10:28am, 12/3/2016: I had an argument with my mum over how I should be behaving and it turned out to be one of the many instances where we had to bring in past unhappiness/grudges into the argument.
That is the context/situation behind this post, but my main point is I wish to attempt to explain how I turned out to be a
hikikomori. (I encourage you to read this because it has very useful information inside, such as how this hikikomori incident is affecting the Japanese society and economy)
Wikipedia defines a hikikomori as "
a Japanese term referring to the circumstances/incident of isolated/withdrawn adolescents (young adults) or adults who refrain/withdraw from social life, often seeking extreme degrees of isolation/
and confinement (being by themselves, with little to no contact/interaction with others). The term hikikomori refers to both the sociological event/incident in general and the people belonging to this societal group. Hikikomori have been described as recluses, loners, or "modern-day hermits." "
APA Reference: Hikikomori. (2016). In Wikipedia. Retrieved 12 March 2016, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori
My own definition of a hikikomori: it is
pretty much the same, except that to make it
faster for people to understand, I say it as "someone who stays at home a lot, and very unwilling to socialise/talk to others because of a major source of failure or negative experience/incident that happened to them in the past which has triggered them to become this way.
I personally feel I have become a hikikomori more than once, and I became this way because 1. I had an extremely, extremely, extremely, poor negative experience with socialising and interacting with others from the very young age of around Primary 2-3, and I was bullied from Primary 3 until Secondary 3 and 4, and
2. this perceived state of being "bullied" could even extend slightly into the first year of my polytechnic, because it adversely/greatly affected my self confidence/esteem, making me EXTREMELY distrustful of most people and reluctant/unwilling/hesitant to talk to others and develop a relationship with them for fear of only being rejected, and the extremely sad/depressed feeling of losing them as a friend
3. the family background I grew up in, with a mother who has depression or bipolar disorder, which again has caused grave/horrible negative impact on my self confidence/esteem as a 5-9 year old boy who did not understand why his own dear mother had to flare up and be angry at him every now and then, which is why I recently tell people that I felt most of my childhood was robbed from me.
10:56 am 14 March 2016: I am in the middle of crying after an argument with my mother.
She can be very domineering and commanding at times, and my father and I has been on the receiving end of her short temper and mental condition for the majority of our lives.
One area which I have definitely failed as a son is to show more concern to my parents.
Did you know that we do not celebrate birthdays, for example we did not have birthday cakes or exchange presents, the most closest alternative being a meal at a restaurant.
Moreover, in the early years of my life until Secondary 3 or 4 or even the first year of my polytechnic, I was a lone wolf, an even more worse form of a hikikomori, because I only cared about my studies, my computer games and my family, I gave no shits and concern to my own interpersonal skills/socialising.
This is why you have no idea how grateful I am to the few close friends that I do have from childhood, words cannot simply express the amount of gratitude I have to them, and until now I still feel guilty because I don't really give much in return to their help towards me, and one example I can think of is I do not give them presents on their birthday and neither have I received many presents to me during my birthdays, the concept of exchanging gifts to me is one that is relatively new and unknown, something I definitely need to work on.
Another point is that I used to think if I did well for my studies, that was the most I could do to make my parents happy, because I really could not do much to intervene or step into their arguments when I was younger, and this belief of doing well in my studies still holds true to this day.
This is the reason why I am seen as someone who is so "stuck up"/serious/ someone who should belong to a Junior College (JC) by my polytechnic class or schoolmates, as I am someone who is overly serious and too demanding on them at times, especially over group projects, because they affect my grades.
You may be thinking to yourself then you should have went to JC back then, but right now I personally think I somewhat made the right choice to enter into polytechnic back then because my foundation in subjects Chemistry was extremely weak, I had no idea how I turned my failing grade of a D7-F9 to a B4 for my Ordinary Levels (O Lvls) Chemistry, with no tuition and all.
Another point related to this is that when I was young I always had the intention to graduate from university, it just stuck with me throughout my entire life, and I heard from hearsay and all that only the top 5-10% of the polytechnic cohort can enter into a university, so I worked based on that belief, which again only served to add on to my stress.
Moreover, my mother has always told me that
she wished to live a more lavish lifestyle, whether she was being serious or not, such as saying she will have the chance to travel in a car by the time I started working, and the chance to live in a condo, and etc. , this again serves to add on to my stress levels.
(I have ran out of content that I can think of for now, so I will leave you with this 3 minutes
motivational speech from a father to his son, that has recently helped me persevere through my hell months (of endless submissions and presentations) in polytechnic.
Here is the transcript of the speech:
Son: You know, living with you, it hasn't been easy. People see me but they think of you.
Now with all this going on, this is going to be worse than ever.
Dad: It don't have to be (worse than ever).
Son: No, sure it does.
Dad: Why? You got a lot going on, kid. [meaning his son has been quite successful]
Son: Over my last name? That's the reason why I got a decent job, that's the reason why people deal with me in the first place. Now I start to get a little ahead, I start to get a little something for myself, and this happens. Now, I'm asking you as a favor, not to go through (get involved in) this, okay ?, this is going to end up bad for you, this is going to end up bad for me.
