Before the Followers, Build the Foundation
Why Young Influencers Need Resilience Training Before Crisis Hits
Content note: This article discusses suicide and online harassment. Crisis resources are listed at the end.
On October 22, 2025—just days ago—19-year-old Emman Atienza was found dead at her home in Los Angeles. Emman had more than 800,000 followers on TikTok. She founded a mental health advocacy organization at age 16. She had been in therapy since age 12. She had a loving, supportive family. She had every protective factor we’re told should keep someone safe.
And still, just weeks before her death, she shared why she needed a break from social media: “Every time I post, I feel excited but also anxious and dreadful knowing there’s going to be some hate I’ll have to force myself to ignore.”
Awareness is not immunity. Access is not cure. Visibility is not safety.
Emman’s story is not isolated. My observation of trauma survivors and families in crisis has not disclosed a pattern like what we’re witnessing now. Over the last year, we’ve lost multiple young creators to suicide—and the common threads are unmistakable. This is no longer a question of if we should act. It’s a question of how fast.
The Pattern: When Validation Becomes Oxygen
These stories share a devastating pattern. Consider what happened in just the last year:
• Misha Agrawal (India, April 2025) — The 24-year-old cosmetics entrepreneur died by suicide two days before her 25th birthday. Her phone wallpaper was her follower count goal: 1 million. When her followers started dropping from 359,000, she spiraled, convinced her worth was measured in metrics.
• Mikayla Raines (USA, June 2025) — The wildlife rescue activist with a large YouTube following faced relentless online harassment. Her husband revealed she struggled with autism, depression, and borderline personality disorder. Her sensitivity—which gave her boundless empathy for the foxes she rescued—also made her vulnerable to every cruel comment.
• Chase Filandro (USA, August 2025) — The NYU Tisch student and social media influencer died by suicide in his dorm room. A talented artist passionate about music, acting, and poetry, his death shocked those who knew his creative spirit.
• Emman Atienza (USA, October 2025) — Despite founding a mental health organization, having access to intensive therapy, and openly advocating for mental wellness, the daily death threats, misogynistic attacks, and relentless scrutiny became unbearable.
These aren’t anomalies. A qualitative study of adolescents who died by suicide found that social media played both harmful and supportive roles, with dependency, triggers, cyber-victimization, and psychological entrapment among the key risk factors.
The formula is clear: influencer aspirations + nonstop online pressure + pre-existing vulnerabilities = heightened risk.
Why “Protective Factors” Aren’t Enough
Here’s what troubles me most about Emman’s case: she had everything we tell families to put in place. Professional mental health support since age 12. A loving, engaged family who understood mental health. A sense of purpose through advocacy work. Educational opportunities and financial stability. A platform to share her struggles and connect with others.
Yet one journalist captured the impossible bind: “Young voices like Emman become accidental mental health ambassadors… Every post becomes a lifeline for someone else. But lifelines, too, fray under pressure.”
When you become both advocate and patient—while being hyper-visible online—the pressure becomes inescapable. You’re holding space for thousands of struggling followers while battling your own demons. That is too much for any one person, especially a teenager or young adult still developing emotional regulation and identity.
The Hidden Architecture of Risk
My experience has taught me to look beneath surface symptoms to underlying patterns. Here’s what I see happening:
The Identity Merger
When your self-worth becomes inseparable from metrics, a drop in engagement doesn’t just feel disappointing—it feels like existential failure. Misha Agrawal made her follower count her phone wallpaper. She wasn’t setting a goal; she was making a statement: I am my metrics.
The Performance Trap
What starts as authentic self-expression transforms into performance. The joy fades. The anxiety intensifies. The dread before posting becomes constant. Emman explicitly said social media started as “fun, self-expression, and community” but became “increasingly hard to be authentic.”
The Visibility Paradox
Being visible to millions doesn’t mean being truly seen. Despite massive followings, influencers often report profound isolation. The parasocial relationships with followers can’t replace genuine human connection. Meanwhile, constant exposure to criticism, trolling, and harassment creates what researchers call “psychological entrapment”—the feeling of being trapped with no escape.
The Always-On Nervous System
Emman became hyper-aware of “every little thing.” This hypervigilance—constantly monitoring comments, anticipating hate, managing public perception—keeps the nervous system in chronic activation. The brain never rests. Sleep suffers. Recovery becomes impossible. From a somatic perspective, this is how trauma gets locked in the body.
