In Japan, extreme bids to help hikikomori are causing them further distress

[GachiMuchi]

In Japan, extreme bids to help hikikomori are causing them further distress

• Some desperate parents are paying as much as US$65,000 for companies to use violent means to reintegrate their reclusive children into society
• Dubbed hikidashiya – literally ‘those who pull people out’ – a number of these firms currently being investigated

 

Gavin Blair

Published: 4:00pm, 27 Jun, 2020

 

Some unscrupulous companies are profiting from extreme measures to remove hikikomori from their homes. Photo: Shutterstock

When the mother of a hikikomori social recluse in her 30s paid a Tokyo company 5.7 million yen (US$53,300), she had hoped they would reintegrate her daughter into society.

Instead, workers from Elixir Arts broke down the woman’s front door, forcibly removed her from her flat, took her money and phone, and confined her to a company-run dormitory.

On June 15, another hikikomori lodged a complaint with Tokyo police over a similar case in which his parents paid 7 million yen (US$65,400) to a different firm, which dragged him out of the family home, put him in a psychiatric institution for 50 days, and confined him for another 40 days in a dormitory.

The desperation that drives parents to take such drastic action is partly due to rare but horrific violence perpetrated by 

Japan

’s hikikomori.

 

 

The latest occurred on June 4, when a 23-year-old university-dropout hikikomori was arrested after admitting he shot four of his family members with a crossbow, killing three of them and seriously injuring the last, at their house near Kobe.

 

These incidents highlight the difficulties in treating shut-ins, the fear of many of their parents, and the methods used by some unscrupulous companies which are profiting from it.

In December last year, the woman who was taken against her will and her mother were awarded a 5 million yen judgment against Elixir Arts. The woman has been diagnosed with PTSD resulting from her experience.

 

I’m very concerned about hikidashiya. My opinion is that such forced treatments don’t produce good outcomes.Takahiro Kato, Kyushu University

 

Similar stories have emerged recently, including hikikomori who were supposed to be receiving treatment forced into manual work, being forbidden from contacting their parents and subjected to physical and verbal abuse.

 

These firms have been dubbed hikidashiya – literally “those who pull people out” – and a number are currently being investigated.

 

“I’m very concerned about hikidashiya. The parents pay huge amounts of money and then people are forcibly taken out of their homes,” said Takahiro Kato, associate professor of psychiatry at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, who both treats and studies hikikomori. “My opinion is that such forced treatments don’t produce good outcomes.”

Kato acknowledges the difficulties faced by families caring for hikikomori, and that hiring hikidashiya is often a last resort.

The hikikomori phenomenon was identified and labelled in the late 1990s by psychology professor Tamaki Saito, and is now defined by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare as someone who has not gone to work or school for at least six months, and rarely interacts with people outside their home.

 

While government surveys in Japan have estimated the number of hikikomori at more than 1.1 million, Saito has said the true figure may be double that, citing underestimation of elderly recluses.

Saito has also pointed out that hikikomori are being seen in South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, also cultures known for multigenerational homes, Confucian thinking and high levels of societal pressure.

Rental families to heal lonely souls in Japan

Morisata Fukaya, a social worker at the Kazoku Hikikomori Japan NPO, believes cultural factors explain the prevalence of hikikomori in East Asia.

“In Japan, people don’t want to show their problems to the outside world out of shame,” Fukaya said. “There are cases where people become hikikomori, and then their parents stay in the house with them to hide the problem and effectively become recluses themselves, too.”

Fukaya cautiously welcomed a June 16 government announcement that it was looking into problems with hikidashiya and the hikikomori issue, but said the response from authorities so far has been suboptimal.

“Help desks have been set up at many local governments, but we’ve had cases of families having their problems treated like a joke at them and being told they must have raised their children wrong,” Fukaya said. “Because the condition is not seen as life-threatening, they’re not taken seriously and so some end up going to hikidashiya.”

Low self-esteem is at the heart of extreme reclusiveness, often triggered by redundancy or bullying at workplaces and schools, according to Fukaya. He believes it can happen to anyone, including the successful, noting there have been cases of people being headhunted, bullied at their new company and then becoming hikikomori.

