Are any of you hikikomori?

Are any of you hikikomori? If not, what do you think of them? I'm one. I have been since I was 16 or so when I dropped out of high school, I'm now 21. The only time I leave my home is to go to a psychiatrist once a month, and I don't have any friends. Not to give a sob story but the reason I'm a hermit is due to a social phobia, which many hikki's suffer from. I cannot withstand social situations or outings very well, I "shutdown" in a way, unironically much like someone with autism does, which my doctor suggests I might be on the spectrum. I think what makes hikikomori different from someone with just social anxiety is how much we withdraw from our surroundings due to our social inability. Our reaction to our reaction is self-loathing and we try to hide, essentially, knowing ignoring can only do so much. We're very child-like in this regard, as if we never grew up properly. Anyways, that's well enough for a starter topic, please let me know your thoughts on the subject.

>>11426 I feel bad for those who are hikikomori involuntarily, e.g. due to anxiety or physical disabilities. I have an internet friend who is agoraphobic, and therefore a shut-in, and has went through periods of time where her anxiety has lead her to cut off all contact with anyone except her family, whose house she lives in. It's very sad. I hope your psychiatrist visits help you cope with your anxiety better so that you can begin to enjoy social interaction.

Sometimes you just get stuck in a rut and cant find your way ou. I have been stuck in the house before but it was actually a very good learning ex_ to remove myself from the world and look inward. There was def_ a piont at which it was becoming unhealthy for me though. I can understand why people retreat into solitude in this insane modern age. Its crazy out here. The world is crazy, society is crazy. But we need to be out in the world. We cannot fight our nature.

My problem is I just can't stand talking to people. Like I have no problem communicating with others confidently and clearly, it's just that people are so caught up in fantasies that it's annoyingly impossible to be straight with someone, they just want you to continually blow sunshine up their ass without you telling them the bleak truth. It's such a painful act to keep up.

>>11428 >I hope your psychiatrist visits help you cope with your anxiety better so that you can begin to enjoy social interaction. I don't really have an interest in getting better, honestly. And I don't really see that happening. I've put through honest effort into trying to become sociable and work through my fears, but it's been in vain and it's okay; it's okay for me to not live up to the standards of a normal person. Exceptions happen and I am one of them. >>11434 >I can understand why people retreat into solitude in this insane modern age. Its crazy out here. The world is crazy, society is crazy. But we need to be out in the world. We cannot fight our nature. Why do we need to be out there? With the advent of the internet, what communication a person desires or needs can be satisfied online, and in a much more controlled environment. For example, my social desires are met with IRC and imageboards, both of which I can control how much information I present, I can create a comfortable enough distance, and I can be as honest as I want, free from societal norms. This is a controlled version of "being out there in the world".

I used to be one from about 16-20, after that i was more of a recluse. I couldnt go outside much when i was about 18, needless to say no job or friends and all the rest. Slowly but surely i took small steps in the real world and it worked out pretty well in the light of things. Anxiety and depression are down to well tolerable levels from "every moment is agony". I was on the verge of killing and or instituting myself, trough some very bizzare events i was saved from that fate. I have some druggie/bum friends that are ok and i can live a somewhat fun outdoor life. Still a neet without anything to show for that would mean something to ordinary people. But i think i can go my own way from now on and achive the things i want in life. Modern life is a bitch to almost everyone in some way, a lot of times i think locking yourself up is a understandable course of action. Its obviously not healthy, but its just the way things go nowdays.

>>11440 >>11440 Exactly what is it that you want to accomplish?

>>11441 I pretty much want to fuarrrk with reality and be artist so to speak. Its very difficult to explain it, i might probably have developed a drug induced psychosis to be honest as it would seam. But whatever life suddenly seems to partially make sense to me and im pretty optimistic, better than being a depressed wreck.

>>11459 >drug induced psychosis to be honest as it would seam fuarrrk I think I'm in the same situation as you. have you been smoking a lot of pot recently and typing homophones on accident, even if the spelling is completely different? I've literally been doing that exact thing the past two months and it's scaring me. my family has a history of schizophrenia. (I'm saying this because you typed "seam")

and maybe social interaction is not for you. maybe you ought to just adapt the rest of your life around not leaving your home: Stay shut in, and, for emergency purposes, keep contact with one person who will know what to do, and do what needs to be done if they suspect something might be wrong with you, e.g if they do not receive a daily cryptographically signed (for privacy and authenticity) OK message from you. (after the initial investment of finding someone like this, your investment is less than 5 minutes of the 1440 minutes in a day, most days it's probably less than 1 minute, for me it's a mere hotkey to a password prompt)

I'm very curious, how do you folks pay for your basic expenses like food, clothing, and shelter? Do you live alone or with family?

