FYI: What Is Hikikomori?
Japan's hikikomori: adults who don't leave home for at least six months at a time. Dreamstime Stories of this mental illness, culturally specific to Japan, make their way to Western shores. Parental pressure takes all kinds of shapes. My own parents would have loved if I'd chosen to be a computer programmer at a big company instead of a freelance writer. (But I know you guys love me no matter what! XOXO) Matsu's artist father, on the other hand, didn't want him to become a Japanese corporate "salaryman." "My father said: 'In the future there won't be a society like that,'" Matsu, who lives in Japan, told the BBC. He and his parents had a falling out and soon after, he withdrew, rarely leaving his house and losing his social skills. He became one of Japan's hikikomori, a psychiatric as well as a colloquial term that refers to an adult who withdraws...