171–180 of 192 posts
If I had the money I would probably stay at home all the time as well. I have no problem socializing and doing stuff. It's just that I prefer being home.
You may be surprised by how cheap it is to do. You could retire forever on even just $100,000.
OR -- dispose of all possessions, live in homeless shelters and off ramens for 50 years -- no travels, no "little luxuries" etc?
OR -- living the high life for 6 months, then suicide?
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The international version of the term Hikikomori is NEET http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEET
Interesting... we have a similar version - "Ni-Ni" which stands for not working nor studying ("Ni estudia Ni trabaja"). http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ni-Ni which according to Wikipedia is equivalent to NEET. However, they're NOT shut-ins (many live in hovels, no place to shut in), so many become thieves and vandals. Eighteen percent of youth in my country fall in this category (!!!!!)
There is, however, a risk that a Ni-ni may become a hikikomori, or something very similar.
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It doesn't help that a lot of people only post good stuff to Facebook. "Pictures of wife and I celebrating our anniversary!". They don't then say "We both screamed at each other for 3 hours, just after the photo was taken."
Facebook is depressing to people like me precisely because it allows you to compare your lowlights tto an endless stream of others' highlights.
This is a personal anecdote, but it happened last week seems relevant-ish: My landlord is a hikikomori. He is around 50-60 years old, and refuses to leave his room in his house; he instead barks orders at his extremely elderly mother (we're talking older than dirt here; I wouldn't be surprised if she was older than 80). She is a very kind old woman. I was shocked that he sent her to collect water money (we pay to our…
On a side note: his extremely elderly mother (we're talking older than dirt here; I wouldn't be surprised if she was older than 80). I found your choice of terms interesting :) Most people in their 80s that I know seem to be doing fine, are physically and intellectually active, and I wouldn't describe them as "older than dirt" - unless you're talking about somewhat young dirt, here ;). May I ask how old you are? I am…
You are old.
I'd guess that the widespread "major depression" aspect may be based in an acute perception (may or not be accurate or accurately portrayed) of what life is like for many Nippon men.
Thankless and sweatshop-like work, heavy drinking, the high value of socialization and lack of individuation. Not a surprise, then if "most men lead lives of quiet desperation" as they did when Thoreau recognized the fact.
If this is happening to young teens (sad) maybe they cannot see a "road less travelled". Homogenization of options is not good for everyone's mental health.
It's a bit hurtful that they would say "teenage laziness," when it could be depression. It started when I was 12 (probably). I slowly started losing interest in doing things that I enjoyed, even more so about the things I didn't enjoy doing. By the time I was 15 I stopped caring about my future and from a straight A student I became a C/D student. When I started high school that I wanted (we have similar requirements…
It is not a sad post: it is hard and REAL. Your life is relevant.
Thanks for the post & my prayers are with you.
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Inheriting apartment to live in. Houses are extremely wasteful. You have to maintain by yourself huge area that has direct contact with outside. If ou own a flat in block of flats cost of fighting of nature is split between all flat owners. Also taxes are extremely low because you own just few square meters of the land that the building is standing on.
Taxes are usually linked to property value, not land area.
The trigger for a boy retreating to his bedroom might be comparatively slight - poor grades or a broken heart, for example - but the withdrawal itself can become a source of trauma. And powerful social forces can conspire to keep him there. My observation is that mental illness often has a hurricane-like property wherein the storm is bearable but the social fallout (looting, arson, opportunistic crime) afterward is f…
I've never suffered from a panic attack, but my wife does, and regularly. This describes our situation almost exactly. The symptoms are diverse enough to be congruent with everything from acid reflux to a full blown heart attack.
The attacks are milder now primarily because she started timing them and now knows going into one that they'll be over in ten to twenty minutes. Not knowing that leads to the spiral of despair, where you become more and more anxious because you don't know how this panic attack is going to end.
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Maybe it assumes you already have housing, and that you live in a country with socialized medicine. I can see myself retiring with maybe U$ 500.000, though I'd like to have more to afford better healthcare than my country's default (which is MUCH better than the U.S. average, but much worse than what you can buy with money). What my grandparents did was to rent 3 or 4 properties, and live off that. They did so for ab…
I guess the price depends on the place you want to retire to. I.e. in my country $500k is about what I'd expect for average person to earn through their lifetime having a dayjob. So almost by definition $500k is enough there to live the rest of one's life.
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Interesting... we have a similar version - "Ni-Ni" which stands for not working nor studying ("Ni estudia Ni trabaja"). http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ni-Ni which according to Wikipedia is equivalent to NEET. However, they're NOT shut-ins (many live in hovels, no place to shut in), so many become thieves and vandals. Eighteen percent of youth in my country fall in this category (!!!!!)
Fellow spaniard here :). I think it's quite a different thing: a hikikomori is someone who suffers a depression, has coped with it by closeting him(her)self, and now doesn't know how to got out (nor does him/her want to, in many cases). Ni-nis are a very different phenomenon, a lot less homogeneous and, IMHO, caused mostly by lack of opportunities. The TV tried to present them as lazy rascals (I remember that infamou…
Ni-Ni's here in Uruguay live in "cantegriles" (similar to Brazil's "favelas" or Argentina's "villa miseria")
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantegril
Unlike Spain, there are opportunities, there's full employment for youth who want it in construction and other heavy work, but "Ni-Ni's" don't want to have anything to do with that.
There's a huge government "free money" project that's heavily criticized as a "Ni-Ni" enabler.
I'll have to look up that show from La Sexta.