**-I was full of enthusiasm for a future in which I would have nothing else to ask of my parents if they let me graduate from college, after which I would become independent**

This is a subject I am most emotional about. I contracted the disease at the end of 9th grade.13) I was just so full of enthusiasm.

If my parents let me get through college, I would ask nothing else of them. I believed this from an early age. In the old educational system, after graduating from junior high school, the next step was college. I felt that if my parents put me through college, after that I would become independent. Kids nowadays become high school

students and do not even think about what they what to be in the future. I think that's much too indulgent, and it's because they have too many material things.

**5) Became saddened by comparing myself to classmates who were setting out on their own**

### **-The academic advancement and job placement of my classmates vexed me; I was saddened when I compared myself to them**

14) I would also think about things that could not be helped, like "I wonder which of my classmates went to college. I wonder which school they went to. I wonder what they've become now that they've graduated." I thought about such things whenever the time came for such events to occur. I did get a certain amount of information from my little sister, which made me feel especially wretched. If I was asked "well what are you then," I was just languishing in the sanatorium. So, it wasn't only 10 years that I lived a tiresome life, but nearer to 20.

**6) Even if, by some miracle, I could leave the sanatorium, I would already be late out of the gates in starting my life**

15) I had useless thoughts like, "If I endure and work hard, I wonder what unexpected miracle will take me by surprise."

But still, all I could think about were passive, backward-looking thoughts like, "By this point even if there is a miracle and I can leave the sanatorium, I'm already too late out of the gates to start my life."

#### **7) Crushed by the despair of having all my hopes and dreams cut off**

#### **-I wanted to be a trading company employee, a federal public servant, or a doctor**

Listener: When you were studying, did you know what you wanted to become, like a teacher?

Yamamoto: I would pass on teaching, although I think that if I did become one I would cultivate good students, since I have knowledge of both positive and negative things students might do; this is because when I was in junior high and high school, I did 'bad' things for the thrill of it, half out of mischief and half for fun.

When I took the entrance exams and matriculated at the old style junior high school, I had already decided which university I would go to. I told my parents that if they put me through college, I would ask them for nothing more. If they would only put me through college, I could blaze my own path myself from then on.

I wanted to be an employee at a first-rate trading company or a public servant at the national level. I'm small in stature so I was often very calculating and in planning to first become a public servant (even though I did not know which office I would want to work in), work my way up the ladder to a certain extent and then sidestep into the private sector.

What my parents told me most often—and what I thought perhaps I should do—was to become a doctor. If you become a doctor you never have to go hungry, so my parents told me to become a doctor. At any rate, all this about becoming a doctor or whatever all went out the window in 10th grade.

**-I was crushed more by hopelessness than having to give up my academic advancement; it was the bitterness of my hopes and dreams being cut off that I could not overcome**

Listener: You were thinking about your academic advancement, and you were forced to give that up. How did you get over that?

Yamamoto: 16) I did not get over it.

Giving up on academic advancement was secondary. More than that, getting sick put me in the position of feeling hopeless about life. Being quarantined and never being able to leave meant that I had to be prepared to give up all the hopes and dreams that I had conjured up by that point, of which academic progress was one part. That is why coming here crushed me so. I did not feel like doing anything at all.

**265**

*Spirituality and Hansen's Disease: Spirituality' Conceptual Structure and Hansen's Disease...*

**-There were no elderly people; life ends in our 50s, and what's more I could** 

**9) Forgetting was the greatest weapon to survival and the insight that eased** 

18) Bit by bit, thoughts like that started to fade or be forgotten. I thought, "The greatest weapon we have as humans is the ability to forget," and felt strongly that if I cannot forget this then I'll definitely hit a dead end, which would be intolerable. **-After about 20 years, the troubles faded and have now passed by**

19) After about 20 years, those kinds of troubles suddenly started to fade. Now I'm pretty old. While I was lying there by myself, I never once imagined this would happen. Now, I do not think that way at all. Things like that have gone away. I've

**-I had no freedom with respect to society or on the island; I had no privacy;** 

20) Yamamoto: I came here in 1952, and what I considered a very severe living situation continued both psychologically and physically for decades. Until the 1980s, I feel like there were some questionable aspects of the living situation at the

The most difficult part of this was the lack of freedom. We were restrained and were legally prohibited from leaving the island, and even on the island there was no recognition of privacy. The older people had all the power, and so there was no freedom either with respect to society or in terms of life on the island. That was the

21) Yamamoto: In my case, I did not intentionally rebel, but instead as part of my intrinsic nature I could not accept becoming part of this system, so I was fine living a life away from all of that. It was rather constraining to do so, but I wasn't about to

My life was really unregulated and slapdash, and I let the cards fall where they may, so it was very difficult for me to fit into a single role or to be a cog in the wheel. **-Ignored conflicts at the National Hansen's Disease Sanatorium Residents'** 

When I came here, there was the Residents' Committee, and in the previous year a national organization was formed called the National Hansen's Disease Patients' Council (now called the National Hansen's Disease Sanatorium Residents' Council). Among their activities, including at the Ōshima Residents' Committee, they sought the revision or abolishment of the Hansen's Disease Prevention Law. Our freedom was restricted, we were put to forced labor, and the head of the sanatorium had the power to discipline and detain us through extraterritoriality.

I was told by my parents too that if I came here, I would be isolated and be forced into a poor, destitute lifestyle, but 17) when I actually arrived, there were no elderly people. I got the sense that life ended for patients at around 50 years of age. As for my own future, I increasingly thought, "Life itself is not so long." This encouraged in me the idea that I should not have any hopes for the future. "Whatever I do, nothing will come of it." As a result, my life became desperate and

**8) An island without elderly people—life itself is not so long**

my feelings became nihilistic. To do anything was to do it in vain.

**not have hopes for life; became desperate and nihilistic**

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92735*

**-Greatest weapon was to forget**

**3. Did not take part in the system 1) Bitterness of having no freedom**

sanatorium, at least in the case of Ōshima.

most difficult thing to accept.

give in to relocating.

Listener: After moving here, what was difficult?

**2) Did not take part in the system, ignored conflicts**

Listener: I would think that having no freedom caused you stress.

**-Stay outside of the system; unregulated**

**Council and the Residents' Committee**

**suffering**

forgotten them.

**the old had power**
