this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2026
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This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.
Be warned:
- Anon is often crazy.
- Anon is often depressed.
- Anon frequently shares thoughts that are immature, offensive, or incomprehensible.
If you find yourself getting angry (or god forbid, agreeing) with something Anon has said, you might be doing it wrong.
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You're talking about kids who wouldn't become shut-ins anyway. If you're bullied in high school and drop out at 16, the only "peer" influence is the trauma. Not that I experienced anything like that ;_;
The thoughts and trauma also don't just go away, they fade like old scars but sometimes your finger runs over it and you remember how you got it. It leaves you harmed in such a way you now don't fit in exactly well, if you even did to begin with. Some find solace in pure solitude, others through substances. Neither of those situations is healthy. It's hard to take the bowl they purposely broke that is you, and glue it back together to continue holding water. It leans, constantly, and no amount of patching fixes it fully or forever.
Why is this relevant? Anon may be such an individual that the idea of even doing something to improve their quality of life seems insurmountable due to depression and trauma. Can't say for certain, but it was not a single instance.
That's fair, but I think you're using a narrow definition of peers. I'm sure you found online support and communities where you could be yourself a bit more than in high school. Certainly at 16 your own journey through society, online and in person, will have a greater influence on you than your parents worldview. These are all peer influences, since there is no hierarchical relationship between you.
Your parents worldview is a starting point, and by 16 most teenagers have already started forming many opinions which oppose their parents' worldview. That gap expands as you get older.
How much can your parents be to blame for you thinking it's okay to be a 38 year old dependent when you have access to all the information in the world from in person and online peers, to all the media ever produced that tells you society expects more from a 38 year old. Even in this fake meme it's clear that the parents have been telling this middle aged adult for decades that this isn't okay. You don't kick someone out you've been caring for for 38 years "all of a sudden", it's the last option on a very long list.
I don't think the shut-in believes it's normal or okay to be a shut-in. It's a feeling of complete failure to fit in and isolating as a result. The longer the shut-in is ostracized (or keeping themself ostracized), the stronger the feeling becomes that they do not fit in, they will never fit in, if there was ever an opportunity to fit in they surely missed it now. Being a 38 year old shut-in is actually very believable to me,it isn't exactly a situation that challenges your beliefs or motivates you to change.
Sure, it's harsh to put this all on enabling parents, but you also don't get to 38 without enabling. You don't leave the "last resort" on the table for 10-15 years. The very long list should be exhausted within 2 years and one of the options should be a therapist specialized in shut-ins. Beyond that, you'll just have to hope and pray that one day something clicks in that brain and they start taking charge of their own life.
I agree they should have kicked him out earlier, but I think the people blaming the parents would blame even harder the younger the child is.
No one is saying "he's too old to be kicked out of the house", they're saying "you can't kick a child out of the house EVER unless they're fully prepared for life".
What I'm saying is that after some point an adult is responsible for themselves, and that point is far below 38.
I'm also saying that it's nice to imagine parents can prepare an adult, but parents have a very limited ability to guide or influence an adult child. If he doesn't want to improve his situation you can't force him to get a job, get a house, make friends, go outside, stop frequenting toxic online spaces. He's an adult, he will just say no and not do it. You can't even force him to get help or get therapy, or take any depressants or do literally anything to improve his life if he doesn't want to. All you can do is give them more resources, or give them fewer resources. I think they tried both and now they're trying "give them much less" by kicking them out.