On March 29, the issue of this present blog was visited and will continue to be a problem for the individual and society for many years to come. The Catholic Times visited the problem in a recent featured article.
The son, who never disobeyed his mother and studied well, did not come out of his room during the summer vacation of his third year in high school. When she knocked on his door the only reason he gave for not going to school was because he was sick. His mother, who had to work hard to earn money to keep her home, felt it was her fault for not being able to take care of her young son, and it broke her heart. A week, a month, a year, the son who had not come out of the house was now in his mid-30s. The pain of a child who was cut off from the world due to unspeakable wounds and locked the door becomes the pain of parents and of society. How can the church accompany the pain of families who are going through a time of suffering in so many unknown places?
'Reclusive loners' is a collective term for people who have not communicated with anyone other than their family members for six months or more, have refused any social relationships, and rarely leave their rooms or homes.
In Japan, this phenomenon had already emerged as a social problem in the 1970s. Students who were tired of the competition for entrance examinations refused to go to school, and by the 1990s, teenagers and young adults who did not leave the house were called "hikikomori", which means "locked in at home". A Japanese psychiatrist who first coined the term “hikikomori,” defined hikikomori as "a case of not participating in society which lasts for more than six months, but it is difficult to think of it as a mental disorder. He pointed out that the hermit-type loner phenomenon is not a problem of individual psychopathology, but of social structure.
The term was first introduced in Korea about 20 years ago. At the 12th World Psychiatric Association held in Yokohama, Japan in 2002, the Samsung Social Mental Health Research Institute reported that a hermit-type loner phenomenon had occurred in Korea. It was known to the academic world 20 years ago, but there has never been a nationwide fact-finding survey at the government level. The perception that people who spend time in their rooms playing games instead of going to school or work has caused people to regard reclusive loners as a personal problem
The issue of seclusion and loneliness was difficult to recognize because the person concerned was not appearing in society and awareness of the issue was missing; consequently, the problem that our society should contemplate together as it was linked to crime was slow in coming.
At a seminar held in August 2020, it was mentioned that the period of first starting seclusion was 16-18 years old (39.8%), followed by those 19-24 years old. They left society because they were unable to bear the weight given to them at important times in their lives, such as college entrance and employment.
The most common reason for being secluded was "mental difficulties such as depression" (43.4%). Others stopped coming out of the house because of ‘not getting a job’ (31.0%) and ‘because of human relationships’ (25.3%). ‘Study interruption and college entrance failure’ (7.2%) were also cited as the cause.
In Japan, where hikikomori spread in the 1990s, those who were young at the time were unable to come out into society and entered their 40s and 50s. The "80-50 problem", in which the number of middle-aged hikikomori dependent on their parents in their 70s and 80s is increasing, and emerging as a serious social problem in Japan along with young hikikomori.
Institutes that study reclusive loners estimate that there are more than 300,000 reclusive loners in Korea. Experts diagnosed that complex factors make adolescents and young adults secluded. It is an analysis that the overprotection and over-expectation of children that appeared along with the nuclear family made the child helpless and unable to develop the strength to overcome trials. Also, teenagers who were exposed to fierce competition or experienced school violence could not adapt to school life and hid in their rooms. In the case of young people, experiencing frequent failures in the process of finding a job, they lose their motivation and cut off relationships with their surroundings, becoming a hermit-type loner.
One of the parents a CEO of the Korea Reclusive Parents Association, founded the Korea Reclusive Parents Association to save her son, who had cut off social ties for over 10 years, said that "parent education" is the first priority to solve the problem of reclusive ones. "First of all, the children have to come out to receive counseling or support, but the biggest problem is that they cannot even start because it is difficult to access the person concerned. When children open their minds through parents, conditions can be created for agencies or counselors to intervene."
The CEO who struggled to raise her son alone after divorcing her husband, said: "If I knew how to take care of my son emotionally, my son might not have lived in isolation for so long." She did not know that those times would leave scars on her son. She has created an association and is working hard to educate parents in the hope that other parents will not suffer the same pain as she did. Her son, who has been studying youth counseling since a few years ago, said: "If I had at least one adult who took an interest in me and said 'it's okay' when I was having a hard time, I would have been able to come out to the world sooner."
Through the words of the two mothers, we can find out what role the church can play. It is to convey the value of love. A priest working with these young people said: "Parent education, which is already being done by the church, is one of the church’s roles necessary in our society where the family is disintegrating." He also added: "Finding the essence of the church through constant catechesis can eventually be the key to solving the problems that plague our society."
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