In Japan, the irritability caused by loneliness and depression are engulfing young people.
"I want to die."
Yumi, who lives alone in Tokyo, collapsed, although she was only 20 years old.
As a junior at private university , Yumi has faced endless online classes and loneliness trapped in the room over the past year.
"I was crying when I was sad, when I was comforted by everyone on Twitter , and when I was eating alone. In October and November last year, I cried almost every day."
Since April last year, Yumi School changed the courses to online due to the epidemic, but has not completely recovered.
per week, Yumi has 15 classes and a lot of homework. After the third month of the online class, she realized the sense of incongruity: "Sometimes I may not talk to anyone for a week. I can no longer switch the ON and OFF switches in my mind. No matter what I do, the subject and study cannot be separated from my mind."
From then on, Yumi's wish to stay at home is getting stronger and stronger day by day. But due to the epidemic, it is difficult for her to go out again besides purchasing food, and her friends are also busy with their studies and rarely meet with her.
For more than a year, the loneliness trapped in the room has almost swallowed her up.
Lonely Japanese Picture: CFP
In Japan, there are not a few young people who are as happy as Yumi.
Akita University's on-campus survey in August last year found that more than 10% of respondents had moderate symptoms of depression. Ibaraki University and Kyushu University also conducted a similar survey and found that 10% to 20% of students have depression , mood swings and anxiety symptoms.
This also responded to the surge in teen suicide rates last year.
In 2020, 777 minors (under 20 years old) committed suicide in Japan, setting a record high in 1980. Among them, "lost", "cannot go to school to attend classes" and "family discord" are the main causes of suicide. In addition, a total of 2521 young people aged 20 to 29 committed suicide, ranking first among all age groups.
Now, this situation is still intensifying.
LABOT's survey in April this year showed that more than 60% of college and high school students expressed dissatisfaction with online classes and considered taking a break from school, and more than 76% of students said they felt lonely about their life in the past year.
In Japan, loneliness has long been a common social phenomenon, but it is generally presented as the "lost death" of the elderly: elderly people who have not been in contact with their children for a long time die alone in their apartment, and the bodies are often discovered by neighbors or community personnel after several days.
In order to solve this problem, Japanese Prime Minister Suga Yoshihide established the position of loneliness minister in February this year and established the "Lonely and Isolation Responsibility Office" in the cabinet. Japan has also become the second country since Britain to establish an isolated minister.
"Lonely and Isolated Responsibility Room" was established. Picture: Internet
However, new crown is still aggravating this problem. Loneliness has spread to the younger generation of Japan and has begun to become a disease in the entire Japanese society.
The lonely young man
Because he could not bear the feeling of loneliness that kept growing in his heart, he turned from Mei to Twitter to express his pain. She quickly received comfort from other college students. A netizen replied to her: "As a college student, I also want to go to school, meet new friends and teachers, and want to attend classes and talk with everyone. Life is not what I want now..."
Yumei realized that she was not an isolated case.
Yuno Sakurai, a sophomore who lives alone in Tokyo, once believed that he had suffered from depression in July last year. Due to the epidemic, her courses and part-time tutoring have become online. At the same time, she has become tired and irritable, and has frequent disputes with her boyfriend. She has started to have headaches and lose appetite since June.
Another college freshman, Takura Orika, also has similar anxiety as Sakurai.
Because I have been taking online classes since I entered school in April last year, Dali has never been to his campus in the first semester, nor has he made a friend, and can't find any identity: "I began to doubt whether I am really a college student. I have been in college for almost a year and I have no friends.What should I do if I continue like this the next year? ”
Daritao has been taking online classes in the loft of his house Image: Yahoo News
The chairman of the Japanese NPO organization OVA, which conducts suicide intervention and psychological counseling, said that he has been receiving consultations from children and young people with high risk of suicide through the Internet. The most painful problem is "the inability to talk to people and the loneliness of being ununderstood."
In his consultation case, there are female students who cannot be honest with their sexual orientation, male students who have suffered sexual violence, and many young people who have fallen into poverty but are embarrassed to receive government subsidies...
In this regard, Tohoku University psychiatrist, Taito Kuroi, said that in the epidemic era, it is not uncommon for students to experience this kind of unaccommodation in universities. See. Unlike high school, college students will make different friends according to different courses. Many people will move and start living alone. The living environment has undergone tremendous changes and it is easy to feel lonely. In addition, their mental health is more likely to deteriorate after staying at home for a long time.
