>>15739
Depends on what you mean by "NEET days coming to an end". For me it would be nice to have a kind of income that I felt I'd earned, which would be the best way it could happen. For me right now there is little possibility of that happening though. I've had a huge issue probably because of gaps in the history of employment that I've had. It's really depressing because of that. I wish I had money that wasn't from the government (autism bux) and was honestly earned. I don't think other NEETs will share my sentiments though.

>>15740

I want to work as well, but I don't want to be a slave, either. I worked as a newspaper carrier for 14 months and I lived on less than what I'm getting from SSI right now.

Started working six months ago after two and a half years of NEETdom.
The decision wasn't that bad. I came to it shortly after meeting my not-waifu-but-something-like-that. She helped me realize it was time to change.
Actually getting a job was pretty scary. I'm pretty lucky in that I managed to get a BS in computer science before NEETing, so I had more opportunities than most. The first interview I got I really messed up, locked up a few times, stuttered a bit (I don't stutter normally), made myself and the interviewers really uncomfortable. Unsurprisingly, didn't get that one. The second one was a lot better. I was still nervous and all, but most normal people are in that situation too, and they look past a certain degree of it. Got that job.
Working itself wasn't as scary as I expected. Like >>15450-san in another thread wrote, everyone else has their own concerns and you don't really factor into them very much. If you're trying, they're pretty accommodating.
As for life outside of work after starting work, the few hobbies I had other than browsing the internet before, I dropped shortly after starting work. Everything's too tiresome. Maintaining a normal sleep schedule is pretty hard too.

Yes. Twice. Third time's probably coming in a few months.

How it goes really depends a lot on the kind of person you are. Your reason for being a NEET or shut-in would play a major part in how well you cope and handle it. From personal experience, both times, I couldn't deal with it well enough, since I had panic attacks from seeing people all the time and from having expectations placed on me. I could barely get hired at low income jobs, the only places that ever took me were desperate - then they regretted it because I was fucking useless.

I could work a few months maximum, stress building everyday, then I'd breakdown one day and couldn't go back into work. Couldn't even quit properly, so obviously I can't even use my past experiences as references for the future.

After not being able to take care of myself, I'd show up at a family member's door, and they'd take me in. I didn't even have a room for a couple years, since I'd just sleep on the couch but couldn't leave my family's house. I can't get the government to give me money, I don't know how people manage to get financial aid from them. I just get glared out of their offices; all my years I've only ever managed to get help for two months from them.

A sibling of mine knows another guy who is also in my situation that they told me about, he went through the same loop as me of on/off working (couple months on work, several years off work) and one day he showed up at his family's house and instead of them having pity on him, they told him he needs to learn to do things himself. Now he lives in a car and showers at the local gym. I also think that story was a subtle way of my family telling me they had enough of my shit as well.

So basically; if you have any severe phobic issues of any kind where being isolated is actually a positive for you, and you have no way to handle them properly in public, you're just going to end up going in a repetitive loop, until one day you become homeless because your family decides they've had enough of your shit. Unless you aren't as pathetic as me and this other guy and are able to get government help, I guess.

I assume it's much easier to transition into working life if you don't have severe phobias or panic disorders. After all, I knew another guy who was a shut-in NEET for several years, and his only problem was that he hated people. So for him, going out into the world wasn't very difficult, since he just needed to do a job where he didn't need to be social. I think he's managed to hold his job for a couple years now - then again I don't really talk to the guy.

>>15739
This year I started taking college classes after 2 years of NEETing, which came after a failed first attempt at college. Before going to college my first time I worked for a year at my first and only job.
Classes aren't very time-consuming bad if you pay attention during and get through the work fine.

Jobs are different though. They tire you out and make you not even want to do your loved hobbies. They change your personality and make you hate yourself. They're terrible.

