Beyond the Stigma: Mental Health and Suicide Prevention in AANHPI Youth

During my teenage years, as part of the high school class of 2020, I learned some important phrases growing up:

“I’m here for you”
“I care about you”
“I would really miss you if you were gone.”

There were other sentences too, and not all of them were the most appropriate to say in the moment when someone I knew really was in crisis. And of course, nothing I could say ever felt like it could be enough.

A Generation in Crisis

I grew up in the city of Milpitas in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, at a high school that was nearly 70% AANHPI, but it wasn’t until weeks ago that I discovered a stark reality about my generation and my ethnic background. According to the CDC the leading cause of death for Asian and Pacific Islanders between the ages of 18-24 is suicide, something not true of any other demographic.

I am a biracial person, Asian and White American. However, I feel the need to dispel the likely image that may form when hearing statistics like this. There may be an assumption that this statistic from the CDC is mainly influenced by Asian Americans as the CDC does not survey Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders separately. However, other research focusing specifically on Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders shows that the problem carries similar, if not higher, severity. Suicide is still the leading cause of death even when surveying only Native-Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders.

Learning about the high suicide rate among youth and young Asian and Pacific Islander (API) adults brought back memories from high school, which was the last time I was in a majority Asian American community. I am thankful to have had a relatively stable life, and never experienced suicidal thoughts. However, I have witnessed and provided support for close friends, classmates, and even people I barely knew.

In writing this blog post, I reached out to some of my friends from the Asian American community I knew to understand their experiences. I learned that while mental health challenges vary, not everyone has encountered suicidal ideation. A minority of those I talked to experience those thoughts, but everyone I spoke to had been in the position of supporting and witnessing a friend during a time of suicidal ideation.

Healing Our Communities

During my time working here at the ʻOhana Center of Excellence, I encountered a recurring theme. There’s a very necessary and pressing demand for more research into AANHPI mental health and suicide prevention, yet insufficient action is taken. The bigger gap than just knowing the prevalence, is knowing solutions. It’s important to note that AANHPI youth, while having the tools to be supportive during crisis, are usually not the ones who have the power to make structural changes and provide professional help. Help is needed from industry professionals, school and university administrations, and most of all, people no longer in their youth who have the wisdom and resources to make a positive difference in youth communities. For efforts to destigmatize, and make culturally relevant practices the norm to succeed, there has to be a long-term concentrated effort.

When researching AANHPI Youth mental health, some of the most important takeaways I’ve found were the need to increase access and more importantly participation in mental health services, especially those available to students through high school or college programs. In AANHPI Communities, there remains a stigma against mental health and a legitimate fear especially amongst youth about confidentiality. Many of my friends considering School Based Mental Health Services (SBMHS) remained concerned that the content of therapy sessions would be automatically shared with their parents. To combat this fear, SBMHSs need to clarify the rules of confidentiality.

Bridging the gap in mental health service use must include an emphasis on culturally relevant practices. This means hiring more AANHPI mental health providers and teaching culturally relevant practices to both AANHPI mental health providers and non- AANHPI mental health providers. One friend I still talk to told me that he once tried therapy but stopped after two sessions after realizing his therapist couldn’t seem to understand the complexities of Asian-American households. He was repeatedly told the best course he could take was to cut off contact with his family, despite his insistence that he needed to find a solution that didn’t involve cutting contact.

The lack of cultural understanding also means that AANHPI youth are much more likely to open-up to other peers their age before parents, professionals, or adults at their institutions. Many youth are put into a position they’re unprepared for. Without knowing professional, sensitive, and effective solutions, it’s difficult to know how to help a friend in the moment, and even harder to connect them with professional mental health services, especially when concerns about the effectiveness and safety of those services are voiced. But with little other choice we do rely upon each other, though we aren’t the best option. Teaching each other how to help our community in the time of crisis, and how to connect AANHPI youth to resources necessary to help youth bystanders navigate ongoing mental health crises that they may be unexpectedly thrust into.

Additionally, it is important for Asian-American youth to have role models within their community who openly and use mental health services. During high school and college, the people I looked up to were often fellow students who led clubs and organizations. Research backs up the fact that AANHPI Youth in a moment of crisis are most likely to contact their peers, not family or professionals. Being able to be there for my friends is easy, but knowing the right words to say to get them the help they deserve is hard, and requires training and conversations.

If I were to find myself in a situation with one of my friends in a time of crisis again, I wish that I could tell them I could connect them with someone who can understand them, understand what they’re going through, and provide culturally competent solutions. But those are sparse and hard to find. I hope that someday AANHPI Youth, and youth younger than me will be able to connect our friends with the help they need.

Suicide and Mental Health Resources are Available

If you or someone you know is in crisis, the 988 Lifeline is available 24/7. Call, text, or chat 988. Visit 988lifeline.org for more information.

The AANHPI ‘Ohana Center of Excellence has collected more resources available that may be of help.

As a resource center, the AANHPI ‘Ohana Center of Excellence provides access to resources and information on this website. Inclusion in an AANHPI CoE resource database does not imply endorsement of, or agreement with, the contents by AANHPI CoE.

In addition, we recognize that this resource collection may not be exhaustive, and users are advised not to rely solely on it. The AANHPI ‘Ohana Center of Excellence does not claim to be the authority on any resources we provide, and we highly recommend consulting with elders, community leaders, or helping professionals who are knowledgeable about AANHPI cultures and experiences to ensure alignment with specific ethnic or cultural needs when seeking resources.

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