>>11482 Unless a hikikomori has a remote job, they're not going to have an income and so rely on either the state or family. In my case it's combination of my mother supporting me and the state (I have snap benefits and I'm applying for SSI)

>>11440 this is me

>>11426 >If not, what do you think of them? Indifferent. Do whatever you want to do. > I cannot withstand social situations or outings very well, I "shutdown" i What happens if you play an online-game or just enter voicechat in general? Tried something like vrchat? Never had social issues besides being sometimes too harsh to people but leading a guild was a nice experimental training environment on how to make people work for babysitting my team at the real job.

not hikkimori and i think its a worrying trend among fairly intelligent youth who otherwise could have done a lot. if someone said tommorow all chans will be shut down tommorow by the government id be a little happy due to the role they play in further isolating people already prone to it. I might still be pissed but it definitely wouldnt be an obvious "no thats bad". Itd be a little good in my eyes.

>>11498 >the role they play in further isolating people how please? Big chans are gathering hubs for outliers. They connect outliers which can't find a place in mainstream channels. That's arguably the opposite of isolation. There's also the question if shutins are really more common or just more visible today. We had the silent bookworm stereotype before internet existed.

>>11500 If you think online communication is equal to real life communication then sure but we are talking about hikkimoris. Any previous chan users I know in real life have had to go through therapy because chans normalize certain behaviour that people in real life who don't go on chans as their primary form of interaction (which is most people) find hurtful or overboard. If you want to say thats cause everyone is idiot normal people like most would that is proof in my opinion. You are as isolated as you are willing to dismiss people a lot of times and chans promote dismissing people off of very surface level things to the extreme. To me its self evident once you step outside of it and are willing to be critical.

i used to be one as a teenager for a year or two, never went outside unless it was for some school meeting about my attendance. as an adult i find myself slowly falling back into my "hikikomori ways" and i can't do a thing about it. i feel like i'm about to have a heart attack whenever i walk outside my house and i've been trying to slowly fight it by making myself get the mail every few days. i miss hikkichan in a way, theres not a lot of support communities for people who are like this. maybe subreddits, but reddit is pretty arse anyway.

>>11501 I was comparing to other websites. Blocking chans will rather drive them to other websites over going outside after all. You have a point in "proud neet" threads normalizing shutin status but i'm uncertain of the real impact. I think the core issue is wasting time on the net is n general more stimulating than working on improving your situation. People are essentially trapped in a local maxima for reward stimulus and banning a single channel will just make them switch to the next one even if they like it a bit less.

>>11504 Thats true I guess. I suppose its not an actual solution as the chan itself probably isnt the problem like you say. This type of neet pride formed itself after all, it wasnt like moot and other owners made them with the intention of creating some vicious self deprecating insider trade. I think the loner book type still usually ends up making connections later in life because there is no substitute, I guess the substitute now is just the internet and its not like it can be uninvented even if one wanted to. I dont really know I guess what one could do about it besides see something like internet addiction as a real thing. I always thought of prioritizing online communication kind of like a drug. It kind of fulfills the need to be social just enough to not do anything about how lonely you are but not enough to make you feel not lonely.

>>11505 Social media addiction is identical to gambling addiction. Writing something is pulling the lever and then you get a random reward in replies/likes. There are publications about it and one of the headguys who made facebook admitted to knowing and trying to maximize exploiting this shemata on a tv show. The outcut should be still on on youtube.

Does it count if you used to travel and be adventurous, fell in love multiple times and all that stuff and then became a shut in? Or is it a lifelong thing? I haven't spoken to a single person in over a week and this has been a normal thing for several years. It was a combination of sh¡tty experiences that left a permanent mark on me, me drinking and burning lots of bridges, being barred from the country the woman of my dreams lives in and ultimately having no education and a laughable employment record. I kind of stopped trying a long time ago. It just doesn't seem worth it.

>>11512 Yeah its ultimately the same attitude of "its not worth it". if im going to be honest not that you asked you need to stop being dramatic. I had to deal with a mother who had a similar mindset and so it started to be obvious how wrong it was. By mindset im talking about taking bad experiences as "proof" that its not worth trying. Its like when someone loses their first girlfriend or boyfriend and starts talking about how they will never love again and bitches aint soykaf and yada yada. I know your reaction to that is going to be to explain to me how this wasnt a first love and try to convey to me the magnitude of how much you loved this person or how dare I compare those two things or whatever. I dont really want to hear nor will I be convinced if I hear all the little details im sure youve told a million times. They are the same thing, its just this event is easier for you to rationlize not trying over because of the magnitude. Completely forming your life around one tragic event is very movie esque and dramatic and cool and also in my opinion should stay in the movies. Should you ever move past this you are going to kick yourself, no really though. I know you think I would never kick myself over this im very right to be upset about it its a very tragic thing if you experienced it youd do the same as me! Nope no I wouldnt, not saying its objectively stupid or unreasonable that you would im just saying you shouldn't and will someday think its stupid guaranteed even if it has to be the moment you pass on your deathbed. How stupid you will think it is depends on how long you wait. to clarify, im sure you wont ever think the relationship is stupid, im sure you always will value it. you know a very pretty beautiful girl i liked ended up being a totally cold meanie but we are great friends now and ive learnt a lot from her about not being dramatic and not letting things define you. she thinks all relationships are transactional. i dont know if I agree with that, but i do agree with something she taught me about true love being a falsehood meant to keep people trapped in soykafty situations like the one you are in now.