I have been working for two months now, and I don´t feel very good.
In the beginning I thought it was not going to affect me, I was thinking, great, now I will have money to spend on what I like and that I could help my mom. I never thought I was going to feel so tired and sad, I spend the whole day outside my house and that is a major change from being a NEET that only goes to the grocery store once a week, I don´t have time to spend on my hobbies, my day basically is get up at 7:30am, get ready, leave my house at 9:45am and spend 2 hours on public transport to be at work on time, then as I work in a call center is taking calls from stupid people who don´t know how to use their cellphone, that untill 9:00pm and then spend another 2 hours on traffic to arrive home at 11:00pm and go to sleep.
Sorry for complaining too much but the headache is killing me and knowing that I have to give up my hobbies is terrible.
The worse part is that I have not used the money I earned, I make too much money for me and I don't have time to enjoy it, I just wanted to work, repair my computer and live a simple life, but no.
And I can't quit, my mom is really happy about my job because is too good for me, really, I make more money than the average young person in my country and I got that without experience or a career.
But I don't feel happy, nothing has changed since I gave up on being a NEET is even worse now, I don't have anxiety issues, I've just been very depressed for so long and never got a proper treatment, now my mom and society ask me to do something I'm not able to do. I started taking Prozac 3 days ago and I have an appointment with a therapist on Friday to see if that helps.

I guess that it would be a little different if your job was related to your main interest. I wouldn't mind being a professor of psychology or philosophy, or a researcher in either of those fields.

I would be as good as dead. Even faced with homelessness, I don't think I would make an effort to survive. I regrettably wasted my half my high school years working and absolutely despised it.

Another thing I have is always envisioning certain things I like to do, as a job, just to see if I'd be able to adapt to it. However, none of them are real professions and are only ideas floating around in my mind from playing certain video games. Not that they have fantastical elements, it's just that they aren't... needed, I think.

To answer your question, the one time it came really close during these past two years, I was hysterical and couldn't stop crying. Couldn't think, couldn't sleep, it was like I was getting ready to die. Which does make sense, in a way.

I hope your lives and my life can get sorted out with as little sufferring as possible. There has to be a way to win in this world, you know?

>>15741
Having an employer who actually gives a shit about you definitely helps with the whole transition.

I'll probably be working soon, don't know exactly when. That will end 9 months of NEETdom. It has always been like this, for some periods I did nothing and in others I was working or going to college, or even both. I dropped out of college though. Now I'm going get an easy job that pays little, but at least I think it will be easy.

>>15754
That's not bad. As long as you have enough to live on and some emergency savings. Some people are concerned only with the total annual salary figure. But really, your wage or specifically compensation per amount of effort put in are pretty important too. Why work yourself to death before 30 just for another few grand a year or something.

I got a night job stocking shelves at a small store, some nights it is a one person job, but there has to be 2 people says labour safety law, so I sit around for 4 hours and read on slow nights. Imagine night cashier would be the same sort of thing, though slightly dangerous in a bad neighborhood.

Night jobs for NEETs I say.

>>15748
Get a job closer to home! or do hobbies during transit? or do job at home? some call centers allow you to.
>>15741
Be a slave, it doesn't have to be forever.
>>15755
Too true, I put in like zero effort, and it is great. However sometimes just above minimum wage isn't enough.

My time ended over two years ago now due to something of an ultimatum by my parents.
The odd thing is that I don't think it stemmed from financial motives, rather shame or that concept of "doing something with [life]".
Living at home I estimate that I was costing them less than $100 per week in food, electricity and water (rent can be ignored because they never let the room out anyway). After moving back to town for university I know the current figure is $400 per week.
Furthermore I'm not even studying something that will benefit them financially in their retirement, so make of that what you will. I think they were simply sick of my presence at home and it embarrassed them among friends.
I will continue on and take a Masters because I can't stomach the thought of a real job. I haven't approached any supervisors yet, but I am leaning towards optics because the labs seem peaceful. I try not to think about the future more distantly than that.