[The son is upset that his success has been because of his father's reputation/name/status/"popularity"]
Dad: You think I'm hurting you?
Son: Yeah, in a way you are.
Dad: That's the last thing I ever wanted to do.... (gets cut off by his son)
Son: I know that's not what you wanna to do, but that's just the way that it is.
Don't you care what people think? Doesn't it bother you that... that people are making you out to be a joke, and I've gotta be included in that?! Do you think that's right?! Do you !?
[Son is understanding/acknowledging/recognizing that his father does not want to harm him, but is saying his father has unintentionally harmed him either way, because of how well known his father is.]
(moments of silence)
[Main motivational speech starts here]
Dad: You ain't gonna believe this, but
you used to fit right here, I'd hold you up, and say to your mother, this kid's gonna be the best kid in the world. This kid's gonna be
somebody better than anybody ever knew. And you grew up good and wonderful, it was great just watching you everyday, it was like a privilege.
[pointing to his palm, and telling his son about their expectations of him when he was a baby]
When the time come (came) for you to be your own man, and take on the world, and you did.
But, somewhere along the line, you changed, you stopped being you, you let people stick a finger in your face and tell you that you're no good.
And when things got hard... , you started looking for something to blame, like a big shadow.
Let me tell you something you already know, the world ain't all sunshine and rainbows, its a very mean, and nasty place, and I DON'T CARE HOW TOUGH YOU ARE, IT WILL BEAT YOU TO YOUR KNEES AND KEEP YOU THERE PERMANENTLY IF YOU LET IT, YOU, NEITHER NOBODY, IS GONNA HIT AS HARD AS LIFE, BUT IT AIN'T ABOUT HOW HARD YOU HIT. ITS ABOUT HOW HARD YOU CAN GET HIT (/KEEP GETTING HIT), AND KEEP MOVING FORWARD, HOW MUCH YOU CAN TAKE, AND KEEP MOVING FORWARD!
THAT'S HOW WINNING IS DONE!!!!
NOW IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE WORTH, THEN GO OUT AND GET WHAT YOU'RE WORTH. BUT YOU GOTTA BE WILLING TO TAKE THE HITS.
AND NOT POINT FINGERS AND SAY YOU AIN'T WHERE YOU WANNA BE BECAUSE OF HIM, OR HER, OR ANYBODY! COWARDS DO THAT AND THAT AIN'T YOU!!!!!!!!!
YOU'RE BETTER THAN THAT!
(cue background music)
Dad: I'm always gonna love you, no matter what, no matter what happens... You're my son and my blood. You're the best thing in my life... but until you start believing in yourself, you ain't gonna have a life... [Dad almost tears up, Son is crying a little now]
Don't forget to visit your mother.
[Dad leaves his son to go back into the bar, and the son stares at his dad in silence, with a sad/"empathetic" face until his dad has gone past the door, and turns to look away to reflect in silence.]
Disclaimer: My dad is not someone with high expectations of me, but I can relate this to him and my mother. I also treat "winning" as "limit is gone" for that speech at times, and I hope that I can be the one saying that to my friend in need or my son in the future, provided someone is willing to love me for the hikikomori I am.
12:09 PM (same date): To the Singaporean hikikomoris like me, one advice I can give you is you just need to learn how to be content with what you have so far in life, its the simple things in life like being able to sleep peacefully at night that counts.
For socialising, you don't need to find that many friends, you just need a few (around 1-3) close friends around you.
Personally, I don't really know if I have someone I can call a best friend, but one day I hope I do so.
Moreover, I don't have the confidence to refer to my friend as a friend when I am talking about him/her to someone else, I usually call them as a classmate/acquaintance/ or etc., this is one example of how low my self-esteem/confidence is. (this portion may be elaborated/explained in more detail in a separate post)
I also welcome you to contact me via my Steam account (most reliable way to find me) and my YouTube Channel if you wish to talk about hikikomori stuff .
3:46 am, before the beginning of Luminosity and Na Vi CSGO map 2:
My ideal wife:
3:44 AM - A 75YrOld ひきこもりMLG CS Major!!!!!: ideally it would be my impression of Miku
3:45 AM - A 75YrOld ひきこもりMLG CS Major!!!!!: because Miku is a blank personality
3:45 AM - A 75YrOld ひきこもりMLG CS Major!!!!!: you need to fill in the gaps
3:45 AM - A 75YrOld ひきこもりMLG CS Major!!!!!: my impression of her is a really understanding, patient, tolerant and dependable person
To be continued definitely.
) , instead of Virtus Pro/Plow appears at the major, given their recent slump as of late, but I think the Poles would still give them a good challenge if they somehow woke up from their slump within these weeks. Cloud9 is Cloud9,Clown9, Choke9, whatever you like to call it (
), but I think that they are the weakest team here, since their lineup is based mostly on skill, with little emphasis on tactics.