>>11516 You're so off the mark I don't know where to begin. You're fixated on the girl for one while there are so many other factors, and there are some valid and totally unrelated reasons why other people don't really seem to miss my presence or show any interest when I try to break out of the shell. > I dont really want to hear nor will I be convinced if I hear all the little details ...then I'll spare you. >im sure youve told a million times Not really.

>>11523 im not off the mark, this issue or that issue is irrelevant.

>>11527 and also for the record the idea of a valid reason to become a shut in is silly. whats the judge of that other then yourself, the society you shut yourself off from? to me it only confirms the main point i was making that youve simply finally found a reason you like enough to be able to give up. its as valid or invalid as you want it to be. Im here telling you its not and you dont have to listen to me sure but I feel obligated to.

>>11527 How do you know whether you hit the mark, based on one post you read on an imageboard? Is that why you said you didn't want to hear about it? Afraid you'll learn that the world is a complex place and that some stranger on the internet is unimpressed by self help book level advice? For someone who didn't want to hear about it you do seem unable to drop the subject.

>>11502 Any opinion on >>11497 ?

>>11536 not really sure what you're asking about? mmo's and voicechat software (think discord) are great tools for socializing, and i know for me it helps being a part of a big community so i don't lose my social skills. if you mean make a guild in an mmo or something similar for hikkis, that'd be nice but a forum would allow for actual in depth discussion. not all hikkis have the same level of social skill either, so something slow paced and less prone to losing the focus on topics could be more beneficial.

>>11537 Was mostly asking about if you find interacting in the virtual much easier and whether you think interacting in the virtual well affects your interaction in the real.

What is the difference between a hermit, a recluse and a hikikomori? Are you still one if you hold a job? Can one become hikikomori voluntarily? Why is it portrayed as a bad thing?

>>11537 Those tools are no replacements for actual interaction. There is an entirely different level of interaction when you are physically with someone. Get in a fight online with someone? Block them or log off. You never have to deal with repercussions and thats how you end up being unable to cope with real problems. You develop some skewed understanding of how people function so when it happens with real people your mind doesnt know how to react. You cant just block them, especially if you have to see them every day. Im personally glad chans exist for people who cant socially interact properly. Spares me from having to deal with them in a professional setting.

>>11541 a hermit should live outside civilization. recluse is hard, offcial definition should be equal to a hermit as it means shutting of from society but i think the way it's used it shouldn't be necessary to exit civilization. People who stay in civilization and just isolate themselves should count. i.e. scholars who work for years on a project for example and come only out once done - some math geniuses worked for decades in their ivory towers like that to come down with new proofs. a hikkimori lives as shutin inside the city on money from parents & state. That's of course bad for a state who lives from milking the labor force. If enough people follow this path it would financially cripple them.

>>11542 no, of course not. theres different social rules online compared to in the real world, but if someone really has trouble talking to others its a good stepping stone or a way to brush up on your social skills. people online also act more exaggerated, so if you tried to act the same way online as you do irl you'd probably get arrested.

>>11497 >What happens if you play an online-game or just enter voicechat in general? Tried something like vrchat? OP here. Playing online games some times stresses me out purely do to the social aspect of it. I can only handle hearing people talk for so long, and it's worse if they talk to me. I'm mostly interested in online games where I can play by myself. I suppose this is a good thing with BR being a hot genre.

>>11546 What exactly do you find stressfull about it? It's completly foreign to me which is why i find this interesting. I've learned english as a teenager sitting with native speakers in voicechat. What do you think of traveling in a foreign country? Do you find the idea of having no expectation to speak well and get along on some basic broken pieces freeing of social obligations or more panic mode inducing? Personally i completely enjoyed hitchhiking like that. Made me more positive about humanity meeting a lot of good people on the road.

>>11549 Being around people under any context induces immense anxiety for me. An example was my mom once told me to go stand in a line for something and this line was about 20 people long and I just could not bring myself to do it. I had a fully blown panic attack from that alone. It's a fear of people, it's *intensity* about social situations. It all just becomes *too much*. People talking to me or just talking in general and this includes online, actually makes me physically and mentally tired, as if I was just focusing on a difficult text or math problem. When I'm actually out in public, I can't have anyone talk to me, it just makes it makes it quicker for me to "shutdown". I've no idea what exactly it is about being around people, but I can't handle it. Sorry if I'm not explaining well, it's quite difficult but I don't mind trying to answer.