I don't have any serious suicidal urge any more, which makes for a rather pathetic existence really. Isn't it better to suffer greatly but end it shortly? Seems preferable to a long existence of lesser sadness, leading only to some ignoble finale in a hospital bed.

>>15758
You will answer that question yourself through your actions. It's not like you lost the ability to end it all quickly if deep down that's what you truly want.

I'm about to start a job soon that will break my 5~ years of being a NEET

I've wanted to escape since last year, i don't think i could last another 5 years, i've been in the application process for a few months so i've had a lot of time to think about it
Its shift work at night with very few co-workers, and its well-paid so i guess i'm lucky. I'm planning to eventually move into a place of my own and create a home for me and my waifu, i really hope i can handle being at work.
Looking at other people and how long they were NEETs, it seems like i was one for a longer time than most, to anyone who wants to escape like i do, or doesn't think they can last much longer, i hope you do not give up, being a NEET has given you the unique opportunity to rise from the bottom of the barrel and carve your own little pocket of existence and freedom

I don't think it's any time soon, but I think I'm going to start having to work full time soon. I've had a job before, and I've always been in education, so I guess "NEET" doesn't apply to me, but working full time is something I really have no clue what to do-- much less everything else that entails being a full time worker. Living by myself has always been a dream of mine, but I am blissfully ignorant as to the complexities of living solo. In a few months, maybe years if I'm lucky I know I'm going to have to deal with it, but I don't know how. All I know right now is that I have to save as much money as I can, which I'm trying to do. Other than that, getting a real job and living by myself feels completely foreign to me, and I feel helpless. How do people even deal with things like job security and stability? I feel like if I do get a job, I'd always be in danger of getting fired, and going homeless. Not to mention, I've never done anything by myself either... I guess I was spoiled until the very end, and only until now I know what it feels like to be completely devoid of help or examples. I always do consider suicide, and I promised myself that if I ever do become homeless, I would just kill myself before that happened.

>>15850
In the US you can file for unemployment. I don't know much about it, but you probably have to have worked some amount of time and it's assuming you're fired for non-serious reason like incompetence, being physically unable to perform the hours listed, being generally incompatible with the job/other employees. Won't really work if you purposely cause an incident, steal, always tardy or don't show up, or disobey orders/rules, or seem lazy. Friends boss at work said the purpose of write ups are proof, so they can prevent unemployment for people they fire. You can also be fired for no reason in my city during your first month of work for no justified reason. I hear unemployment take a bit of time to go and set up and fill out paper work and crap, and you have to prove you are actively looking for a job while on it, and it eventually runs out, then there's welfare, I would have no shame being on that.

So here's my situation. I've been a NEET since I finished high school, so, 4 years and counting. Actually I enrolled in college for 4 months or so and then dropped out because my parents didn't pay for it. Whatever, I couldn't handle how awful it was anyways. In all honesty, college was even worse than high school for me.

After 3 years of NEETing at my mom's house, we both began arguing everyday, and I'd be so frustrated I felt angry and bitter all the time, and very sleep deprived, because she had a baby with my father who left us around the time I started my senior high school year, then fucked her silly one night and left again. This was absolutely disgusting for me, I lost most of the respect I had for my mom when I knew that. Forced to wake up to a yelling baby at 3/4 am every single night, being sleep deprived in a stage of my life where I was developing cool projects on my own, when I most needed silence and peace... I felt like, as if it wasn't enough that she now was pressuring me hard to get a job, she was doing so because the baby's costs were too high, and if it depended on me I'd never have let that baby be born, not to mention the consequences this would have on my productivity and creativity (my own little projects).

Everything was driving me crazy at this point.
So one day, I decided to cash in on a popular website I'd made, and sold it for big bucks. I ain't taking anymore of this shit, I'm moving out, to a place where neither my mom or dad can reach me easily. So I've been living on my own for about an year as of now, still NEETing. I rented a cool apartment, I have everything I want (granted, I don't collect figures or dakimakuras and other expensive hobbies, but I could if I wanted) and I'm doing great, albeit still recovering from a long time of sleep deprivation, but at least I didn't stop developing my own internet projects completely.

