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July 10, 2026

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Inside the lives of Singapore’s young hikikomori, who withdraw from school, family, the world

Behind closed doors are young people who are not lazy or defiant but afraid. The series, Shutdown, follows Singapore’s hidden youth as they try to reconnect with school, family and society.

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Faith Leong

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SINGAPORE: The first time Danzel Panniachelvam tried to disappear, he was a primary school pupil hiding under his bed. He had told his mother he was being bullied in school.

By Secondary 1, he had stopped attending classes. By age 19, his world had shrunk almost entirely to his family’s flat as he slept the days away, gamed through the night and avoided almost all contact with the outside world.

“He doesn’t want to see anybody,” said his mother, Aludia Cabigunda Panniachelvam. “The doctor’s diagnosis is extreme depression. He’s afraid to go out.”

The years of inactivity has also weakened his legs and affected his balance, leaving him in need of physiotherapy. But even leaving home for medical appointments can overwhelm him.

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Danzel covering his head after feeling overwhelmed by the film crew during a visit to the Institute of Mental Health.

To reach him, case worker Tan Yang Hong had to start small and consistently show up once every fortnight for six months.

“A lot of what I did with Danzel was to … try and engage him as much as possible,” Tan said.

Such is the slow, often invisible work involved in helping Singapore’s hidden youth — young people whose withdrawal is not simply shyness, defiance or a preference for staying at home.

For many of them, retreating from the world becomes a way to cope with their fears until it hardens into a way of life over the months and years.

Better known by the Japanese term, hikikomori, hidden youth isolate themselves from school or work and social life for at least six months. Some never leave their bedrooms. Others can venture outside but only with trusted companions by their side.

Goay Zhen Yi is on the milder end of the hikikomori spectrum — he can leave his house on his own but isolates himself.

While the phenomenon was first recognised in Japan, social workers in Singapore say they are now seeing more young people retreat from education, friendships and, in severe cases, their own families.

Fei Yue Community Services is handling 111 cases, up from 20 cases when it started working with hidden youth six years ago. Another 60 young people are on its waitlist.

No national study has established the true scale of the issue. Now, in a first, documentary series Shutdown follows four young Singaporeans who have dropped out of school and are living across this spectrum of social withdrawal.

WATCH: Hikikomori in Singapore — What happens when teens shut out the world? (46:19)

THE MANY FACES OF WITHDRAWAL

For the Chuahs, progress is often measured by whether their teenage son comes out for dinner.

John (not his real name) had shut himself in his room since November 2023, coming out only once or twice a day when everyone else was asleep. His father said he even limited the amount of water he drank in order not to use the toilet too often.

So when he emerged last July, his parents were “overjoyed” but also “overwhelmed”. His hair had grown so long it covered his face like a veil. The 13-year-old who had gone into isolation was taller, thinner and almost unrecognisable at age 15.

But after weeks of joining his parents for meals, he withdrew again. And when he needed something, he did not ask. He banged on the wall.

“By him going back to his room, he’s communicating to some extent,” said Rauf Malachi Redza Fauzi, the social worker supporting the family.

“He’s letting you know that something is causing (him) to want to withdraw, because withdrawing is a coping mechanism … when we’re stressed, upset, angry, frustrated.”

For Shaista Qistina, isolation did not mean never leaving the house. By the time filming began, the 18-year-old had started going out again, but only with family members or her social worker beside her.

There was a time, however, when she could barely leave home. In lower secondary, she would vomit on the way to school and hide in the toilet during recess. She later told her family she had been bullied.

Her hair became a shield. When she walked, she looked down so it could cover her face.

Like many other hikikomori, Shaista Qistina says she has no real-life friends.

Her social worker, Gayle Gan, said hidden youth tend to hold the same core belief: “The world is an unsafe place for me. People are always looking at me weirdly. I’m the odd one out.”

Similarly, while Goay Zhen Yi, 16, can leave the house independently, take the bus, buy art supplies and attend social programmes run by Fei Yue Community Services, going out still frightens him.

“I’m scared of the outside. I don’t like being looked at,” he said. “Whenever I get looked at, I feel I’m being judged.”

When too many strangers look at him, he added, his body reacts with a feeling similar to pins and needles.

Yet, he is far from uninterested in the world. He cares for terrapins, tends plants, makes art and speaks to online friends.

“There are always misconceptions about hikikomori or hidden youths — that they’re not very involved,” said his social worker, Jolia Ong. “Through him, I was able to see that they can be involved in many different things while they’re at home.”

To the untrained eye, hidden youth can look like truants. But John Wong, a senior consultant psychiatrist at the National University Hospital, pointed to a more complex reality.

“These are children who report a negative experience in their family or school or with their peers,” he said. “As a result, they avoid situations in school and withdraw into their home environment.”

Daniel Fung, a senior consultant in the Institute of Mental Health’s department of developmental psychiatry, added: “This complexity of the world and what it represents is causing a lot of anxiety … in our young people.

“The avoidance of all of this is what hikikomori probably represents.”

WATCH: Why did my 15-year-old hikikomori son bang on the wall at night? (46:31)

WAITING, WATCHING, GUESSING

While hikikomori is defined by a person’s withdrawal, its impact is rarely confined to the individual.

It reshapes daily life for families. A meal left untouched, a water bottle not brought in or a bang on the wall can become signs to interpret.

“He’s not verbalising,” said Chuah Soon Ann, John’s father. “That’s the most difficult (part). You don’t know what he’s thinking, and you don’t know (whether) what you do is … right or wrong.

