I've lived this way for more or less 5 years, now. At the end of the first year, I made the dreadful realization of the time that has passed, the fact that I cut ropes with all acquaintances and even society as a whole and that I barely reminded how I've spend this year was soul-crushing. It was as if someone time-warped me into the future without me noticing. I had several panic attacks and sank into major depression.

It's as if your brain was asking you : "Hey, what are you doing with your life" ? You think you are happy, playing and surfing on the web all year long and not caring about anything, but then reality knocks in and from there, Hell begins.

I'd say...10 years with a little break when I had 2 small jobs for the period of about 12 months.

Months and years just blur together, it's awful. I don't mind being a shut-in, but when you find things you did half a decade ago and it only seems like yesterday, you realize how much time you waste.

Been kinda this way since I was 18. When I was 22 or 23 I realized that I wasn't able to keep track of what day it was anymore, so I started keeping a diary.

Days blur. Years blur. All you have to do is just fill time, so you consume and consume media. And then you forget what you've consumed, and you do it again, and you're midway through a series when you realize that you've watched it before and stop.

I'm not sure at what point I qualified for shut-in status. In my final year of high school I only went to classes (where I talked to nobody, ever) for maybe one day each week. Didn't leave the house other than those nine hours.
If it was when I actually stopped going to school and never regularly left the house again, it's been two years.

I don't think I'm nearly as bad as most of the people here, but I certainly feel the days slipping away. I'll wake up expecting it to be 9AM on a Monday and turn on my computer only to find out it's midnight Thursday. I very much dislike how I can't separate the days in my memory any longer. The past three years had no ups or downs or milestones or noteworthy experiences, just one baseline bleh of computer screens, movies and sleeping.

I wouldn't say I've ever been a complete shut in as I start to go crazy after 24 hours in the house if there isn't any real company in the house. I've been mostly NEET for about 4 years after I dropped out of college. Longest I've stayed inside is about 3 days, and a lot of times just going to the store or mcdonalds or a half hour walk is enough to clear my mind. Often I will just bike around for a 2-4 hours out of a day, planning usually pointless errands or be exercise minded. A lot of times I wish I had the ability to be more content in my house, but I think that would require a lot more money, for example owning a treadmill, electronic instrument collection, large raw food shipments to cook, infinite marijuana, etc.. I want to get a laptop so I can start sitting around at coffee shops, there is a 24 hour one in my city although it's kinda far..

Anyway to get back on topic, After quitting my job again, it only took a few days to realize that having a second day in a row of nothingness completely removes me from the real world time, I think this could hold true with most bored/lazy peoples. Making plans greatly helps reaffirm make connection to time. I hear schedules are the best way to say sane, too bad I'm realizing I've got DSPD and live on a 27 hour day and other crap... I also feel time feels even more endless the earlier I get up, the faster the day runs out after you wake up. The night and intercepting the next day just goes by so much faster and peacefully, then doing nothing all morning and afternoon. Maybe I should start a diary?

4 years, since I got out of high school. I keep track of time pretty well though, but sometimes I forget it's 2012 and not 2011

May be a TLDR but stick with me if you actually care.
I do my own things everyday, a lot of my life is spent in the house but I go out often on my own for walks and such. I have a single IRL friend right now and waiting to see that person for something I want through them is the only time that time feels like it's moving normally. Days usually go by either very slow or fast to me but mostly slow. But when I look back days, weeks, and months seem to blend together because nothing worth while out of the ordinary happened in them and I notice how much time has passed. I got out of high school last Summer, this year would be my first year all over again. What I find funny is that in a way when I look at the events in my life I feel that time is repeating itself. I've been living the same life over and over and over again in 4 year parts with a more evolved self. Then I see that they represent Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer. 4 years, 4 seasons, 4 phases till you find what you're truly satisfied with in life. Death, sleep, awakening, life. Until we are happy enough to let our own illusion of time move at a pace which we are comfortable we will be slaves to the number 4. Within these 4 years in any of our lives many tiny lives, tiny stories will take place cut into even smaller sections personally. We aren't just a single person living in our lives, we are many and we all have to complete each of those stories to be happy and live as one within all of them. How many there are is personal. It's like a game, where the reward for winning is purposeless and numb but satisfied existence. My soul crushing depression stems from being stuck in slowed down time in this loop due to neither of my major lives going anywhere and one is in a lot of pain while the other is satisfied.