What Families and Young Creators Can Do Now
The goal isn’t to stop creating. The goal is to stay grounded while creating.
This requires building resilience before crisis hits—not scrambling for solutions after someone is already in danger. Here’s what actually works, based on both research and clinical practice:
Build These Six Foundations First
1. Resilience Skills (Not Just Content Strategy)
Learn stress management, emotional regulation, and coping skills. Practice them when you’re calm so they work when you’re stressed. This includes: - Body-based techniques (breathing, movement, progressive muscle relaxation) - Emotional literacy (naming feelings accurately) - Distress tolerance (riding waves of discomfort without acting impulsively) - Self-awareness (recognizing your triggers and early warning signs).
2. Healthy Boundaries (Make Them Concrete)
Vague intentions don’t work. Specific limits do: - No posting between 10 PM and 7 AM - Comment filters activated at all times - One offline day per week (truly offline—no checking, no posting) - Auto-reply for DMs during vulnerable hours - No posting during emotional distress (wait 24 hours).
3. Offline Identity Development
Choose hobbies, roles, and friendships that exist entirely outside content creation. Be good at things no one sees online. Have relationships that have nothing to do with your follower count. When the metrics crash (and they will), these anchors keep you steady.
4. Purpose Beyond Metrics
What drives you when the algorithm fails? When followers drop? When a post flops? Your purpose must be anchored in something deeper than numbers—your message, your craft, your values, your contribution to something larger than yourself.
5. Support Network (People Who See You Without the Spotlight)
You need: - A therapist or counselor who specializes in your specific challenges - A mentor who understands the industry but isn’t in your content niche - Peer relationships based on who you are, not what you do - Family members who knew you before the followers and will know you after
6. Digital Literacy and Emotional Hygiene
Understand that algorithms change. Numbers fluctuate. Learn how to: - Handle cyberbullying and harassment (reporting, blocking, legal options) - Recognize when to log off - Separate your identity from your metrics - Navigate algorithm changes without panic - Protect your mental health during controversies.
Your Weekly Implementation Checklist
This isn’t theoretical. Here’s what to actually do:
Monday: Map Your Offline Identity List three things you’re good at that no one sees online. Do at least two of them this week. If your list is blank, that’s your red flag.
Tuesday: Set Non-Negotiables Write down your boundaries. No checking comments right when you wake up. No posting when you’re upset. Share these with your accountability person.
Wednesday: Metrics Pause Look at your numbers once this week with a trusted person. Ask: How do these numbers make me feel? Is my value tied to them? What would it mean if they dropped by half tomorrow?
Thursday: Accountability Check-In Connect with your accountability buddy. Share what’s been draining you. Let them tell you if you need to log off.
Friday: Family Questions If you’re a parent/guardian, ask: “What part of creating has been draining you lately?” “When was the last time you were offline and just yourself?” Not: “How many followers do you have?”
Saturday: Review Your Emergency Plan List your warning signs (poor sleep, skipping meals, scrolling at 2 AM, talking about worthlessness, fixation on metrics). Add crisis numbers. Keep it in your phone AND on paper.
Sunday: Rest Day Practice one full day offline. If this feels impossible, that itself is diagnostic.
A Holistic Lens: The Four Dimensions of Wellness
From a holistic health perspective—looking at emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual dimensions—these influencer tragedies reflect deeper systemic patterns:
Emotional: The Wound Beneath the Need
The hunger for external validation often stems from earlier attachment wounds or unmet emotional needs. When childhood trauma, neglect, or abuse goes unprocessed, no amount of likes can fill the void. The need becomes insatiable because you’re trying to heal an old wound with a tool that was never designed for that purpose.
Mental: The Always-On Brain
Constant performance anxiety, comparison, and hypervigilance keep the nervous system in chronic activation. The brain needs downtime—actual rest, not just “scrolling”—to process, integrate, and recover. Without this, mental resilience erodes. Decision-making suffers. Everything feels like a crisis.
Physical: The Body Keeps the Score
Sleep disruption, irregular eating, sedentary screen time, and chronic stress hormones take a cumulative toll. Physical exhaustion makes emotional regulation nearly impossible. You can’t think your way out of a dysregulated nervous system—you have to address the body first.
