Posted on 07/08/2013 9:57:47 AM PDT by reaganaut1
...
In Japan, hikikomori, a term that's also used to describe the young people who withdraw, is a word that everyone knows.
Tamaki Saito was a newly qualified psychiatrist when, in the early 1990s, he was struck by the number of parents who sought his help with children who had quit school and hidden themselves away for months and sometimes years at a time. These young people were often from middle-class families, they were almost always male, and the average age for their withdrawal was 15.
It might sound like straightforward teenage laziness. Why not stay in your room while your parents wait on you? But Saito says sufferers are paralysed by profound social fears.
"They are tormented in the mind," he says. "They want to go out in the world, they want to make friends or lovers, but they can't."
Symptoms vary between patients. For some, violent outbursts alternate with infantile behaviour such as pawing at the mother's body. Other patients might be obsessive, paranoid and depressed.
When Saito began his research, social withdrawal was not unknown, but it was treated by doctors as a symptom of other underlying problems rather than a pattern of behaviour requiring special treatment.
Since he drew attention to the phenomenon, it is thought the numbers of hikikomori have increased. A conservative estimate of the number of people now affected is 200,000, but a 2010 survey for the Japanese Cabinet Office came back with a much higher figure - 700,000. Since sufferers are by definition hidden away, Saito himself places the figure higher still, at around one million.
The average age of hikikomori also seems to have risen over the last two decades. Before it was 21 - now it is 32.
So why do they withdraw?
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
+1.
In my own little corner
In my own little room
I can be whoever I want to be
High numbers of white middle class men are killing themselves in our country.
Seems liberal political elites are creating a culture that has room for a few at the top (them) and a large servant class (illegals) to 'feed' them. In short they're creating a typical third world hellhole.
The good news is it's not going to end well for them..
I am guessing that it is partly due to the demanding expectations of excellence in Japanese society, especially for young people. Failure is dishonor, and maybe these kids are scared to death of failure. That, and they see the obsessed life successful Japanese men have to lead. Just a guess.
Parents should not be enablers.
Correct. That’s the role of politicians.
Bingo. A lot of men here in the USA are feeling the same way. But fewer of them live in a culture that will tolerate them vanishing permanently into their rooms. Then again, as another poster noted, suicide rates are way up.
It’s a question of face. Which is a cultural thing, and is far more important in Far Eastern culture than in Western culture. . .
Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys went through something like that for years. I suspect it has to do with 1) not enough available and admirable adult role models and a not very positive view of adult life, 2) feelings of inadequacy and the idea that the expectations of the adult world are too difficult for one to satisfy, and 3) some alternate fantasy world that one can live in.
seems like agoraphobia.
Do they really want an answer?
sucess belongs to the parents.
failures belong to the child.
treatment is failure and their life would be over.
Screen and wireless culture is a huge factor. Who needs to get out and struggle in the real world outside, when hi-def screens, games, smartphones and social media are so much easier and more fun?
Meeting real girls and developing flesh and blood relationships is difficult and fraught with emotional peril.
Who needs that, when you can face a giant high-def screen and live in the virtual reality of your choice? Starting with plenty of “willing” and gorgeous fantasy girls.
What is the motivation to go outside, when inside is so fun and easy?
This is a big factor in “Alas, Brave New Babylon,” the 11K word short story I should have finished months ago.
LOL, now that’s clever
Combined with the social and employment disincentives the article mentions, and the traditional acceptance of dependance in Japanese housholds these men have a powerful incentive to tune out and live in their rooms surfing porn.
Bushusuru’s fault!
That site kind of sums up the culture you describe in a nutshell. Mr. Choo's world is a seamless blend of fantasy and reality, a blinding hi-def swirl of cute and sex and monsters wrapped up in slick marketing, signifying nothing and everything at the same time. He is quite successful in his virtual playland. Most Japanese men trying to live the dream are not so lucky.
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