Suicide Prevention and Self-Love

Hellooooooooo! I am really excited to get into this column.

September is Suicide Prevention Month, and this month is very dear to my heart. The past few years of my life have been transformative. I have experienced betrayal, hurt, disappointment, and circumstances I never imagined I would have to walk through. But I have also experienced major breakthroughs… like for example I will be speaking for the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation on September 1st and delivering a TED TALK!!!! YES! In October!

There have been moments that did not make sense while I was living through them, but looking back, I can see how much stronger I became.

I can honestly say now that I am grateful for every circumstance – not because everything that happened to me was good, but because somehow, I have been able to take what happened and allow it to work for me instead of against me. Everything is working for me, and I want you to begin believing that everything can work for you, too.

Because it is Suicide Prevention Month, I wanted to share a little more of my own story. Growing up, I was bullied a lot in school. Kids would touch me and say I had the “Gabby touch.” I was called a “fat ugly gorilla.” Those words hurt really bad. When you hear things like that enough, especially when you are young, sometimes you start wondering if everybody else must be seeing something about you that you cannot see. So I tried changing myself. I tried changing the way I looked, the way I talked, the way I acted, and the way I interacted with people. I tried changing almost every part of myself because, at the time, I did not truly understand how to love myself.

I think our world sometimes makes that even harder. From childhood, we are constantly being told what we are supposed to become. Go to school. Get good grades. Choose this career. Make this amount of money. Look this way. Act this way. Reach this milestone by this age. Be successful. Do more. Become more. Prove yourself. And sometimes I wonder: when do we teach people simply how to be? When do we teach a child that before they accomplish anything, before they earn anything, before they become anything impressive to the rest of the world, their life already has value?

A child may barely understand who they are yet, and somehow we are already handing them a list of everything they are expected to become. But every mind is different. Every person is different. As someone with autism and ADHD, one of the most important lessons I have learned is this: work with your mind, not against it. For years, I thought I needed to become somebody else in order to succeed in this world. Now I understand that knowing yourself changes everything, and part of knowing yourself is learning self-love.

Self-love is not thinking you are better than everybody. It is not arrogance. It is not pride. It certainly does not mean pretending that life does not hurt. To me, self-love is being able to sit with yourself and know that you are still worthy. Even after rejection. Even after embarrassment. Even after betrayal. Even after making a mistake. Even when somebody misunderstands you. Even when somebody does not choose you. Even when life looks completely different from what you thought it would look like. You are still you, and there is nobody else in this world who can be you better than you can.

There was a point in my life when I experienced a betrayal that hurt me deeply, and for a long time, I had the hardest time forgiving and letting go. I kept replaying what happened. I kept thinking about what was done to me, what should have happened differently, and why someone would choose to hurt me in the first place. I thought holding onto the hurt somehow protected me, but eventually I realized that holding on was not hurting the people who hurt me. It was hurting me.

Every time I replayed it and every time I allowed anger or resentment to consume my thoughts, I was giving away a little more of my own peace. I was giving power to people and circumstances that did not deserve to have that much control over my life. The moment I truly started letting go, something shifted. My life started getting better. Not necessarily because everything around me instantly changed, but because I changed what I was allowing to live inside of me.

I stopped waking up carrying people who were no longer even part of my life. I stopped giving my energy to what had already happened. I started focusing on me, my healing, my future, my peace, my relationship with God, and the person I was becoming. I learned that forgiveness does not always mean what happened was okay. Sometimes forgiveness simply means that you no longer get to live in my mind rent-free. You no longer get to decide whether I have a good day. You no longer get to determine how I see myself. You no longer get to take my future just because you were part of something painful in my past.

That was freedom for me. I realized I had been giving my power away to people who, ultimately, did not deserve that kind of authority over my life. When I took that power back—not through revenge, not through hatred, but through letting go—I had so much more room for love, peace, joy, and the life that was still waiting for me. Sometimes letting go is one of the greatest acts of self-love because you are deciding that what happened to you does not get to become what happens inside of you forever. You can acknowledge that something hurt you and still decide: this will not own me. Sometimes that decision is where a completely different chapter of your life begins.

