Sometimes. I'm 20 and I still have never had a driver's license or a job, but if I really really had to I could probably manage to "fix it".

>To elaborate, do you think that your life has reached the point where it will be near-impossible to repair it, and live "normally"? Not as in the normalfag way, but just as a decent, contributing member of society.
Normalfags are those who contribute to society, you silly.

>>2659
That's not to say that a brohno can't, though.

>>2659
I disagree. I work and I suppose contribute something, if only a little, to society. That does not make me normal at all.
I guess I consider a normal person as someone with friends and goes out and does things with them, maybe get married and have kids. That sort of thing.
I know how you feel op. I have felt that way for years. I pretty much knew a normal life was impossible my second year of high school. I didn't get a real job until I was 24. It isn't much of one; the pay is terrible. College was ultimately a waste for me, but I really hope that things work out better for the younger crowd here.

I'm trying really hard. I've done some fucked up things. maybe I hit rock bottom and I'm on my way back up. I feel like I've been suffering serious depression and going through something like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_life_crisis
I was unemployed for over a year but I have a new job lined up so maybe this is finally my big break. it feels like my last chance.

if you were to about becoming a bonafide normalfag, on the other hand, I am totally past it. my emotions are so fucked up I cant picture myself ever having a normal relationship. I have no friends and even if I did happen to meet a female I could tolerate I wouldnt know how to act.

I probably have gone too far. In high school my social problems were bad, but if it came down to it I could force myself to do what needed to be done. Now that I'm out of school, and not forced into contact on a daily basis it feels like my problems just worsen every year (22 now). I can't see myself changing this lifestyle alone so in that sense I've defiantly gone to far, but I think if I had help for my family there is a chance I could at least get a job to support myself. There lies another problem though since my dad has the attitude that a man should do everything for himself, and refuses to help me with anything. I really wouldn't mind having a source of income to buy things like games/figs/etc but I don't really see it happening, I'll just continue to obsess over my hobbies and not think of the future.

Unless you're Charles Manson I don't think you've hit rock bottom

>>2657
I can return to normalfaggotry if I need to. I mean I am in college now, though I am 20 and dont have a license of job. Then again I am in college and live in a large city so it isnt needed

I for one, don't think I can ever live functionally. I never have and never will. First, most aspects of doing so do not appeal to me. Second, I'm too damaged to do it even if I wanted to. Together, the thoughts of not wanting to and not being able to are quite the deadly combination. I don't even know where to begin if I were to turn myself into a fully functioning individual. I've given up on the thought entirely. But that's just my thoughts on myself.

My thoughts on the subject in general is that you can't really go "too far", nor is there any rock bottom. No, in fact, even if you think you hit rock bottom, it can always get worse. Always. That said, I believe if someone wishes to reverse their damaged lifestyle to something more productive, I do believe it's doable. Change is hard, yes, but if you *desire* it, I believe your will can take you a long way. Will it completely change and fix everything? Probably not. But you can reach a workable content state that you can be happy with somewhere between completely useless and completely functional, I'm sure.

I suppose it depends on your own interpretation of what is acceptable and unacceptable for you, yourself, and what you deem to be "too much" or "too little". In the end you shouldn't be worried about how much you're contributing to society, or how much you're capable of etc. Rather, I think you should be concerned with what you consider is a state where you can be content with yourself and your lifestyle, habits, etc.

In the end though, it's never too late to turn around and try to change something. The further in you are, the harder it might be to change, but nothing is permanent. If you believe you're "too far", perhaps you should examine what you believe you should fix about your lifestyle and make some changes?

I don't think I've gone "too far". Hopefully not. I think I can still function as a "normal person". When it comes to being social or ditching my hobbies, I know that it's impossible; so if anything like that interferes with my getting a stable job and making a living for myself, then yes; maybe I have gone too far. All I want is a job where I can support myself and myself only. I'd imagine that being what I am: It would be hard to find a job in the first place, let alone maintain it. I don't really know, I know I haven't hit rock bottom yet since I know for sure I'd already be dead.

I think I could lead a functional life, but that's about it. Like Charles Bukowski, thinking about suicide every time he drove across a bridge.

I'm worried about this too. But I have no reason to say "no" except "I don't know how.". I hope one day I will. I really wish.

I lost that ability since my senior year when I dropped out of high school

I did go to community college but couldn't handle it and dropped out after one semester. I only had to go for one hour every day and couldn't even bear that so there's no way I'd ever be able to work even if I wanted to.

