Cultural Distress and Help-Seeking in Gangstalking Narratives

This study examines online narratives describing experiences of gangstalking. Publicly available posts from the Reddit community (subreddit) r/Gangstalking are analyzed to explore how individuals articulate distress, construct help-seeking and help-avoidance, evaluate the legitimacy of different sources of support, and express suffering without diagnostic or clinical framing. Using a fixed coding framework informed by cultural psychiatry and mental health literacy research, the study also identifies narrative features that may create entry points for supportive, non-confrontational intervention. The analysis aims to improve understanding of how distress and help-seeking are negotiated within these narratives, without adjudicating the factual accuracy of the experiences described.