That is one reason I believe self-love matters so deeply when we talk about suicide prevention. Suicidal thoughts can come alongside feelings of hopelessness, loneliness, worthlessness, depression, trauma, rejection, or the belief that circumstances will never change. When you are hurting deeply, your mind can make one painful chapter feel like the entire book, but it is not. That is something I wish I understood much earlier.

Sometimes we are placed in circumstances that simply do not make sense. Sometimes somebody hurts you. Sometimes people leave. Sometimes you lose something you thought would always be there. Sometimes you feel lonely. Sometimes your mental health becomes incredibly heavy. Sometimes you may look around your life and wonder, “How did I even get here?” But please do not turn somebody else’s actions into a reason to destroy yourself. Do not allow one circumstance to convince you that there is nothing beyond it.

Mental health should always be taken seriously. Too often, someone is struggling deeply and stays quiet because they are afraid they will not be believed, taken seriously, or understood. They may worry that people will think they are being dramatic, looking for attention, overreacting, or that they simply need to “get over it.” That fear can make someone feel even more isolated at a time when what they need most is support.

This is especially personal to me because I have lost family members after their mental health struggles were judged, misunderstood, or not taken as seriously as they should have been. Sometimes people looked at what they were going through and thought, “Oh, they are just behaving this way,” instead of stopping to ask what might actually be happening underneath that behavior. Instead of receiving more love, patience, understanding, and support, they were sometimes met with judgment. That is something I carry with me, and it is one of the reasons this work means so much to me.

We should never assume that someone is “just being difficult,” “just looking for attention,” or “just acting out.” Sometimes behavior is communication. Sometimes what looks like anger is pain. Sometimes what looks like distance is depression. Sometimes what looks like someone seeking attention is actually someone desperately seeking connection. Instead of immediately judging what we see, we can ask, “Are you okay?” We can listen. We can be kind.
If you are struggling, I want you to know that you are not alone. What you are feeling matters, and you deserve to be taken seriously. You do not have to wait until things become unbearable before you ask for help. You are allowed to say, “I am not okay.” You are allowed to tell somebody that you are struggling. You are allowed to need support.

And if you see someone else struggling, please do not judge the way their pain looks. Everybody responds to pain differently. Someone may become quiet. Someone may become angry. Someone may withdraw. Someone may seem completely fine on the outside while they are fighting something incredibly heavy internally. Judgment can make someone who is already hurting feel even more alone.

Sometimes people do not need a lecture. They do not need to be told that someone else has it worse. They do not need their feelings minimized or questioned. Sometimes they simply need someone to listen, believe them, sit beside them, and remind them that they do not have to go through what they are experiencing by themselves.

As a community, we have so much more power than we realize. We may not always know the perfect thing to say, and we may not be able to fix what someone is going through, but kindness matters. Listening matters. Taking someone seriously matters. Checking in matters. Loving people when they are struggling matters. Sometimes simply treating another person with compassion instead of judgment can help them feel less alone, and that can be incredibly powerful.

I truly believe that as a community, we have the power to help save lives simply by creating a world where people feel safer asking for help. A little more love, a little more patience, and a
little more compassion can go a very long way. We may never fully know how much one kind interaction meant to someone who was struggling just to make it through the day.

Mental health struggles do not make someone weak, difficult, dramatic, or less worthy of love. They make them human. We should never wait until somebody reaches a breaking point before deciding that their pain was real. Taking someone seriously, showing compassion, and helping them connect with support can make a bigger difference than we may ever realize.

There is only one you, and this world needs you. You are powerful. You are worthy of love. You are worthy of compassion. You are worthy of support. If nobody has told you that lately, you are hearing it from me. I may not know you personally. I may not know what happened yesterday. I may not know what happened when you were a child. I may not know what somebody said to you. I may not know what you are carrying quietly while everybody around you thinks you are doing perfectly fine. But I do know this: you deserve love.
There is not one person walking this earth who is useless. There is not one human being who does not have value. You have strengths nobody else has in exactly the way you have them. You were created fearfully and wonderfully. It genuinely breaks my heart knowing that somewhere in this world there is probably someone who has gone years without hearing the words, “I love you.” So let me tell you: you are loved. You are valued. You matter. Even if the world has felt cruel to you, please do not let somebody else’s inability to see your value become your inability to see it too.