Objectively: No. I think everything is still 'fixable'.
Mentally: Yes. I'm sure I couldn't go back to living as anything more than a useless leech.

I think I have reached that point.

The reason being is that I've been isolated so long, I just fail to function on a proper social level when around others. I guess it's a form of atrophy, in a way. When I'm in a room with others I feel so out of place and that I am most certainly giving off an awkward feeling. I don't know what to do in such situations...where to look, what to say, what to fucking do just sitting there.

I guess with time you could integrate me back into society, but it would be rough. I've gone almost 10 years without having friends or a job or anything like that, so I've just got no idea what to do.

The truth is that it's always possible to live life normally, although for what seems like most in this board, most don't have the self discipline to do so.

I wish it were acceptable to tell my family and friends "just so you know, I'm severely depressed, so don't be too surprised if I kill myself eventually"

>>3092
Yeah. My parents get mad at me when I even joke about killing myself, so if they knew I seriously consider it they would flip out.

>>3092
Well, I've already talked to a couple friends about it. The first one took it as a joke, and the second one said that she would support me but she's kinda suicidal too so if one of us dies the other one would likely follow anyway, so yeah I don't think anyone would accept it. The one time I've mentioned it to my parents they've tried to lock me in a psychiatric cell. I don't get it. Life is so boring anyway. Eh, whatever.

>>3088
I've always believed this myself.
It's interesting that you bring this up, though, for I've always wondered if most of /so/ craves for a healthier lifestyle —despite claiming to be just fine with their own. That's the impression I get though, for all the suicidal and frustration related posts don't exactly inspire content.

Understand that, healthier lifestyle does not necessarily implies being a social butterfly ( being a loner myself, I do believe that one can achieve contentedness like so ) but acting on whatever you believe, whatever your dreams are.

If only I would stop being so lazy....

>>3092
I know right. "I'm going to kill myself anyway" has become a mantra I use to convince myself that it doesnt matter how shitty my life is. but it also stops me from doing anything constructive.

I've burned my last bridge this week. I asked my parents one too many questions that only a maladjusted hikki would and the conversation ended with my mother saying that I'm fucked in the head.

I made so much progress this year too, but now it feels like I've fallen even farther than my lowest. I think this is it for me, and I'm so tired of trying too.

>>3393
Well, I have been fucked in the head by my parents since I was 16, and I'm still posting here. I'm not a hikki nor a NEET, sure, I do have my own income, but it was because if I didn't work it'd be the end. My point is, I don't think that just being disowned by your family is enough to give up. Just a opinion, give it a thought.

>>3393
What did you ask them? Do you wanna talk about it?

>Do you guys think you 'went too far'?
I, for one, don't. I still hope I'll live a fulfilling life one day.

>decent, contributing member of society

i don't owe humanity anything.

also, on the topic of van vogh, there is an episode of Gallery Fake - its one of the early episodes - that details the history of the legendary missing sunflowers painting which was in japan until 1945. its an interesting bit of minutiae

>contributing member of society

I always get mad when normalfags say this about themselves.

>>3401
well, the really successful people don't think of themselves this way. They do everything for their own personal benefit. If I'm going to bother trying to make something of myself, I'll go all out and be completely selfish like that. Anyway, it's not like society ever did a goddamn thing for me (anything positive, anyway.)

>>3402
In a way you owe nearly everything to society. You wouldn't be able to use the internet if it weren't for society, most if not all of the things you like to do wouldn't exist, and without medicine there's a good chance you wouldn't even be alive, to give some examples. There are a lot of rotten things about society too, and those are the parts people usually refer to when they use the word, but you can't expect it to get better if you refuse to contribute anything positive to it. Nor do you have much of a right to complain about it.

>>3406
Exactly.

We take society for granted.

Its selfish. Its despicable and childish.

I have moments when I love society and those around me with a pure and unblemished ecstasy. Those are the moments when I absolutely loathe myself for being such an unproductive fuck-up.

Then, there are moments when I absolutely hate everything about the world around me, because everyone seems 500x better than me. Ressentiment, you know?

>>3406
Yes, thanks for the history lesson. It's true that without all those other contributing members of society, nothing would have even gotten done and we wouldn't have the Internet, or even basic human things like agriculture and cities. I know this. But even though social life is necessary for maintaining all those essentials and luxuries of life, doesn't mean someone like me has to go the same path and be happy about getting mocked and abused by everyone else. I want to have a career, but everything I do with it and with the profit I hopefully make will be for myself. Is that childish? Almost definitely. I don't care.