I've been a NEET for 6 years, a shut in for 2 months. I'm leaving my house today, and I'm pretty nervous.

Oh... 3-4 years perhaps? I've always preferred to stay inside and do my own thing but I started doing it more when medical problems arose that made me fear leaving home and my friends started moving away. Kinda sucks but it's not terrible, I think I'm suited for this sort of lifestyle. Days and months do pass by in a flash, though I can generally keep track of days, but maybe 20%-30% of the time I forget what day it is.

>>10781

How did that go?

It's been five years since I finished highschool. Tried a couple colleges since then, but couldn't handle either. I feel frozen in time since around 2009.
It always seems to get my mother's spirits down when I happen to ask her what day of the week it is.

I've been a shut-in for 6 months.
It began when I stopped attending classes during my first year of college for a bunch of reasons, including my social awkwardness and depression.

So I spent the next 6 months enclosed in my 9m² (10ft.x10ft.) student room, only going out to buy the nearest overpriced food available and to take a shower -showers were shared for the floor-.

Now that it's the end of the year, I've moved back to my parents' house, and I'm hiding in my room, waiting for another delusional year of college to come.

Obviously I'm totally friendless and I have the feeling that my attention-span is completely fried out thanks to years of intense browsing, and the general state of my mental capacities is pretty much declining.

I'm not exactly a shut-in anymore since I'm going to college right now, though I still live in isolation otherwise(I only go out to attend classes sometimes and buy food).

But before that I was really a shut-in, for about 7 months. Different from the constant malaise that I feel nowadays, I didn't even felt alive, "conscious," back then. It was like I was a brain in a jar or something. I would awake, go to the computer, and then, when I realised, it had already passed 3 weeks since then. If someone asked what happened during these times, what I did, how I felt, I wouldn't be able to answer. I feel my brain was almost shut-down at that point.

The only times I would get more aware of my surroundings were the bouts of despair I would get once a month or so.

It's almost been five years for me. There are times where the days feel very clear cut as they used to. Those are usually when my sleep cycles around to a more normal schedule (waking in the morning, etc). Time drags the worst when I have episodes of bad depression. I can't focus on anything because of the feeling of pointlessness. Those times I become very aware of how slow things are. I sleep a lot during those episodes, and once the sleep starts hitting 12+ hours, the days fall apart. I'll wake at random times and a week will fly by quickly. Some of those days I can get myself really focused on something and the time is almost enjoyable. I usually get over the intense part around there and that's when time really flies. I'll start reading a book, or playing a game, or just getting stuck on some webpage, and I can stick with that for a long time. Nearly five years have passed like this... For a while I felt anxious and depressed because of my immobility in regards to life progress, but I've rationalized it by this point. Now I tend to get really caught up in wondering why people are so different, or difficult. Sometimes I fall into despair because I don't feel real. I ask myself if death even matters. Every now and then I feel lonely. The payoff is that at this point, I have become very good at recognizing and categorizing my moods. For a while I would feel almost manic with some anxiety or depression.. but at this stage, I recognize it and can calmly talk myself through it. When I'm forced to interact with people, I can even convincingly seem like I am happy. But.. as for time. During the days, things don't usually feel too long or too short.. but once I lose track of it or stop thinking, it's suddenly another month down the line.

>>10823
We can be friends if you'd like.

To be honest, now that I have a job, time goes by even faster than it did when I was a NEET.
I've had a job for two and a half years and it feels like couple of months. I moved to my own apartment a year ago and I still haven't taken stuff out of boxes or even bought proper curtains, both of which have been on my to-do list every day.

As a kid I remember thinking that summer vacation or whatever it's called lasted "half a year", when in reality it's like a bit over two months.

It's probably just getting older.

>>10922
Time seems to fly faster when your doing things in general, can be anything. So I always try to be doing something. Whether it be downloading a bunch of stuff I want, cleaning up shit in the house, going for walks, or doing random yard work if it's warm enough. When there really is nothing for me to do other than play a couple games I always do to pass time, time goes by slower than a snail on hot pavement for me. It's like minutes turn into hours.