It feels shitty. You just do it. Afterward it doesn't get easier. Not for a long time, anyway. I haven't been NEET for four years but it's still hard to do basic things like apply for jobs or go to a barber.

>>15433
How long do you mean by a long time? Do people treat you badly if you muck up or seem scared? How hard is it to get jobs like this?

6 or 7 years ago I couldn't even go outside to get some food. I'd start feeling anxious and needed to sit down and call my parents for help. It took me a long time and lots of practice but now I can go outside without imploding, I can buy things and interact with people. I even got a job. I'm not sure if it's something to be proud of, because these are things that ANYONE my age can do, and besides I still hate having to leave the house just as much as I did before. Frankly it'd be great if I could just stay home all day not having to do anything but I need the money.

My parents didn't help at all and I'm not medicated. I had to do this on my own. I think they were never fully aware of what I was going through, they had their own problems to deal with.

I was an on and off again NEET going to school. Literally on my 24th birthday I was hired at a major retail chain.

I got an associate's degree only to be trapped at the only job I ever had due to my vision disability. I always had hope things would work out somehow, but reality got the better of me.

I am now 30 and still work there at almost 7 years now. I hate it, but at least I have some money for things here and there.

Despite the crush of humanity I have to deal with, my social skills have not improved as much as hoped. I live on auto-pilot.

I can do basic things better, but getting my hair cut or talking to someone on the phone are still really difficult for me.

>>15439
How did you manage to begin to do this stuff on your own, and do you have any tips on how to get yourself to even begin to try?

>>15434
Nobody treats you badly. They may think you're a little off. Nobody is out to get you.

I haven't had trouble getting jobs but have only had two. I'm very quiet in interviews and it seems that I appear intelligent for it.

There isn't some trick to breaking away. You have to force yourself out of the house. Go walk around grabbing applications.

I got a job after being a shut-in for almost 4 years. It was a place where my mother worked on and off for extra money for about 5 to 7 years, so I easily got the job after a short interview. They really only asked questions about teamwork and self-motivation, and they told me to provide some examples where I displayed teamwork and self-motivation. I just told them what they wanted to hear. I'm pretty sure I would have gotten the job either way, since my mother recommended me and all.

Looking back now, I really wished I had just did things. All the things I thought were embarrassing or unbearable weren't so bad after I just got it over with. Actually, it wasn't bad at all. The thing I realized is that people are just like you. They really don't care about who you are, what you do, or what you say. It's not like you're invisible, but everyone has things to do and they don't have time to pay attention to you. Things like talking to people isn't so bad, because they'll instantly forget about you after you're done talking to them. They'll simply continue on doing with their lives. You'll never meet them again. I don't remember a single person I met at work last week. It's not important. They don't remember me either.

I still have remnants of my old self. I can talk to people effortlessly now, but I still get teary eyed for whatever reason. I don't feel weird or pressured or embarrassed, but I still get teary eyed as if I were. I'm still an extremely quiet person. My co-workers know that, and they understand. It's funny because they each say that they have a family member or a friend who's quiet and shy, just like me. I'm not some special case where everyone is super extroverted and super social and I'm the only one in a corner, and those people are in their little circle making comments about me. It doesn't work like that.

I think the thing to take away from all this is that, people aren't out to get you. They aren't here to ridicule you, embarrass you, bother you, they aren't here to find your faults. No one's going to call you out for the things to do, because that's a waste of their time. It's not like you don't matter, it's more about... they have their own things to worry about. You aren't the focus of everyone's attention, so just go out there and do your thing.

I did have a decent group of friends in high school but I did more-or-less deteriorate to "shut-in" status gradually after high school. Approximately four years after graduating from high school, I got drunk one night and applied for a dozen jobs, and surprisingly I got an interview for a liquor store.

I was a nervous wreck before the interview; I drank a boatload of caffeine and had a lot of nicotine. But when I finally got there and did the interview, it wasn't as bad I had envisioned and most of negative scenarios I imagined were merely in my head where they stayed.

Keep in mind my spoken English has always been pretty decent and a liquor store job is very low on food-chain, but I passed the interview with flying colors and got that job.

At first I had a stutter when addressing customers, but eventually it became routine and even tiresome where the faces just blurred together and I was on auto-pilot mode.

I held that job for almost a year before I decided to quit and get some tertiary education. Now I suffer from anxiety from being alone at college and I just study and drink to keep it at bay.

I used to frequent here for a while up until what I thought was like 4-7 months ago, but I did a google search and my last post has November 28, 2011 (Which is a good indicator of how oblivious you can become to the passage of time). I was without a computer and the internet for most of that time, which was a blessing, because even though I was pretty much drifted away from the novelty of the net and media, though I could have relapsed and become an addict again(am I relapsing now?) Thus I feel obligated to post/update my story, even if it isn't great.

I was NEET for 5.5 years. I applied online to stock shelves at night. And as nervous as I can get (which probably isn't that much), I perform well in actual social interaction. The interview was pretty short, I put that I was self employed and did landscaping, and I've told everyone at work who has asked me that. Being a low paying night job it had little competition for it, so I suggest you start there. It is a small store so there is rarely more then 2 of us there, and there is not much to do. It is not out of the ordinary to have have 3.5 hours worth of breaks in a 7 hour shift, in which we can read stuff/etc, and occasionally mention an interesting factoid from the news. Other then that we usually sit quietly and do our own thing.

I definitely do not make appointments, and I get rides to work, and walk home or phone and get a ride. I guess I could take the bus, but I am not ready for it yet. Interacting with a bus driver... I don't know about that. I also don't consider myself integrated into society, and honestly I don't want to be.

I don't like to be praised in any sort of way, so by applying for a job people would be like "good for you," and this sort of changing of others expectations of me, even positively, is the worst experience to me, so I didn't tell anyone that I had applied for the job, so when they left a message on the answering machine, everybody knew about it before I did, and I didn't like that, but I guess it just means I have a supportive family and I am paranoid. But I guess it feels good to relieve the financial burden off of my family, and I guess even buy some of the things I need/want, but I don't want that much so I am already running out of things to buy. So any excess income I have will go towards buying a remote plot of land and being a hermit/sustenance farmer.

I think something you need is a dream and a plan. My dream is to get away and focus my attention on math and science, in my hermit kingdom. My plan is to bootstrap myself through this bad paying job, and start programming shitty/awesome games to help make me some money. In my 5.5 years of NEETdom I learned a lot about myself after all 'only in solitude do we learn who we truly are.'(<--from a manga), and I learned a lot of other stuff too, like what makes a bad videogame/program, and also how to program, and 3d modeling/animation, how to be frugal, how to tie a blimp knot. You learn a lot of stuff when you are a full-time vagabond of the internet. And I sure all of you have learned a lot too. It is going to hard. But is it going to be harder then the last 5.5 years? I doubt it.

I suggest you start with quitting the internet and other forms of entertainment for a while and just become as stoic and pragmatic as possible. It helps.

>>15512

I'm happy for you. I recently got on SSI and I sort of want to be a freeter again.