Asian Shame & Suicidality
I recently underwent more suicide training and the number one reason for suicide is hopelessness and lack of connectedness. But within the Asian cultural lens, it has occurred to me that suicidal thoughts and urges are due to a a sense of over-connectedness.
Over-connectedness in my mind is when the Asian family, expectations, and other cultural norms lead the Asian individual to feel hopeless to escape the shame of not living up to these cultural expectations and/or roles imposed on them robs the person of choice and personal autonomy.
For example, Asian clients may not be able to choose their profession, romantic partner, and feels overly responsible to honor their culture and family at the expense of their selves. Other examples include cultural enmeshment, triangulation, and lack of boundaries where the Asian client feels he/she is responsible for being the emotional caretaker for their parents’ feelings or issues.
When these feelings of being trapped in this dysfunctional, overly connected Asian dynamic is taken to an extreme, the client may feel suicide is the only option to distance him/herself from these problems.
Therapy is focused on alleviating their cultural sense of shame (i.e. “letting down their parents or culture”), helping clients establish healthier boundaries, and cognitive restructuring to change their old schemas and self-talk. It will take a lot of time for the Asian client to feel o.k. with these new framework of relating but once liberated from the burden of Asian shame, the hopelessness decreases as will the suicidal thoughts and urges.
Time article about Asian families and suicide
I really LOVE this insight into the unique cultural perspective on suicidality in Asian families. This impacts all our assumptions about what constitutes appropriate “outreach” and “support” for Asian youth who may be experiencing not isolation but a sense of “no escape” from the enmeshed family unit. Suicide may be the only assertion of individual choice available to the person in this moment. It implies that an intervention would not be merely directed at “reaching out” and alleviating feelings of depression, but truly empowering and waking up to choices available in each moment. A wholly new way of thinking for most Asians obedient to the family order. Thank you for all you have shared about the unique cultural lens on universally human situations. I appreciate you!