A Thematic Exploration of Mental Health and Multidimensional Social Factors in Suicidality Discourse

The study explores suicide discourse from an online forum, Reddit. It presents a thematic analysis of user experiences and contributions across three subreddits: r/SuicideWatch, r/MentalHealth, and r/Depression. These forums have significant numbers of community members who discuss various themes related to mental health, including suicide. The anonymous nature of Reddit allows members to comfortably discuss such stigmatized topics. The aim of this study is to understand both the mental health and social factors of suicide through a qualitative analysis of the discourse. Thirty trending posts on suicide from each subreddit are analyzed, adapting the framework introduced by Alison Kafer (2013), which integrates concepts of impairments with feminist theory, queer theory, and Disability Studies. The current study acknowledges the fragmented movements of disability and mad movements, presenting an understanding that positions mental health problems and suicide within the concept of disability. The thematic analysis of the discourse on suicide in these subreddits reveals six major themes: (1) Mental Health Impairments and Well-Being; (2) Interpersonal Relationships and Support Systems; (3) Existential and Philosophical Concerns; (4) Coping and Support Seeking; (5) Identity and Self-Expression; and (6) Practical, Circumstantial Factors, and Societal Factors. These forums provide an open and relatively safe environment for discussing mental health problems and suicide. Community members engage in a wide range of topics related to suicide, covering both individual factors, such as mental health diagnoses, and societal contributors to distress leading to suicide—including dynamics in interpersonal relationships, social discrimination, and marginalization. In summary, the analysis of discourse results in four main domains of suicide discourse that can be considerations in a better understanding of suicide as a social phenomenon: (1) Diagnosis of Disability and Mental Health Impairments, (2) Intersectional Identities and Oppression, (3) Challenging Normative Ideals, Oppressive Environments, and Disabling Society, and (4) Reimagining the Future of Understanding Suicide.