

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.