The thing is, I need around 800$ every month to just get by (food, rentm, bills and transportation sometimes). I haven't gotten a real job, college education, and although I have plenty of money right now, it is but a ticking time bomb. 2, maybe 3 years from now, if I don't get a job or make a profitable project again, I'm gonna bite the dust. I cut my ties almost completely with my parents, which I'm glad for because it saved my sanity, but at the same time I have nowhere to crash at if I lose my house.

I managed to cheat the end to my NEET days an year ago, and also overcoming the precarious life I was having, but as things stand, I will have to stop NEETing in 2 years from now, that is, if I can even get a job.

Post edited on 4th Sep 2013, 9:09am

>>15898
I don't think you're NEET. You're more self-employed especially if you've made a product people have bought for a pretty penny. That's not a bad thing at all - you may not need a job created by someone else to sustain you. NEET was never a status symbol anyways.

Don't get me wrong, I would prefer not to be a NEET, I like the stability of a job. Right now it just doesn't feel like I'm employed, just that I cashed in on an old hobby. In the event that I'm not considered NEET because of self-employment, I feel like I'm constantly about to become one . My condition is as insecure as it gets, specially since I doubt I can make another thing by myself that can keep me going.

Post edited on 4th Sep 2013, 5:28pm

>>15739
I was NEET for several months technically, in practice it was like a year. Applied for jobs for no luck. I am in college again, finishing a degree (bachelors; i have an associate's) and oh dear.....readings out of the ass.

I've been putting it off for years but the pressure to end it is always there (mostly in the form of relatives since my own greater judgement lost the battle years ago). The problem is that the only thing I am skilled in has no opportunities here and none of the kind of businesses that would hire a NEET, which means that I need to move, which means that I would need to take a trash job in order to save up, and I can't get motivated to make myself suffer even if it would help in the long run. It doesn't help that I am comfortable being a NEET. I can't tell this to anyone but my life would probably be much better if my family had not supported or stopped supporting me. I'm a person who will put everything off until the very last possible moment.
I am also afraid to take steps because I know that if I do it I'll probably never be able to return to this lifestyle or at least there would be even more resistance. So it's better to drag out the status quo as long as possible.

>>15907
If you know you'll swim instead of sink and just need to have the carpet pulled from under you, why don't you try that in a limited case? Ask for some funds to try and make it in another place for awhile or something. Even if you fail you may still get credit for trying to do something about your situation. It's the people that are content doing close to nothing that bear the brunt of criticism.

I just remembered...

There was a time, when I was 14 and still had friends (if such a thing), that I was with them in a square full of noisy people having fun. I was damned fed up and I screamed to the crowd, at the top of my voice: "YOU ARE ALL SLAAAAVES!!!". People must have took me for a brat; the gang I was with celebrated it as a joke; but I meant it and I may have known nothing yet, but apparently I was right on that.

I'm both terrified and ashamed about the day I may have to really, really start to work.

Long story short, I stopped going to high school at age 16 (due to severe bullying and social anxiety) and was a hikikomori for almost 4 years. My parents were deeply disappointed from seeing their little "genius" like this but they could never bring themselves to kick me out I guess, knowing that I would not be able to survive. However, the life of nothing but anime, games and internet became staler and staler and I got more and more depressed, as well as finding it hard to bear hurting my parents like that one day I took the initiative and found out the school system in my city offered online courses so I signed up for them and ended up finishing the 2 years of high school courses I missed in half a year (If only I had taken high school online earlier) with a 4.0 gpa and now my goal is to attend a decent university next year. I was already an aspie before I dropped out, and after all those years i became extremely sensitive to lights and sounds and lost so much muscle i could barely walk, much less attend a school or be able to speak to a person outside my family. Also I tend to get severe asthma attacks when I make any physical exertion or get exposed to a new enviroment where something i am allergic to triggers it. But now I am making steps like going out to walk in the park or helping my mother with groceries shopping, and doing some exercises at home. I still have almost a year until the time comes and hopefully I will be able to reintegrate to society at a functional level.

