Making Room to Be OK: A Feminist Grounded Theory Study of How Women Manage Their Health in the Context of Suicide Ideation.

Abstract

Suicidal ideation (SI) is interpreted through a biomedical lens across health care systems, framing it as a pathology requiring treatment and leading to approaches aimed at controlling or eliminating these thoughts. Within this dominant medical model, illness treatment and death prevention are prioritized, eclipsing attention to health and well-being. Our previous research shows that women make efforts to improve their health despite living with SI. Using a feminist grounded theory approach, we sought to understand how women with SI manage their health. Data from interviews with 32 Canadian women were analyzed using the constant comparative method, elevating the data to a higher level of abstraction. We found that women with SI manage health by making room to be OK, creating space within their environments that allows them to better manage unbearable psychological pain. Making room to be OK becomes possible through acceptance, social recognition that ending unbearable psychological pain is a legitimate health need. Approaches critical to helping women make room to be OK include offering spaces within healthcare and community settings where SI can be discussed without pressure to think or feel otherwise. These trauma- and violence-informed approaches diverge from dominant medical services that seek to control women's suicidality.