Of
Sandra La Fico
The painful experience of Lucia Sardo and Marcello Cappelli, a couple of actors, who faced the voluntary imprisonment of their son, who now brings his story to the theatre: «For years I searched online for someone who was like me»
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«A hopeless future and the sense of not belonging to society led me to progressive and profound isolation». Thus begins the story of Gioacchino Cappellison of Lucia Sardo and Marcello Cappelliboth actors, who began voluntary confinement at the age of 17 which led him to lock himself in his house. A safe haven to quell panic attacks. The only window from which he looked out onto the world was the virtual one, online in fact that was looking for those who could understand him, his peers.
L’ hikikomori, this is how this new social problem is defined which in recent years has also been gaining ground in Italy, it is a phenomenon that comes from distant Japan. Literally translated into “staying on the sidelines”, it involves more and more young people between the ages of 14 and 30 and although it differs from the Italian one, whose characteristics are those of a “withdrawal from social life”, it is a serious phenomenon that is spreading like wildfire among younger people, especially after the Covid 19 pandemic.
«I realized that my son had a problem – says Lucia Sardo, when he failed at school. He was very intelligent, they called him a genius, but instead of studying he spent his nights awake playing video games and slept during the day. I didn’t notice anything since he went to school regularly. In fact, his teacher had not informed me promptly. When you meet unusual guys like Gioacchino it’s difficult to keep up with them, perhaps he thought it easier to standardize him with the others.”
Voluntary imprisonment which in Italy alone concerns between 50 and 70 thousand cases, according to the psychologist Elina Valenti, of the Hikikomori Italy-Sicily Association, it is a social adaptive discomfort that derives from strong social anxiety. Young people struggle to relate to peers and adapt to society. They are kids with a high IQ and a strong sensitivity, convinced that they feel better away from everything and everyone, which is why they take refuge at home, in their room, which becomes their world.
«Gioacchino was rejected two years in a row – continues Sardo – and like any mother who finds herself in a situation like mine, I used all the weapons available to be able to shake him. First with gentleness, then with strong ways. I remember one day I entered his room with a baseball bat and smashed everything. I went so far as to throw his play-station off the balcony, without getting any results. I was in total panic. Someone suggested I kick him in the ass and throw him out of the house, for them he was just a loser. But mom’s heart knew that wasn’t the case. Only after numerous online searches did I have the intuition to look for those symptoms in English, thinking it was something that came from afar, and I was finally able to give a name to that problem, which had inevitably become mine.”
Lucia Sardo – who will soon be at the cinema Rosa Balistrerithe Sicilian singer-songwriter and storyteller, in the new film by Paolo Licata with Donatella Finocchiaro, Carmen Consoli and Vincenzo Ferrera – tells how difficult the period in which her son experienced this imprisonment, which in one way or another became hers, was for her too.
«I didn’t leave the house anymore either. It was a difficult period also working-wise. After discovering what was happening to my son, I contacted a clinic in Valle d’Aosta that deals with this phenomenon. Finally speaking to one of their doctors I was certain that I wasn’t crazy, and after a long time I felt understood. To get out of it I had to help myself first and only then was I able to help my son.”
Gioacchino, who today is an actor and teaches acting, managed to come out of this self-reclusion that had locked him up at home, and with his art he tells his “pain” with a show entitled «There is no one»to raise awareness among young people and their parents of this new social issue.
«To get out of it, explains Gioacchino, you need awareness. For years I searched online for someone who understood me, who was like me. I was trying to distance myself from a society that didn’t belong to me, that didn’t give me security for the future. Growing up and with the help of my parents, I understood that time is passing and that I had to start again, I had already lost too much of my youth. Today, as I tell young people my story, I am moved hearing them speak, like me they just need someone to listen to them. I recommend that parents enter the world of their children, of their passions, only in this way will they feel understood and know that they are not alone.”
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December 31, 2025 (changed December 31, 2025 | 08:05)
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