Anger, shame and grudge
I would like to present my own experience of hikikomori as it might help the readers to realize how I have come to think this way.
I have been hikikomori for more than ten years or so. I am overwhelmed by how much I lost when I look back those days.
Nerertheless I had a reason to be so. I wanted to be a lawyer at that time.
Outrageous interest rates of some consumer finance companies were once a big social problem. The companies took advantage of people who could not pay back the loan and threatened them to the wall.
Some of the people in debt suffered enough from intimidating ways of money collection to commit suicide. I wanted to help them out of the situation. That was why I tried to take the judicial examination.
Unfortunately, I did not turn out to be a lawyer; I became hikikomori instead. After I failed on the college entrance exam I kept studying at home for the next year’s exam. That way my hikikomori situation started.
Even after I graduated from college, I studied rather hideously. For that reason I had no social connections.
When I kept hikikomori my concentration was unable to sustain for a long time. I had no choice but to give up studying itself.
When I woke up in the morning, I found myself filled with despair and then I was driven into anger. It was difficult for me to control my emotions. The relationship with my parents only became so terrible that I had to live separately from them.
One day I happened to be back in my parents’ house while they were out. When my parents came back they were accompanied with a few police officers. They attempted to resolve our relationship; they were very aggressive. They treated me like a criminal, intimidated me and kicked down the door. They just acted like racketeers. I felt strong anger, shame and grudge.
Through my experience I have come to decide to establish the Japanese Union of the Hikikomori and the publication of the Hikikomori Newspaper.
I want the general misconception of the society that the hikikomori is bad will disappear and pushing the hikikomori into a corner will be stopped.
Without using force, there should be ways to solve the problem by supporting the hikikomori by listening to their real voices and empathizing.
Egg’s side
Haruki Murakami, a novelist, once made a speech ‘Egg and Wall.’
‘If there is a high hard wall and an egg that can be broken against it, I always stand on the side of the egg.’
I feel the same way as he said.
The egg that is thrown to a high hard wall can be thought as the situation of the hikikomori. In that case I am always on their side. Even though some people might suggest that I am wrong, I do not want to change it.
I want to be on the side of the hikikomori all the time. I support them without any conditions.