“Everything is guessing and guessing and guessing.”

At one point, a psychiatrist told John’s parents that nothing further could be done for their son, Chuah recounted. “That breaks my heart. What do you mean by ‘nothing else that we can do for your son?’”

Chuah Soon Ann has three children. John is his second son.

Support eventually came in the form of a support group for parents facing the same silence, run by Fei Yue Community Services.

“When parents realise that there are other parents who are experiencing the same thing, they don’t feel they’re alone, and they don’t feel so lost and helpless,” said Fei Yue Community Services assistant director Poh Ee-Lyn, who facilitated the sessions.

Social workers face a different version of the same uncertainty.

For nearly a year, Rauf Malachi supported the Chuahs without being able to meet John face-to-face. He knocked on the bedroom door, left food outside and spoke loudly enough during visits so John might become familiar with his voice.

“In social work itself, the biggest challenge is having no progression,” he said. “It can be us talking to a door for a year or mainly just supporting family members.”

Fei Yue Community Services assistant senior social worker Rauf Malachi Redza Fauzi speaking to the Chuahs in their living room.

In a sharing session among social workers at Fei Yue, he spoke about the self-doubt that can follow a client’s relapse. “Did we do something to contribute to that relapse?” he asked. “Could we have done more to prevent that?”

The work can come with “emotional fatigue” and “mental strain”, he added.

Senior social worker Zoe Tee said the self-doubt often begins earlier, when outreach workers have “no access to the client in the first place”.

“Every single time you face that rejection, you ask yourself, ‘Am I suitable for this job? Am I doing a good job as an outreach worker?’” she shared.

Even when they have reached “many milestones” with their clients, a pause in recovery is not easy to deal with, Gan said. “I don’t want to use the word disappointment, but sometimes I guess that’s when we feel the setback.”

Social workers from Fei Yue Community Services sharing the challenges of supporting hidden youth during a group session.

For lead social worker Benjamin Yeo, these stumbling blocks should be understood as part of the recovery process.

“We often journey with (hidden youth) for years,” Yeo told the group. “It’s okay for them at times to take a step back, go back to withdrawal for a moment.”

The task then, he added, is to find a way to “pick up ourselves and pick them up” so that they can continue the journey of recovery.

ONE SMALL STEP AT A TIME

For these hidden youth, recovery rarely announces itself in sweeping transformations. After years spent largely at home, Danzel’s first steps have been to attend physiotherapy sessions to rebuild his strength and balance.

WATCH: After 6 years of social withdrawal — Singaporean hikikomori’s step towards recovery (46:41)

Tan mentioned that Danzel, who turned 20 in January, had also expressed interest in continuing his studies. Their plan is to “start with one subject first”, building up to more subjects and, eventually, exams when he is ready.

Shaista has already reached that stage through Project Starfish, a programme for out-of-school youth preparing to sit the N levels as private candidates.

She has also started going to an all-female gym, hoping to rebuild not only her body but the self-confidence years of bullying had worn down.

“What I want to do (for) the rest of my life is just to be able to go out alone instead of having company — taking the train and buses alone,” she said.

“But I don’t know how I can overcome that fear yet.”

That uncertainty is something Zhen Yi understands too. A visit to Nanyang Technological University showed him that success need not follow a single path. It inspired him but also brought his doubts to the surface.

“I do wonder (if I can succeed in life). A lot,” he said. “It’s just that I don’t know if I’m ready or I’m strong enough.”

For now, he is learning to live more confidently in the present. Art has helped him do that.

His diorama of his room, created for Singapore’s Light to Night festival, was projected onto the facade of the Old Parliament House and praised by guests. It became a way for him to tell his story and step into public view on his own terms.

“I feel my life has changed a lot,” he said. “I’ve grown more confident. I think one of the main things is just exploring new things, taking on opportunities.

“I feel you don’t have to stay in your room forever. You can try to improve your life by taking small steps.”

Zhen Yi’s artwork was featured at the National Gallery Singapore leading up to the Light to Night festival.

But for some families, such steps remain hard to see.

John’s progress has been quieter. After two years of isolation, his parents have had to learn that recovery may not mean urging him forward at every turn but trying to understand what he cannot yet say.

Their strategy now is to keep the pressure low, preserve whatever connection remains and recognise that even silence or anger may be a form of communication.

That lesson has turned Chuah into an advocate speaking up about the confusion and helplessness faced by families like his.

His advocacy led him and his wife to a meeting with Health Minister and Coordinating Minister for Social Policies Ong Ye Kung, where the need for greater awareness and earlier support for hidden youth and their families was discussed.

One word Chuah said he took away from the meeting was “hope”. That hope depends in part on recognising “the early withdrawal phase” — with signs such as school absenteeism and avoidance — before it deepens, as highlighted by Wong the psychiatrist.

“Once (the youth) get entrenched (in) the home environment, and they’re cutting off all their social connections, it becomes very difficult to reach out to them,” Wong said.

Recognising the early signs does not necessarily mean medicalising the issue, which is “always about intervention” and having treatment, Ong noted. “Sometimes, in this hidden youth phenomenon, (the point) is to do less.”

The Chuahs (right) discussing the challenges faced by families of young hikikomori with Health Minister and Coordinating Minister for Social Policies Ong Ye Kung.

For these young people, doing less can mean judging less, forcing less and leaving more room for trust. And the responsibility cannot rest on parents alone.

“Schools, educators, social workers, all of us, society, need to be aware of that,” said Ong.

Watch the series, Shutdown, here: Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.