Waseda University Professor Ishida Hikari also pointed out that loneliness and isolation in Japanese society were phenomena that began to appear in the late 1990s. With the popularity of mobile phones and the Internet, living units have shifted from families to individuals, and relationships between people have become unstable and unsustainable. The new crown has only accelerated this trend.
In any case, deterioration of mental health and loneliness in adolescents are by no means a good thing.
l4
As the first country to establish a minister of loneliness, the UK realized a few years ago that loneliness is not just a problem for the elderly, but may occur at any stage of life.
A survey by the British government showed that more than 9 million people in the UK feel lonely, which will cause the UK’s economic losses of £32 billion per year. Among them, young people aged 16 to 24, people with health problems and unemployed people are more likely to be isolated.
Picture: CFP
Loneliness is also fatal to individuals.
U.S.
U.S. Bihan Young University studies show that low society that leads to loneliness Contact is a shorter life than smoking, drinking, lack of exercise and obesity. Loneliness, social isolation, and living alone can increase the mortality rate by 26%, 29%, and 32%, respectively.
Change the "lost and shameful" society
Loneliness spreads throughout society, and the Japanese government does not sit idly by.
A month after the establishment of the Minister of Isolation and the Office of the Lonely Isolation and Isolation Ostra, the Liberal Democratic Party Lonely·Isolation Countermeasures Special Committee was established and held its first meeting. The chairman of the committee Shimomura Hirobu said that the government should cooperate with the NPO as soon as possible and decided to allocate 6 billion yen to prevent suicide and help those living alone and hibernate people.
In addition, prevention for teenagers has also been strengthened.
htmlOn April 6, Suga Yoshihide announced that he would formulate a new "Children and Youth Development Support Outline" by 2050 (Subuntuan Wakano's Birth Support to Promote the Greater China). The outline is revised every five years, and this time the focus is on anti-lostness and isolation.Suga Yoshihide said that the government will focus on expanding the number of official consultation websites on the Internet to facilitate the use of minors who have been abused by parents or impoverished by parents. At the same time, the government will also establish a 24-hour consultation system to train professional consultants.
Japan's first lonely minister appointed by Suga Yoshihide. Photo: CFPIn addition to policy changes, officials also realized the suppressed social atmosphere in Japan.
Former defense government official Takako Suzuki once said that it is not enough to just improve the psychological counseling system. In Japan, society has long had the "stigmatization" of loneliness, that is, it is believed that loneliness is a bad thing and a shame. This makes it difficult for lonely people to seek advice, and suicide becomes the final form of loneliness. In this regard, the government must provide people with communication channels with people around them before they commit suicide.
Takako Suzuki's views can be testified in the 2018 Economist's Attitudes to Japan, the United States and the British: 44% of Japanese respondents said that loneliness is their own responsibility, far higher than the 23% in the United States and 11% in the United Kingdom. However, only 9% of Japanese admit that they are lonely, a figure far lower than that of Britain and the United States.
This phenomenon has a lot to do with the social and cultural atmosphere in Japan.
990, most men and women in Japan would choose to form families: families built by marriage and neighborhood communities are their safety nets away from loneliness. In the past 30 years, more and more young people have chosen to marry late or not, which has greatly weakened the function of the safety net. And for those elderly who live a stable life, those who do not get married or work should be blamed. With the popularity of "self-responsibility theory" in Japan in the 21st century, this idea has been further imposed on young people. An article by the Japanese women's website e-aidem pointed out that in the "self-responsibility" value system, "smart but not conspicuous" is always good, such as "don't cause trouble to others" and "don't cause trouble to the world". This is the mark of values that the Japanese have been stamped with since their education period.
In this way, young people who live alone are unwilling to tell others about their loneliness because they are afraid that people around them will be disgusted by talking too much about these issues. So they begin to comfort themselves: "Loneliness is a part of life, and they should not be afraid" or "love loneliness". Such practices will eventually lead to collapse and suicide.
Japan is becoming more and more lonely and unmarried people. Picture: CFPSo, Takako Suzuki proposed that the government must intervene and change personal ideas, "We want to tell people that when you are lonely, you can rely on others, and loneliness is not shameful." she said.
open help channel
The government is continuing to plan policies, and some civil organizations have already taken the lead.
In March last year, 21-year-old college student Yukihito Okawa founded an online chat room called "The Place of Yours", which provides psychological counseling services to people 24 hours a day.
In the past year, his website has been extremely popular, with more than 48,000 consultations, more than 70% of them are women, and 80% are young people in their teens to twenties.