“I look at hikikomori as like a car without petrol; if you try to move a car in that state, it doesn’t work. The petrol is respect and love,” said Fukaya, who advises families to develop mutual understanding.

The lack of “powerful therapeutic treatments for hikikomori” was what drove Kyushu University’s Kato to work on a trial intervention programme for family members, the promising results of which were published in an academic paper in December.

In Japan, some elderly parents are growing too old to look after their middle-aged hikikomori charges. Photo: EPA-EFE

But the impact of Japan’s ageing demographics and the 

coronavirus

 may exacerbate the shut-in problem, experts believe. The numerous cases of elderly parents caring for middle-aged hikikomori is known as the “80-50 problem” and as the carers grow too old to look after their charges or die, many recluses will become even more isolated.

“Interestingly, during the recent state of emergency due to the virus, many hikikomori reported decreased feelings of suffering because everybody in society was in the same position as them, so their feelings of shame and guilt decreased,” Kato said. “But now, as we return to normal life, this is a very challenging period and they are starting to suffer again.

“Also, we are concerned that because of people staying home due to Covid-19, new hikikomori may emerge,” he said.

 

 

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: Japan’s growing problemof recluses

 

 

 

 

[wilfgene]

"There is a limit on our life span, yet knowledge is infinite....."

[InBangkok]

As one who has lived and worked in Japan, I find the problem of the hikikomori both sad and yet understandable. The harmony in Japanese life that visitors find often betrays a mass of problems experienced by those who live there. I always thought that the hikokmori were children who basically locked themselves in their rooms, totally unable to face life. No doubt lack of proper parenting is part of the reason, but the prevalence of school bullying, the intense pressure to fit in and the even greater pressure to do well must all take their toll and can sometimes lead to desperately low self esteem. Feelings of failure and shame are common factors with almost all hikiomori.

 

What I now find surprising is that the most recent study by the Japanese Cabinet Office in December 2018 shows that whereas there were 541,000 hikikomori aged between 15 and 39, there were 613,000 in the 40 to 64 age range. Almost 50% in the second group said they had lived that way for more than 7 years. Many live with their parents now in their 80s. 

 

In a Japan Times article from a year ago, one 57 year old hikikomori gives a harrowing account of his life.

 

Quote

 

My mother put a kind of bomb inside my body, which later made me become a hikikomori. It started when I was a very little child. She intimidated me every day by saying she would kill herself if I didn’t study as much as she wanted. It was lots of small factors.

 

I went to university but I didn’t have the motivation to be a good student, and I didn’t go to campus. However, it was when I had to leave university and enter society as a working person that I became unable to move.

 

I got three job offers, but I felt like there would be no life for me if I went in that direction. I felt hopeless. And in those days, I thought if I didn’t join a company, there would be no life.

 

I thought there was no way to live, so I must die. And if I was going to die, I wanted to see something very difficult before I died. So I left Japanese society and traveled around India, the Middle East and Africa for the next 10 years.

 

I came back to Japan and tried to be a so-called normal man. But then I fell into a deep depression and started living the life of a hard-core hikikomori. I did nothing for four years.

 

I shut all the curtains, but the light outside still reflected onto the curtains and I could see it from the back of the room. It felt like society was moving ahead and leaving me behind. That feeling made me isolated and insecure.

 

Curtains weren’t enough, so I closed all the shutters and made my room like a cave. Darkness even in the daytime. Whether I slept in the daytime or nighttime, it made no difference.

 

I thought I could get family therapy so I asked my family to go with me to the clinic. My mother said no, so I started to go through psychiatric care alone but it made me worse. That’s why I’m still a hikikomori.

 

 

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2019/06/01/lifestyle/prison-inside-japans-hikikomori-lack-relationships-not-physical-spaces/

 

[Steve5380]

One can see pictures of hikikomori on the internet,  and it breaks one's heart!

 

We don't get born to become hikikomori. 

This should be a lesson FOR US ALL!

No SHAME, no INFERIORITY, no SHINESS, no extreme SENSE OF DUTY,

no obligation TO BE THE BEST, no duty TO EXCEL.