What it comes down to is that I'm very bitter. Does that really come as a surprise to you on this board?

>>3406
^I should also note that we seem to be talking about different things here. You're talking about society in general, as the culmination of thousands of years of human development. I'm talking about something much more local to our times and lives. Sort of big-s Society as opposed to the societies we all grew up in.

>decent, contributing member of society.

I'd rather live like Marquis de Sade.

>>3406
Do you think they did these things just for our benefit out of the kindness of their hearts?

The people who did these things got paid or otherwise rewarded for what they did (unless they got screwed over, I guess, but we're not the ones screwing people over), or they just wanted to see it happen out of passion for it (like artists).

>>3416
I did mention how when people say "society" they're usually referring to the bad parts. The thing is you can't really do that. Society is the summation of the social interactions of our species. It has both good and bad aspects. It is indeed childish to reject society as a whole because of the bad side, while at the same time reaping the benefits of the good side. It would be nice if the negative parts of society didn't exist, but I already talked about that in my previous post.

>I'm talking about something much more local to our times and lives
Are you implying that our modern society doesn't provide any benefits? Because that's very obviously false.

>>3419
Different people have different motivations. I think that in most cases it is some combination of the three you mention.

normalfag society rails against people who "contribute nothing" and leech off the government.
meanwhile the so-called "successful" people like the Koch brothers who are hell bent on destroying the middle class and ruining the planet for the next generation.
see also: anyone who works in marketing or politics.

>>3423
>Are you implying that our modern society doesn't provide any benefits? Because that's very obviously false.

You mean public benefits like policing, power, education, health and so on, right? That depends on where and how you grew up. My society definitely did provide quite a bit to me, but it did so pretty much equally for everyone. Almost all the benefits I've gotten growing up were a result of my parents' hard work. It was wrong to say then that society hasn't done anything for me, but what it's given me it more than took back in other ways.

My question now is how we define a contributing member of society, since we're throwing that term around a lot. Does it mean anyone who's a part of the active workforce, or only people who provide clear social benefits with their work? Does motivation matter? Like I said I do plan on working and making something of myself, but I'm also selfish. Would I be contributing to society then?

>>3426
^Actually, scratch that. All the benefits I received growing up in a first-world country were paid for through taxes. The only ones I owe anything to are my parents. So unless you're defining "society" in an extremely broad way, as a structure that provides day-to-day security to individual people who wouldn't be able to get it otherwise (and yes, this is obviously a benefit I'd be stupid not to acknowledge) then no, I don't owe a goddamn thing to it. I'm not a leech. All the money I ever received from public institutions for study I earned through my own work.

>>3430
I'm not defining it in an extremely broad way but society is a broad thing to begin with. For example even if your benefits were earned through taxes without society there wouldn't be a structure for you to "purchase" those benefits with tax dollars. There wouldn't be any institutions to reward your hard work with scholarships. There wouldn't be any schools in the first place.

What I mean by owing something to society isn't that you've leeched off of it or received something for nothing, but that society has enabled you to do what you've done and without it you'd be living isolated in the middle of the woods somewhere without technology, medicine, academia, art, commerce, or culture of any kind.

> contributing member of society
This don't make any sense to me. "Society" is just a virtual term (and very fuzzy one at that) created for scientific convenience. Similar term is "time" for example. How can you contribute to something that don't even exist? And what's with this "contribute" term? I mean, you need to do something good? Or bad? Or just anything at all? Let's assume this "society"-thing is other people. Here is rich person, so everyone is automatically assuming he is a great "contributor to society" - our ideal. In fact he earned money and fame by stealing and scams. So what exactly he "contributing" to? It seems to me, he just transferring money from thousands of poor people to several rich individuals. Assuming "society" is people, he leeched from "poor society" and contributed to "rich society". Moral issues aside, nothing changes in global scale.

They love to bash using this random words without meaning because they don't care about that. This is just an easy way to quench hostile urges %%installed in all social creatures by nature%% against any 'aliens' by feeling superior (I'm so cool working hard for others) and making 'aliens' miserable and wrong being different from them. Double profit!

Actually, no one cares if you are horrible leech or contributing to society like mad. Only important thing is socialization - keeping contact with people and fitting in so they feel comfortable and not trigger alienation hostility. If that happens, they quickly throw in bunch of random nonsense justifying aggression and beat you with righteous pleasure.