I assume I am quite young compared to most of this board's users (will be 20 in december), but I am wondering if there is anyone out there on this board who went through a long period of being a hikki and are now attending school or working.

Post edited on 13th Oct 2013, 7:29am

>>15943
Welcome to tohno-chan, or what is left of it.

Pretty crazy your memory goes all the way back to last year!

>>16075
Yeah, sure. Believe all that and be at peace.

>>16068
Yeah, I am. I was shut in entirely for about 9 months, before that I didn't have a job for about 5 years beginning at the time I was 16. I now have a job at a warehouse.

>>16082

What is it like, working at a warehouse? I've always sort of thought that it might be ideal work, depending on what kind of warehouse.

>>16089
My experience is that it's dirty and dangerous. Dangerous especially when unloading during a holiday season. The type of people in those positions can also be fairly rough. Not that they're necessarily mean to you but the way they act can be fairly crude. IMO your safest best is doing the less physical stuff - bin audits and repacks. If they don't rush you then operating something protected or that can dodge fast (fork, wave) can be fairly safe and interesting. Fork has a bad record only because all the accidents are rushed human error or stupidity. Otherwise you can't compare that reinforced steel frame to a hardhat when shit falls on you. That extra protection certainly saved my neck once.

I had a mental breakdown in college which led to me spending about ten months as a NEET. Thanks to pills, I was able to return to college the next year, graduate, and get a job.

In hindsight, I think those NEET days were the best days of my life. I wasn't happy, but I had enough money (govt bux) for food, I could sleep freely, and I rarely had to worry about what tomorrow would bring.

Now, I'm tired all the time, and even when I'm at home, the knowledge that I'll have to get up and get out there again the next morning haunts me.

I'm just waiting for retirement now. It'll be a long 40+ years, but the thought of returning to those peaceful days keeps me going.

Just found out I got cut off from my autism bucks because I forgot to notify them about a change in my circumstances. Gotta go to the central office and hope that I can get it cleared off on "I forgot," although I doubt it.

Guess it's time to be homeless. Either that or go to Gensokyo.

I lost my mental illness bucks when I went into a state-funded hospital — the reasoning is that I don't need the money when receiving free care. Most of me is just grateful for this country's nationalized healthcare, but there is a significant part that just misses the money.

Started working about three months ago after 2 years of neetdom. My job consists mostly of driving, with some heavy physical work throw in.

Myabe it's the meds, but I don't care as much as I think I would. All in all, I don't feel much different now than how I did when I spent 10 hours in front of the computer, 14 hours sleeping in a locked, dark room.

We're all too lame for something as dramatic as suicide. Honestly I believe for most of us our destiny will be to become a boring, normal person just living a disappointing life.

>>16339
Second that.

>>16339
Well fuck; now I kinda feel like proving you wrong right there. Not that I'd get anything out of it.

>>15742
What sort of grades did you get in uni, and what sort of job were you able to find?

>>16354
~2.9 cumulative GPA from an okayish small state school. Job's an entry-level software engineer for a small defense contractor. I make training simulations for various systems on navy ships.
I guess I should also add I'm in the region around Washington DC, and the job market here is kind of distorted thanks to all the federal spending. I have no idea what it's like elsewhere.

>>16364
Working for the merchants of death must be great. No. Seriously. Heard nice things about the pay and work environment for GD and Lockheed employees.

Yes mine probably are, no one will even let me get a job after being forced to fill out apps. I don't know what to do. Haven't been kicked out yet and I already feel like I'm dying. my death will probably be horribly painful. I don't know what to do, can't do much as it is as body has problems.