Spiritual: The Erosion of Inner Worth
Perhaps most critically: when your value becomes contingent on external metrics, you lose touch with the foundational truth that you are enough simply by existing. Spiritual grounding—whether through contemplative practice, nature connection, creative expression, or community—becomes the stabilizer when external validation wobbles. This is what prevents the complete collapse when metrics drop.
Hope Is Real: The Papageno Effect
Not every story ends in tragedy. Some young creators have navigated crisis and emerged transformed.
Jazz Thornton, a New Zealand filmmaker and mental health activist, attempted suicide 14 times as a teenager after experiencing childhood sexual abuse and relentless bullying. What changed? Two key interventions:
1. A police officer who showed up during her planned final attempt and demonstrated, through consistent presence, that she mattered
2. A friend who told her: “You need to stop surviving and start fighting.”
Jazz developed a concrete practice: She wrote down her destructive beliefs (“I’m unlovable,” “I’m a burden”) on one side of a paper. On the other side, she listed every piece of evidence that contradicted those beliefs—things people said or did that proved her worth. Every time her mind spiraled into darkness, she pulled out the list.
Today, at 30, Jazz: - No longer struggles with suicidal thoughts - No longer requires regular counseling or medication - Co-founded Voices of Hope, a suicide prevention organization - Created viral films including Dear Suicidal Me (80 million views in 48 hours) - Won Dancing with the Stars New Zealand (2022) - Was named 2021 Young New Zealander of the Year - Received the Commonwealth Points of Light award from Queen Elizabeth II.
Her viral video saved at least one life before it even finished airing. A young woman who had written her suicide note and was scrolling through social media waiting for the moment to act saw Jazz’s trailer in her feed. She watched, realized she couldn’t go through with it, and immediately opened up to her mother.
This isn’t just inspiring—it’s evidence-based. A 2025 experimental study (N=354) found that exposure to social media posts about hope, healing, and recovery by influencers with lived experience significantly reduced suicidal thoughts in viewers, particularly among those already struggling. Researchers coined a term for it: the Papageno Effect.
Stories of survival don’t just inspire. They intervene.
The Foundational Truth
There’s a principle that cuts to the heart of this crisis: “You can only lose something you have; you cannot lose something you are.”
Likes, views, and followers can come and go. They are things you have—external, temporary, algorithm-dependent. Your worth is who you are—intrinsic, permanent, independent of any platform.
You are not your follower count. You are not your engagement rate. You are not your virality. You are a human being with inherent worth, and that truth remains unchanged whether you have 10 followers or 10 million.
The Work That Matters
The spotlight will always beam outward, demanding performance, seeking content, measuring metrics.
The real work beams inward.
If young creators build resilience before crisis, they’ll have the foundation to: - Create authentically without performing - Shine without burning out - Rest without guilt - Recalibrate after setbacks - Know their value regardless of their next post’s performance
Followers are not real love. Likes are not lasting validation. The algorithm is not your worth.
The real love is the one within you, and the one you carry into your offline life.
For families—especially those carrying intergenerational trauma—please hear this: Your child is enough beyond screen metrics. They were enough before the first post, and they will be enough long after the last one.
Before the followers, build the foundation. The foundation is what keeps you alive.
Crisis Resources
If you or someone you know is struggling:
• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (U.S.) — Call or text 988 (24/7) • Crisis Text Line (U.S.) — Text HOME to 741741 (24/7) • International Association for Suicide Prevention — https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
Joy Stephenson-Laws, J.D., is a healthcare attorney with over 40 years of experience championing fairness in the healthcare system. She is the founder of Proactive Health Labs (pH Labs), a national non-profit that now embraces a holistic approach to well-being—body, mind, heart, and spirit. As a certified holistic wellness coach, she helps individuals and families create practical, lasting health strategies. Her own experiences as a mother inspired her to write resources that spark important conversations about safety and wellness.
She is the author of Minerals – The Forgotten Nutrient: Your Secret Weapon for Getting and Staying Healthy.Her children’s book, Secrets That Sparkle (and Secrets That Sting), empowers kids to recognize safe vs. unsafe secrets in a gentle, age-appropriate way.
Her latest book, From Chains to Wings, offers compassionate tools for resilience, healing, and emotional freedom.