I have had to learn how to tap into my own inner strength. I have had to learn that my thoughts do not always deserve to become my truth. I have had to learn that I cannot control everything happening around me, but I can become more intentional about what I allow to define me. That does not mean painful things suddenly stop hurting. It does not mean depression disappears because you say something positive. It does not mean somebody experiencing suicidal thoughts should simply “think differently.” Mental health is much more serious than that.
Sometimes we need therapy. Sometimes we need medication. Sometimes we need crisis support. Sometimes we need community. Sometimes we need accommodations. Sometimes we need someone to sit next to us and say, “You do not have to go through this alone.” Sometimes we simply need permission to admit, “I am not okay right now.” There is strength in saying that.
Self-love can even look like asking for help. Self-love can look like calling somebody. Self-love can look like walking away from an environment that is harming you. Self-love can look like getting professional support. Self-love can look like recognizing that you cannot carry everything by yourself. There is nothing arrogant about that.

Sometimes the world teaches us that putting ourselves first in any capacity is selfish, so we become confused. What am I supposed to do? Love everybody else but neglect myself? Give everybody grace but give myself none? Forgive everybody else for being human but punish myself endlessly for every mistake I make? No. You are human too. You are allowed to protect your peace. You are allowed to grow. You are allowed to change. You are allowed to leave things behind. You are allowed to decide something is no longer healthy for you.

You do not have to spend your entire life worrying about what everybody else thinks. If your heart is in the right place, there may still be people who misunderstand you, and that is okay. Ultimately, this is your life. Every single one of us is experiencing this world through a completely unique mind, body, history, and perspective. Nobody experiences the world exactly the way you do, so please do not spend your entire experience trying to become everybody else’s version of who you should be.

Enjoy your life. Discover yourself. Love yourself. Learn yourself. Take yourself seriously. Give yourself permission to become somebody you have never met before.
I also know loneliness can be difficult. It is hard not having many friends. It is hard feeling different. It is hard sitting alone and wondering whether anybody truly understands you. I remember spending so much time thinking, “I am all alone. I have nobody.” But over time, I started realizing just how many people had experienced those exact same feelings.
You may feel lonely, but loneliness does not mean nobody in this world understands. There are people you have not met yet. Communities you have not discovered yet. Places you have not visited yet. People who are going to laugh with you. People who are going to understand parts of you that others never did. There are experiences waiting for you that you cannot see from where you are standing right now.

That is why you cannot judge your entire future by your present circumstances. You cannot drive forward while spending your entire time staring into the rearview mirror. Yes, acknowledge what happened. Heal from it. Talk about it. Get support for it. Learn from it. But do not build your permanent home inside of it. Your life is still happening in front of you.
Turn the pain into power. Turn what hurt you into wisdom. Turn what embarrassed you into growth. Turn what almost destroyed you into something that teaches you how powerful it was that you survived. Keep going. Your future may be much brighter than your current circumstances are allowing you to imagine.

You do not have to have everything figured out today. You do not have to know exactly where your life will be five years from now. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is simply make it through today. If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, please do not try to fight those thoughts completely by yourself. Tell somebody. You can say exactly what is happening: “I am thinking about suicide, and I need help.”

Stay around someone safe if you can. Reach out to a mental health professional, crisis resource, trusted loved one, or supportive person. Give somebody the opportunity to stand beside you while the moment passes, because a moment can pass. A circumstance can change. A relationship can change. An environment can change. Your mental health can change. Your support system can change. Your life can change.
Please do not make a permanent decision based on a moment of unbearable pain. There is more of your story to experience. More people to meet. More places to go. More love to receive. More love to give. More peace to experience. More versions of yourself to discover. Maybe one day you will look back at the version of yourself who almost gave up and think, “I am so grateful I stayed.”
If nobody has told you today, you are loved. You are valuable. You are needed. You are worthy of support. Your story is not over. Everything you have experienced can become part of something greater than the pain itself. Work with your mind, not against it. Love yourself through every version of yourself. Keep looking forward, and please stay.

Love is the foundation.

If you or someone you love is experiencing suicidal thoughts or emotional distress in the United States, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

With love always the foundation,
Gabrie’le Eato, B.S., A.A., PCM, QMHP Neurodivergent Motivational Speaker • Psychometrist • QMHP Autism. ADHD. More than a label. www.gabbyeato.com

Happy Suicide Prevention Month.