>>11542 >Spares me from having to deal with them in a professional setting. That doesn't make any sense. People don't merge with chandom like it's the borg or something. When you do have to deal with people who have been socialized by 8 hours a day of imageboards since age 13 and now they're adults, it will only make them harder to deal with because they either think the same rules apply in the outside world or they do understand that they don't know any rules but are too weird about it to ask.

>>11426 I think it is important to point out that the official Japanese government definition and criteria state that you can't have a physical condition or another psychological problem that explains your social withdrawal however it doesn't mean that they aren't mentally ill at all many of Japan's hikikomori were not mentally ill before withdrawing from society and ended up mentally ill as a result of their isolation also remember it doesn’t mean they don’t leave their house in general it means they don’t leave the room they withdraw themselves up into in the house they live in. >The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare defines hikikomori as a condition in which the affected individuals isolate themselves from society in their homes for a period exceeding six months. >The psychiatrist Tamaki Saitō defines hikikomori as “a state that has become a problem by the late twenties, that involves cooping oneself up in one’s own home and not participating in society for six months or longer, but that does not seem to have another psychological problem as its principal source. >Japan’s official criteria for idefiniying hikikomori >1. Spending most of the day and nearly everyday confined to home >2. A marked and persistent avoidance of social situations, and social relationships, >3. Social withdrawal symptoms causing significant functional impairment, >4. A duration of at least six months, >5. No apparent physical or mental etiology to account for the social withdrawal symptoms.

>>11541 >What is the difference between a hermit, a recluse and a hikikomori? Are you still one if you hold a job? Can one become hikikomori voluntarily? Why is it portrayed as a bad thing? A hermit is someone who withdraws from civilization and lives in the woods a recluse is someone who is just generally reclusive in general and a hikikomori is a shut-in who does not leave their bedroom for months or years most of the time a hikikomori is a neet and supported by their parents or gets money from the government unless they work or take classes online at home which is not common being a hikikomori is not a mental disorder it is a social condition caused mainly most of the time by social or societal pressure which Japanese society is extremely strict and fitting outside the norm is not considered a good thing and nobody chooses to become a hikikomori they just happen to end up as one it is something that just happens these guys are victims of circumstance and this phenomenon is not only isolated to Japan because social and societal pressure exist everywhere just not as strict as in Japan.

I'm hikikomori, and got approved for SSI today. My shut-in life is only just beginning!

>turned 22 >do college online >fasfa only covers half of college, I need to get 3k >lost job because of soykafty coworker trying to start fight >been searching for job for 2 months >if I don't get a job soon I'll have to drop out of college >avoiding family because they are constantly looking at me with disappointment. >starting soykafty sleep cycle, going to bed at 5am waking up at 11am oh god please make it stop....

>>11584 It's only downhill from here.

>>11584 tf im not a neet and I wish I had that sleep schedule. I go to bed anywhere from 5-8 am and wake up at 4 pm. If I could get up at 11 id have so much more of my day I wasnt spending alone and then I wouldnt do drugs.

>>11589 it isn't that great, you feel constantly tired, you wanna pass out all the time and can't. idk if im just a light sleeper or it's just stress, but i wake up almost every hour during my sleep

>>11590 the soykafty thing is I also feel constantly tired though. Though I dont wake up every hour so I have that going for me, that would probably fuarrrk me up. I think I sleep so much just because I enjoy sleeping more than being awake so if my sleep was soykaf id be mad.

>>11600 I hope you get better lain,

>>11590 It might vary on the person just like ideal sleeping time varies but personally i had no issues with a nightshift that meant sleeping 6am to 2pm. Only adapting in the initial month was rough as well as getting back into a normal schedule once it was over.

>>11426

when i was 14-16 i had very bad social anxiety to the point i dropped out of school. i lost all my friends (on purpose) and never left the house except to go to therapy. it seems impossible to get out of when you're stuck in that hole but you have to get help and force your way out. i now live with my boyfriend in the city, go to uni and have a lot of friends. im so happy and confident now

>>11426 I don't want to but it looks like I'm gonna have to do it. >28 year old boomer with ADHD and suspected aspergers, good social skills >get married, go into RN program >wife starts abusing me, after a year it's getting worse and I leave >fine for a few months then panic attacks, practice instructor realizes she can fuarrrk with my memory by making me anxious, meds don't work, can't see psychiatrist because waitlist is over a year and private health care is derezzed >am being forced to medically withdraw I just wanted to be a psych nurse. I'm very interested in it, am good with that population, and I can stay calm around them. But now I'm probably gonna have to either do a math degree or go on disability. I wanted to help NEETs, not become one. fuarrrk.