Help-Seeking as Practice: Navigating Suicidal Ideation During Emerging Adulthood

• In Event: 30860 - Section on Aging and the Life Course Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 3. Cognition, Mental Health, and Education in Aging

Abstract

Suicide remains a leading cause of death among young adults. Additionally, most young adults do not seek help for suicidal thoughts. While scholars have identified barriers to seeking help for suicidal thoughts, such as stigma and self-reliance, less attention has been placed on the broader social contexts and conditions that influence the help-seeking process among young adults. Based on 39 in-depth interviews with young American adults aged 18-25, this study analyzes participants’ social lives, emphasizing how the emergent adulthood stage of the life course shapes help-seeking practices. Findings explore the impact of emergent adulthood on help-seeking through three themes: the evolving self, navigating shifting parental relationships, and managing the increasing burden of self-responsibility associated with emergent adulthood. The results indicate that young adults’ being and doing of emergent adulthood significantly shape suicide-related help-seeking. Findings further offer suicide-related help-seeking as a practice conducted within interactional events to highlight help-seeking as an ongoing process that involves decisions and strategies deployed and embedded within socioeconomic contexts.

Author

• Kate LaForge, Portland Veterans Affairs (VA) Health System