 

Life is shit, but it should also be a friendly shit.  So that we are able to "don't give a shit"

and enjoy finding pleasure in small things without judging ourselves.

[feedersmiracle]

I feel like I might end up living like this after my parents leave this world.

 

The only reason I still go to work and try to make positive changes in my life is because that I don't want them to know or see how I am actually doing deep down inside.

[Steve5380]

49 minutes ago, feedersmiracle said:

I feel like I might end up living like this after my parents leave this world.

 

The only reason I still go to work and try to make positive changes in my life is because that I don't want them to know or see how I am actually doing deep down inside.

 

How are you doing deep down inside?  Can you define it?

[InBangkok]

2 hours ago, Steve5380 said:

One can see pictures of hikikomori on the internet,  and it breaks one's heart!

 

We don't get born to become hikikomori. 

This should be a lesson FOR US ALL!

No SHAME, no INFERIORITY, no SHINESS, no extreme SENSE OF DUTY,

no obligation TO BE THE BEST, no duty TO EXCEL.

 

Life is shit, but it should also be a friendly shit.  So that we are able to "don't give a shit"

and enjoy finding pleasure in small things without judging ourselves.

 

You are so right. But - and there are always 'buts' - so far this has been a Japanese phenomenon. Even though we are told it is slowly spreading to some other Asian countries, it remains for now specific to Japan. To understand why this happens, it is vital to know more about Japanese history and how its society has developed. Whereas many countries, especially in the west, regard individuality as a positive force, in Japan the group will always take priority - the family group, the friends group, the work group. Stick your head up and assert individuality and in almost all cases it will be hammered back down.

 

Add to this a somewhat strange attitude to education. This was pointed out to me by an American who spent most of his life in Japan having been born to missionaries there and then worked at the American Embassy. He had promised his younger Japanese wife that their two boys would be educated in America because she loathed the Japanese system. Basically children would be looked after and pampered by their mothers until the age of 10 or 11 when the sons had to go to very strict schools with military-type uniforms. From a life of near total freedom, the iron hand of discipline descended and remained during their teenage years. My friend believed this has a serious psychological effect on many kids' and was one reason why there is a deep rooted but usually unstated aggression in many Japanese men.

 

Having lived there for two years and visited Japan many dozens of times, I have never noticed this myself. But then I was not married and had no children. I certainly take his word for it. And this may be one reason why certain kids feel it is easier to withdraw from society than face up to life's challenges. It is so sad. 

[Guest Epidemic]

https://youtu.be/SORthIsoLP0

 

[TPYmuscle69]

Perhaps providing the safe place they need would be a great way to start. Like providing a cheap accommodation with a canteen-like dining place where the tenants can enjoy a cheap/ free meal on condition they dine in only. Might just encourage them to learn to get used to a social setting and build confidence, etc from there. 

[Guest psychotic_disorders]

Since I decided to be a homemaker as am happy with I already have - a partner and money, I've noticed over the years that I've developing these Japanese's psychotic disorder as my partner does all the grocery and supplies shopping as in to avoid people. I'm one of maybe many out there and not sure what's the cause of it. 

[Guest O.L.]

On 3/2/2022 at 11:37 AM, Guest psychotic_disorders said:

Since I decided to be a homemaker as am happy with I already have - a partner and money, I've noticed over the years that I've developing these Japanese's psychotic disorder as my partner does all the grocery and supplies shopping as in to avoid people. I'm one of maybe many out there and not sure what's the cause of it. 

 

 

Its all in your head.

 

Its the thought pattern that is causing it. 

 

But in your case, you donri live in Japan 's strict social expectation and pressure.

[Guest introvert]

On 3/2/2022 at 11:56 AM, Guest O.L. said:

 

 

Its all in your head.

 

Its the thought pattern that is causing it. 

 

But in your case, you donri live in Japan 's strict social expectation and pressure.

 

Humans are annoying, thesedays I personally avoid them if unnecessary so I can enjoy being gentleman of leisure without those pesky humans.

[Guest Single Lonely]

There also many hidden Hikikomori in Singapore, if the government bothers to find out.