"Your Place" web version. Image screenshot from the official website
Due to the new crown epidemic, the tourism, catering and retail industries with a large number of female employees have suffered a devastating blow. This has caused a large number of women to suffer from unemployment, salary cuts, and even domestic violence from their husbands. In 2020, the suicide rate of women in Japan rose by 83% during the same period, and loneliness, financial ability and family relationships are the main reasons.
"Some people have lost their campus life or part-time jobs and lost their 'escape' places. They cannot easily see friends and lose people they can rely on. Some people have lost their jobs and even suffered domestic violence, and their hearts are becoming more and more lonely." Dakong said that they have been chatting to understand people's situation and finding ways to help them. As it turns out, many people do continue to communicate to relieve loneliness.
Currently, the number of consultants on this website (including training) has exceeded 700.
also acted as a social welfare organization "Hokkaido Life Phone" and Sapporo rock organization Night de Light. Last year, two organizations produced a 5-minute and 40-second video for young people calling for people who feel lonely to call "life phone calls".
"If you can't make a call, please watch this video again and then continue to try to make a call." The background music of the
video is Night de Light's original song "Thank you for keeping me alive". In the picture, many people put their hands on the shoulders of a woman sitting alone in a blank room and hugged her.
"Hokkaido's Life Phone" collaborated with Night de Light to create a video. Image screenshot from YouTube
The organization's Secretary-General Akira Sugimoto also designed the message "Let me stay with you" in the video. He said: "The new crown has greatly changed the daily life of children. I want them to know that whenever they want to talk to others or want to hear other people's voices, the "life phone" is around them. Since then, the number of people making calls has increased significantly.
Many university administrative departments have also begun to take action to save students.
In recent months, Nagoya University has regularly distributed food to all students in the school to alleviate their financial difficulties.At the same time, the school is also carrying out online activities to facilitate students to communicate with each other on Twitter. Late at night every holiday, counselors will speak on Youtube to care for students who cannot go home due to the epidemic.
Now, the Twitter account of the Nagoya University Student Support Headquarters answers anonymous questions and requests raised by students every day, such as "What will I pay for next time food", "What should I do if I can't hand in my homework on time", etc.
Kyushu University developed an APP in April, which was put into use early last month. Students can self-diagnose mental health by answering questions such as appetite, exercise, sleep and emotions. If the condition is not ideal, the program will directly ask the user whether they need psychological counseling.
In Professor Ishida Mitsuki's view, the key to preventing loneliness and isolation is to create a "place where you can do anything" for yourself, which is also the method taken by these civil groups. They are not meant to deprive people of time alone or force people to connect with others, they are meant to find a way to seek help in an emergency.
"There are people around this 'place', you can choose to be alone or chat with them." Ishida said that in order to avoid loneliness, people need to interact with the surroundings and find a place to talk to.
Nagoya University is distributing fresh vegetables and fruits. Screenshot of the picture is from Twitter
The action of civil groups and schools has infected some college students.
Last fall, two Waseda freshmen, Aoi and Lin Miri, who were also troubled by loneliness, decided to break the loneliness with their actions.
They used the social practice knowledge they learned in the Waseda "Okumaku" course in April to build a student team called And's.
After that, the two came to the countryside of Xiaogao, Aoma City, Fukushima, which is less than 20km away from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant accident site. What they have to do is to help local residents rebuild the township together. Here, the two heard many stories from locals and met new friends. The loneliness of the previous few months has disappeared.
The story of Aoi Hetian and Miri Lin spread on campus, and more and more Waseda University students came to Xiaogao to participate in entrepreneurship together. During the days when they couldn’t go to school, they all found a place to relieve their loneliness.
Waseda University classmates help with grape vines at a farmer in Fukushima Picture: And'sAs Professor Ishida said, the key to avoiding loneliness is that people should maintain contact with the outside world when necessary. This is also a way for loneliness to take to save themselves.
Yuo Sakurai also chose to save himself.
In July last year, the overwhelmed Sakurai called her parents in her hometown. She gave up her restraint and told her parents the first time she had been loneliness and depression in the past six months.
html In August, she returned to her hometown Nagano from Tokyo, and her depression suddenly decreased a lot.Half a year later, she revealed the details of the "self-rescue" to Yahoo News.
"After talking to them about a lot of other things, I told them, 'I'm sorry, I know this may be troublesome, but I'm really at the limit, I want to go home'."
Fortunately, on the other end of the phone, my mother said to her gentlely, "Then come back," and my father also comforted, "I'll drive to pick you up."
At that moment, Sakurai, who was tense for months, suddenly burst into tears.
(In this article, from Mi, Yuno Sakurai, and Takuya Oriri are pseudonyms)
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