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Comment by hikineet | Hacker News Reader

Hikikomori is not only a Japanese phenomenon. I was Hikiki for a year after dropping out of college.

I lived with my parents playing WoW all night and sleeping all day. I had very few social interactions.

What dragged me into that lifestyle was the complete destruction of my ego. I was simply unprepared to live as an adult. It's not much of a surprise I couldn't cope. In high-school I was coddled for being smart and never developed a work ethic. College hit me like a sack of bricks.

I'm sure there are myriad reasons why people choose to withdraw from society; my case is merely a personal anecdote. Nonetheless I think my case is not a rare exception.

Ultimately what pulled me out of that malaise was successful employment in a software company. It was only after I recovered a sense of self worth that I could finally step out of my cave.

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What you wrote really resonated with me. 'Destruction of the ego' is the most fitting description of that lifestyle. The Internet is the key. You need that drip-feed of sounds, colors, shapes 24/7 to drown your inner voice. You can't stand being with yourself. It's isomorphic to other addictions, like slot machines or alcohol.

I don't know of any 'solution' to this (if one agrees it is something to be solved), though to deal with your inner voice, it's best to listen to it, and I think that meditation can be a good way to do that.

Sometimes I'm arguing on HN or imageboards etc. and I think that to wind down from it all, to realise the impermanence of it, it's good to meditate, noticing the thoughts that appear in your mind. No distractions, music etc.

In my opinion, required military service for 1-2 years post high school (or deferred until after University) can help mitigate it. I don't have any facts to back up my claim but an environment that has guaranteed work, physical fitness requirements and is heavily team based hits a lot of points. While not a perfect solution, I don't see it discussed often.

.. and a large amount of bullying, harassment and occasional suicide problems?

(seriously, "bring back national service, but I don't have any facts" is a terrible argument for HN)

An environment where you are being taken care of for every aspects of your life: when to wake up, what to do, what to eat, how to dress, how to talk, when to relax and when to get to sleep again ? Problems would get back as soon as one gets out I am afraid.

Work ethic can make a huge difference though. To one degree or another we all slowly figure out what to do with our lives. Doing it with a drive that's been drilled into you can be a blessing, and a lot of the lessons apply well throughout life; cleanliness, routine sleep schedules, being respectful.

I think there are a lot of potential issues with service, but if you're feeling lost in life, at least you can pick up some habits that should help long term.

You're not being taken care of. You don't learn to make all of your own choices, but it was exactly that problem that destroyed me. I suddenly had all of these responsibilities and decisions and things I had to deal with alone, and I ended up throwing away my full scholarship to a private school by playing WoW all day instead, surrounded by coke bottles in a dorm room.

Military discipline would have been great for me because I would have had some functional baseline. Unfortunately, there is no analogue to "just join the military" for the disabled.

"Ultimately what pulled me out of that malaise was successful employment in a software company. It was only after I recovered a sense of self worth that I could finally step out of my cave."

I read a lot of employment success stories similar to yours! Which is great, good to hear you're feeling better.

It does go to show that for some people, jobs (by giving community and a sense of purpose) are still very important and will probably continue to be, which means interesting times ahead.

It's not that jobs are more fulfilling than anything else. It's that people lack opportunities. Especially if you're young, don't have a college degree and don't live in a big city. Unskilled jobs doesn't necessarily grant you independence nor a way to work your way up. Yet, higher education is still seen as a privilege rather than a necessity. What you end up with is exactly this sort of "inefficiencies".

I don't think you could have more perfectly described what I experienced.

The only thing that kept me from completely succumbing to it was my family's economic situation. I was something of a functional hikiki, drowning on the inside but putting on a normal mask for the outside world.

Are things better now?

Truthfully, I am still that same person on the inside. I am making some effort to fight off the motivation to give in to it in times of stress.

I think it won't ever go away and I will just have to manage it to the best of my ability.

If you want to talk about it, I'm happy to get in touch directly. Let me know if you're interested.

my experiences resonate with yours. i'm still a hermit but my withdrawal isn't nearly as total as it was from 18-22, when as you said i experienced total ego destruction and inability to cope with being an adult.

i'm almost done with my bachelor's degree now (two weeks!), finally, at 28. i'm actually in the middle of writing a very long final essay about hikikomori for one of my classes this semester. go figure!

congrats to you, I got my BS at 28 as well, and was happy to do it then rather than when I was 22 :)

31.

I did something similar for a few months (right down to becoming a nocturnal WoW troglodyte). It started when I quit my job to go traveling, and continued after I returned. For me, it was due to a bit of an existential crisis - my 'life script' had always been 'work hard in school, get good grades, get into uni, do well at uni, get a job'. I'd finished the script and was lost. What now, and why should I care?

What dragged me out of this state was the one-two punch of getting a job and meeting a girl. Neither ended up being particularly good for me but they got me started again.

How did you get a job and meet a girl when you played WoW all night and slept all day?

I survived like this by sleeping only 3 hours a night for years. It is possible.

this guy asking the real questions

What comes next? I'm also completely lost at the end of the life script and I'm not interested in getting a wife, kids, or mortgage like my peers seem to be.

At that point I kind of dodged the question by getting a high-maintenance girlfriend who dragged me through continual crises. Which kept me occupied, at least. I'm not selling this 'get a wife' thing very well, am I? :P

Now, though, I've boiled it down to 'pick a new goal, work towards that goal, achieve (or abandon) goal, repeat'. I was stuck on the idea that there was no 'right' choice, I've now realised that means there's no 'wrong' choice either, so I just do what I find to be most rewarding, which is building useful things.

> Ultimately what pulled me out of that malaise was successful employment in a software company.

Are you sure you are actually out of that malaise?

I mean, writing software can also very much feel like playing a game, and an even less social one perhaps.

Assuming they were not teleworking, getting out of their bedroom would be cosnidered a big win.

Staring at a computer screen at work basically indicates that they are not hiki any more (although they probably still have some issues that will need some work before they would be considered mainstream).

But didn't you actually have a lot of social interactions if you played WoW?

I played a lot of online games, and they were my primary source of social interaction. To someone who doesn't understand how one can be social on the internet, it could have appeared that I was socially withdrawn, but I wasn't.

Like any condition though, the negative consequences have their own merit: playing video games most of the day doesn't usually lead to long term skills one can apply. If anything, I'm less social now that I have marketable skills :P

I always question that. I've played online too, and ever got to "know" some people (as much as you can know an anonymous nickname). But in face to face situations, the online interactions really weren't very useful. Did you find face-to-face easier because of online experiences?

Yeah, I got better at face to face interactions after having a semi-large consistent group of online friends. After a few years we met up once in a while as a group (maybe once a year), and that helped a lot too.

Learning to lead dungeon groups (and later raids) was critical training for me later being able to take control of projects, manage subcontractors etc. So yeah, some skills learned in an MMO absolutely do carry over into real life.

Let's say they _can_ be carried over, but the vast majority of people playing MMOs are not developing serious leadership skills that they can put on their resume at least :)

Thank you for sharing. This comment thread is 10x as enlightening as the linked article. I am only curious, what specifically about adult life had such a powerful destructive effect?

A guess, but I think it's due to full confrontation of the realization that: What's meaningful is almost never economical.

What was your degree in?

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