From Pain to Possibility: 5 Tools for Teens Navigating Suicidal Thoughts
In the past few weeks, we’ve lost three high school students to suicide. Three young lives full of potential, laughter, and light now gone. Suicide, a permanent solution to a temporary problem. The heartbreak is deep, and the questions are heavy: What could we have done? How can we do better?
These losses remind us that mental health isn’t a side conversation, it’s a lifeline and a commitment to be intentional. Behind every smile, there might be someone quietly struggling with their thoughts. And while we can’t control every outcome, we can learn to lean in, reach out, and to build a culture where it’s safe to talk about pain.
As soon as I got the news, I posted resources. My mama heart and trauma-informed coaching experience went straight into action.
I met with a dear friend today, someone who’s walked through the unimaginable loss of suicide and now runs a nonprofit dedicated to awareness and resourcing. Together, we sat, we brain stormed, and we talked about what can actually help.
If I could sit with every young person fighting battles no one sees, believing that checking out is the only way through, this is what I’d share.
Five pillars: identification, normalize asking for help, learning to “play the tape through”, somatic practice and continual care. I break these down below.
1. Notice The Red Flags
Awareness starts with noticing changes in mood, behavior, or energy in yourself or others. This pillar teaches self-awareness and how to recognize when something’s off before it spirals.
Knowledge is power, you need to be able to identify and care for yourself. Sometimes pain hides in everyday life. What are the signs that tell you you are NOT okay? You might start sleeping more, losing motivation, avoiding people, or feeling numb. Maybe you’re overthinking, crying easily, or pretending everything’s fine when it’s not. For me, I self isolate.
Tool: Take inventory of your inner world. Ask yourself:
• Have I stopped enjoying what I used to love?
• Am I isolating or zoning out more than usual?
• Do I feel hopeless or like I’m a burden?
Get comfortable learning about yourself. Identify your patterns and needs.
2. Reach Out: A Shift in Your Thinking
Connection is the antidote to despair. This pillar encourages brave communication, safe circles, and help-seeking behavior.
It’s easy to believe no one would understand, or that reaching out would burden someone but that’s your pain talking. The truth is this can be a life or death choice. Choosing to reach out can be the very thing that opens up your eyes to a new reality. Years ago, a mentor told me something I’ll never forget: “Asking for help is a form of service — it allows someone else the gift of showing up for you.” When I get nervous to ask for help I lean in to that reminder.
Even a short text or call can shift the weight, allow you to see things different or even look for tangible evidence of the truth.
Try one of these scripts OR create your own:
“Hey, I’m not doing great right now. Can we talk?”
“I don’t need advice, I just need company.”
There are people who want to be there, teachers, friends, coaches, mentors, hotlines. You are not alone in this. In fact, there have been many times when someone reached out to me for help, and it pulled me out of my own internal mess.
In hard moments, your brain can go blank, that’s why it helps to plan ahead.
Tool: Build Your Support
Identify 2–3 safe people you can reach anytime.
Save their names and numbers in your phone or on a note where you can see it.
Draft a simple message you can send when you need help, even if it’s just:
“I need you right now.”
Having a plan doesn’t make you weak, it makes you prepared. Calling someone gets you out of your own limited thinking, it creates space and allows a new perspective in.
3. Play the Tape Through
A powerful cognitive tool to help pause impulsive thoughts and look beyond the moment. This one keeps your original name because it’s memorable and rooted in recovery language.
This is my favorite life skill of all the skills. Did you know the prefrontal cortex the part of your brain that helps you make decisions, regulate emotions, and see things clearly, doesn’t fully develop until around age 25? That means it’s completely normal for young people to feel like everything is too much. Your brain is still learning how to manage big feelings. You’re not broken, darling, you’re growing, literally!
When things feel unbearable and your mind tells you there’s no future, remember: that’s your brain lying to you. Why would it lie? Because it’s trying to protect you from pain that feels too heavy. It’s doing its best, but it’s not perfect. The brain sometimes confuses temporary pain with permanent danger.
Tool: Play The Tape Through
When your thoughts spiral, try to slow them down and “play the tape through.” Ask yourself:
What would tomorrow look like if I gave myself one more day?
Who would miss me?
What might I still get to experience if I hold on?
How would my absence ripple out into the lives around me?
Tip: Look for Proof of Survival
Read stories of people who made it through. Watch interviews or listen to podcasts where others share how their darkest days eventually turned into strength or purpose.
Remind yourself: pain is temporary and help can change everything.
4. Feel to Heal
Your nervous system holds pain, this pillar offers grounding, breathwork, movement, and mindfulness as ways to process emotions safely. Sometimes it’s not just in your head, it’s in your body. When you feel stuck, anxious, or overwhelmed, your mind and body are both asking for release. You can’t think your way out of a feeling, you have to move it through.
When you’re stuck, start by naming what’s really happening.
Ask yourself: “What am I feeling right now?”
Maybe it’s powerless, defeated, stupid, embarrassed, or frozen.
Then go one step further: “Where do I feel that in my body?”
Maybe it’s a heavy brick in your chest, a knot in your stomach, or heat in your face.
Once you notice it, don’t judge it. Move it. That’s how the energy releases.
Tool: Move The Energy
Try one of these simple, real life resets:
Breathe: Inhale for 4, hold for 4, exhale for 6. Repeat until you feel your body soften.
Ground: Press your feet into the floor. Name three things you see, two you can touch, one you can hear.
Shake it out: Dance, jump, stretch, shake your hands — get out of your head and into your body.
Cold reset: Splash cold water on your face, jump in the pool, or take a cold shower. It jolts your nervous system back to the present.
Scream safely: Into a pillow. In your car. Into the wind. Let the sound move the stuck emotion.
And when the storm passes, connect to someone, journal, go outside, join a group, or pray.
Healing happens through connection: with yourself, with others, and with something greater than all of us.
5. Continual Care
Healing doesn’t stop after the crisis. This pillar covers ongoing support, self-care routines, therapy, and how to rebuild connection and purpose.
Sometimes the pain feels too big to carry with friends or family alone and that’s when outside help matters most. Therapists, school counselors, doctors, coaches, and mentors are trained to help you untangle what feels impossible. You don’t have to wait until things get “bad enough” to reach out, support is for prevention and growth, not just crisis.
Tool: Find Your Team
Start small. Tell a trusted adult or teacher that you want to talk to someone. They can help you find the right fit.
Explore options. Therapy, peer support groups, school-based programs, or community centers.
Try until it clicks. Finding the right person might take time, but you will find someone who feels safe and gets you.
If you’re in crisis or thinking about suicide, help is available.
You can call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline) they’re available 24/7, free, and confidential.
Getting help gives you a chance. You’re choosing to live, to heal, and to believe that your story isn’t over yet.
❤️ You Matter
If you’re hurting, please don’t face it alone.
