Profile

Relationship to MLM: her university-age son is an active member (since May 2020)
Company (Company X): sells lecture videos to members; founded around 5 years ago

How it began

May 2020. My son was a second-year university student. Over dinner one evening, he mentioned to me and my daughter, "I got an interesting message on Twitter. I think I'll hear them out." Given his sensitive age I didn't want to reject it outright, so I only told him to be careful.

At first he had weekly evening-to-late-night sessions with an "upline" recruiter, K, and within a few weeks told us he'd become a member of Company X. The meetings soon increased to three, then five times a week. As parents we were worried, but since we heard cheerful laughter from his room, we tried to see it positively — maybe he hadn't fallen in with a bad group after all. He still behaved normally with us and we still talked, but he increasingly cancelled family plans, skipped dinner citing meetings, and stayed in his room more.

Running away from home

September 2020. He came to me saying he wanted to take a year off starting the following year to focus on "the business." I suggested talking with his father together, and the three of us sat down. He explained the outline of Company X and the path to earning income.

My husband said: "MLM (he was still calling it that at the time — later he stopped) is one form of business. I won't tell you not to do it. If you're going to do it, learn the mechanics properly and actually make it profitable. But finish university. Do both." I said: "I dislike MLM because of a friendship it once ruined for me, but if you want to do this, balance it with your studies." My son just said, "Understood."

October 2020. My son attended a Company X boat party. Right before it, our relationship was good enough that he asked my advice on which suit to wear. After the party he talked with what seemed to be Company X executives until dawn; the next morning at 5am he came home, packed his things without a word to anyone, and left.

We later found a note: "I want to live my own life. I won't be in touch anymore. You don't need to pay my tuition anymore." He had also blocked us on LINE. We contacted the police; since he was an adult there was little they could do, but we filed a missing person's report.

Contact from my son

We spent days not knowing if he was alive or dead. About two months later, in early December, a LINE message suddenly arrived: "I'm doing fine, making money too. Don't worry" — with a photo of him at what looked like an awards ceremony.

Late December, he asked us to transfer some of his own savings to him. We met and I asked what had happened between the running away and this contact. "I decided that if I stayed in touch for two months, my resolve would waver, so I cut contact. But now the business is on track, so I wanted to reassure you. I was staying at my upline K's studio apartment, but I'm renting my own unit in the same building now. I need a lump sum for the initial costs." Relieved to know he was safe, and since he'd said he wanted to stay in touch with the family going forward, we transferred the money and decided to watch and see. After that he started coming home about once a month.

March 2021. My husband and I visited him at his home in the Kansai region, at his invitation. It was a small apartment, rent about 30,000 yen a month, in a popular tourist area. The tiny room was covered wall-to-wall with slogans and goals, even over the windows. Seeing this made my chest tighten. He had planned a full day for us — sightseeing during the day, a nice Italian restaurant at night, a dessert plate that read "Dad, Mom, thank you," then a bar with a night view. It was clearly a carefully planned, kind gesture. Understanding both his tenderness and his wish, somehow, to make us understand what he was doing, we told him: "Give this one year of leave everything you've got."

An unexpected return home

August 2021. Out of nowhere he called: "Can I come home today?" We didn't ask anything and simply waited. Afterward he told us: nightly meetings until late had caused trouble with neighbors, and the mounting anxiety of not being able to earn had made him want to escape. We also learned he'd taken out a loan from a consumer finance company, falsely claiming to be an employee of a company connected to Company X's leadership. Rent and utility arrears had also come to light. When I told him this wasn't genuine independence, he said "Understood. I won't go back to the city." But relief was short-lived.

After attending a Company X gathering back in the Kansai region, he came home and simply shut himself in his room, refusing to speak to the family. "There's meaning in living near the top of Company X. I can be taught things directly," he said, and in early October he went back to that city again. After that, occasional contact continued, but he blocked us on LINE again, and that's where things stand to this day. We don't know where or how he's living now. He was supposed to return to university in April but there's been no contact.

How I feel now

The top leader, C, apparently tells members things like: "Talk about residual income is on a completely different dimension from ordinary companies, so parents can't understand it — there's no point explaining it to them." C is a father-figure, almost cult-leader-like presence to my son, so even our most heartfelt words never got through.

My son too, I think, wanted his parents to understand at first and carried some anxiety about it. But after six months apart, surrounded only by his "group," he seems to have fully let go of that. At Company X, dramatic actions like dropping out of school or quitting a job are apparently celebrated by the group. My son told me, "Everyone says I'm impressive for being so together at my age," and "everyone here is always positive, there's no negativity." Baseless, responsibility-free encouragement seems to erase momentary anxiety.

Seeing older members with children and grandchildren tweeting things like "you only live once, just go for it," I want to ask: could you say that to your own children, your own grandchildren? He tells me, "everyone at Company X is enjoying life. Mom doesn't look happy at all," and "you only ever say negative things."

It has been half a year since he ran away, and I cried out loud almost every day during that time. Not a day goes by that I don't think of him, but I try to encourage myself to think about my own life too. Even now, calmed down as I am, seeing students and parents during graduation and entrance-ceremony season brings me to tears.

How did it come to this? I understand my son bears responsibility too — his own weaknesses, his difficulty thinking critically. But I cannot forgive the people who exploit that and brainwash him, who encourage a family to be torn apart.

I don't know what to do, or what not to do. But we can't simply do nothing. I imagine many families share this same worry and frustration. Finding this community, learning that others share this same situation, and being able to exchange information — that alone lightened my heart. I've been able to move from simply suffering to thinking constructively about what can and can't be done. I am deeply grateful this organization exists.

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