But the most important thing IMO is not about that, but **WHY** most people "contribute" and some are not. There are no selfishness or unselfishness. All creatures %%including animals and humans of course%% are driven by "urges" resulting in pleasure. Otherwise they just won't do it. ^_^ Simple natural mechanism. Therefore, no one cares about others but himself. It only looks that way from the outside when some creatures have urges directed at others. This is natural. Creatures are social ones after all. But, unfortunately, humans have conscience and gladly abuse it to drive out even more pleasure from the same urges compared to simpleminded animals. "Contributing member of society" trick is just one example of this %%abusing human intellect to be even lower than animals%% In the end, only difference between people are their urges, i.e. luck to have some useful and(or) respected in society. In my case, I'm having inborn autistic traits and mental defects, so I assume autism is just side effect of general genetic damage or something. Not having social urges forces to use logic to analyze situation instead. Kind of amazing, how people full of bullshit described above are readily judge others. Also funny to read comments like "C'mon! You can get along with people. Just don't be lazy or afraid. Try it and all work out." from people who do it unconsciously. Even funnier that they can't even stop it if wanted, because "wants" are under control by nature.

>>3398
I asked them what I should do in random hypothetical situations. For example, what should someone like me do if they were without money, a place to stay, and contacts?

It really offended them, my father gave me a "son I am disappoint" look and my mother started cursing me out. I knew it was a pathetic question but I didn't expect them to react like that.

The funny thing about society is that the people who most would agree are on the 'top' of it (because really, even though some professions come with a lot of prestige if you earn next to nothing nobody will take you seriously) tend to contribute next to nothing to it. All those brokers don't really do anything of value to an average citizen. Even if you work at a company which produces goddamn drain plungers you do something worthwhile, as someone will need them eventually. Tractor-trailer drivers? Wares won't simply move on their own. Newspaper delivery boy? Someone has to deliver them no matter how you look at it. That guy who sweeps the sidewalks? Even he does something of value.

The thing is, if you're gonna say 'I'm producing drain plungers/a tractor-trailer driver/deliver newspaper/garbage collector' most people will look down on you, even though nobody wants to do those jobs but someone has to! Meanwhile, if you'd say 'I'm a broker' most people would think of you as 'an outstanding member of a society', even though you do nothing for said society (on the contrary - all those speculators caused the financial crisis afterall, even though they knew that eventually the speculative bubble is bound to pop sooner or later). If you think about it a little is really funny.

>>3477
a broker trades stocks which enables invenstment in business. thats why the drain plunger company was able to employ so many people.

As long as you have your physical health, then you haven't gone "too far".

My health took a tumble this year and now I'm looking back at all the years I spent as a hikikomori when I was in good health, when I was physically able to go outside. I could have done anything and yet I didn't. It's so sad. I didn't have anything stopping me except my own stupid brain. I was being all miserable over nothing. Whatever I was worried about before was NOTHING comapred to now. And now even if I did want to go outside, I can't because of the physical health problems.

I hate the fact that I've been so stupid and been a hikikomori all these years. I just wish I could undo it all and go back in time.

I can pull off a steady job, keep friendly business relations with others, and have found work to be a suitable distraction from life. I don't think I can ever get past the feelings of alienation or have intimate relations with another person, though.

I probably won't be able to "repair" my life in the normalcool neurotypical sense, ever. Never had a job, live off disability, when my parents die I'll probably be forever alone.

At least I have mai waifu.

>contributing member of society.
i prefer to be a leech rather than a sucker

>>3400
looks like somebody we know

>>2657
If I fail my classes this semester I will b2 21 and without an associates living with my mother. At which point I can simply try that disney internship (paid intenship @ Disney world in orlando), or failing that, go for ESL in china. seriously. There is this latviand ude i know off irc/anonops who moved there recently ive been skyping w/him for the past year or so. he lives in a small city (for my standards; its like 150k he said, I live in a 2mil city). Hang out with him, get a job doing ESL, get shitfaced with him.....

  >>7470

Definitely. I don't have a job or a driver's license and I suffer intense anxiety when I attempt to get either of them. It sounds rather minor when laid out like this, but for me personally those two items are the bare minimum requirements to be able to function in society.

I have been a hikikomori for a while but I have decided that eventually I will try for those two items again, not to be a productive member of society but rather for the sake of my future. I would work for a few decades and live a frugal life with my parents, only to retire early, move out and go back to my hermit ways because deep down inside, I think I've gone too far to be ever be 'normal' again.