Elderly join Japan's hidden 'hikikomori'

Half a million people opting to shun society, survey finds

TOKYO - Ikeida leaves the house once every three days to buy food, shuns deliveries to avoid human interaction and has not seen his parents or younger brother for 20 years.

The 55-year-old has chosen to shut himself completely away from society - such a commonplace phenomenon in high-pressure, conformist and workaholic Japan that there is a word to describe it: Hikikomori.

Until recently it was thought to be an issue mainly afflicting those in their teens and 20s, but aging Japan is seeing a growing number of older hikikomori cloistering themselves away for longer periods of time.

There are more than half a million hikikomori in Japan - according to the latest government survey published in 2016 - defined as people who have stayed home for more than six months without going to school or work and interacting with no one other than family members.

However, this underestimates the scale of the issue as it only counts people under the age of 39 and the government has now decided to conduct the country's first survey of hikikomori aged between 40 and 59.

Ikeida (not his real name) said he graduated from a prestigious Tokyo university and received several lucrative job offers from major firms during Japan's "bubble economy" period in the 1980s.

Unbearable pressure

But he quickly realized he could not follow his university colleagues into the massed ranks of Japanese salarymen.

"I went to a good university - my parents wished me to go to and I tried hard to conform," he said in a rare interview arranged through a nonprofit trying to help those isolated from society and their parents.

"But I realized I had to conform forever when I got those job offers. I felt hopeless. I couldn't wear a suit. I felt like my heart had broken."

Feeling under unbearable pressure, he took the decision to shut himself away in his room, shunning all forms of human contact - a pattern that was to continue for the next three decades.

What drives people to shut themselves away is not entirely clear, but many featured in the survey said they stopped interacting with society after struggling with relationships at work or school, or failing at job hunting.

"What we know is that they have been hurt. They were bullied or experienced interpersonal trouble at work," said Kayo Ikeda, a clinical psychologist who heads a nonprofit offering advice to elderly parents with hikikomori children.

Ikeida describes in his blog how his mother would hit him if he did not study hard enough and also subjected him to psychological pressure.

Ikeida lives mainly on social benefits but also makes a little money by writing online articles from his room.

He worries about dying alone, another common fear in aging Japan.

"I think about a lonely death. I don't want to die that way. I don't want to be found rotten. So maybe I can ask for more visits by welfare officials, but I don't want that either," he said.

"It's such a contradictory feeling."

Agence France-presse

(China Daily 03/18/2018 page10)