Crisis and mental health in adolescence: the story from the perspective of those who live it

This study sought to identify adolescents' perception regarding the mental health crises they experienced, as well as their trajectory when seeking care. The participants were five adolescents aged between 16 and 17 years who frequent a Center for Child and Adolescent Psychosocial Care (CAPSij, in Portuguese) who gave interviews following open-ended scripts based on oral history methods. The narratives were recorded, transcribed, rendered into text and analyzed through a thematic analysis. Results indicate: (a) the crisis experience connected, in particular, with intense feelings of anguish, sadness and worthlessness, suicide ideation and attempt - experienced as an individual problem; (b) relationships with peers and family members triggering crisis processes when permeated by different types of violence; and as emotional and social support when immersed in relationships of trust; (c) the predominant trajectory for accessing care was centered in points of the Psychosocial Care Network and there were no reports of hospital admissions; (d) difficulties in care are centered on treatment adhesion, participation in collective care spaces and resistance to medication. This study is an advancement, presenting the understanding of mental health crisis and factors involved in this experience, through the perspective of the adolescents who experienced it, as well as identifying the paths they followed when searching for treatment and the perceptions that emerged from the experience of care in the services.