Definition of Hikikomori

My daughter, who will be twenty next year, is an HSP and is currently a full-blown hikikomori.

This spring, as the kids around her graduated from high school and moved on to their own paths, she felt like she was falling apart from the anxiety and impatience of being the only one unable to move forward.

But every time she got a call from a friend, she would smile and say, "Congratulations" and "I'm so happy for you."

I don't think anyone but her can truly understand the depths of that painful feeling, but I imagine it was very hard for her.

The more I learn about HSP, the more my heart aches thinking about how much she must have been hurt while forcing a smile during her interactions with friends from her school days.

Yesterday, my daughter started talking to me, saying, "You know..."

"Sometimes friends who live in other prefectures ask to meet up with me.

Even though I tell them I'm a hikikomori, they ask me to meet them at a big station or tell me to come all the way to their prefecture.

Those people also call themselves hikikomori, but if they can go outside and go to work, they aren't really hikikomori, right...?"

She said this with a look of uncertainty in her eyes.

My daughter used to love going out, but now she can't even leave the property, and she can't work a part-time job or go out to have fun even though she wants to.

It's only natural for her to feel that way.

"That's right. If you can go outside, you aren't a hikikomori.

We call people hikikomori when they want to leave their room or house but can't. Why don't you just clearly say, 'I'm a hikikomori, so you have to come to the front of my house if you want to see me!'?"

When I replied in a deliberately cheerful tone, she said, "That's true!

Next time someone asks, I'll try saying that!"

And she laughed.

The "Can you make it outside?" asked by adults around her who know the situation, and the casual "How far can you come?" from her peers—which I wouldn't call heartless, but is still thoughtless—may seem similar, but they are completely different.

It was an event that made me realize once again that the feelings behind words are conveyed to the person being spoken to, especially in the case of HSPs, far more than one might imagine.