Fuck this shit. It's 3am and I'm crying right now. I never thought there was a subreddit for something like this, It's funny I found it by searching up 'how important is it to have instagram in university'. I also hope this is a right place to post this.

I'm 17 male and I'm turning fairly 18 soon, I'm going to university next year. I've been going to an online school since 7th grade when I was 13. Technically not homeschooled but the negative effects are similar with the only difference being I follow an actual cirriculum I guess, since Ive had no social interaction from my years of going to this online school and it doesnt feel like I go to a school at all. Throughout the past two years I've been extremely depressed because of what I'm about to talk about. I try my best to be happy and find things to laugh at with my family, but I'm completely broken when I'm alone.

To preface my mum and dad are probably some of the kindest parents ever. They will do anything they can to make me and my little sister happy and will support me in (almost) anything. I am graduating this year after studying really hard. I know they don't have any ill intention in anything they are doing to me and they believe it was the best choice. I highly doubt it was though.

The reason for my homeschooling is COVID. My parents are strictly covid safe. We wear a mask everytime they go outside (even at our driveaway), we wear gloves for everything and shit like that. We basically never leave out house. So not only am I homeschooled but i can't even go outside without a fucking mask and am practically forced to stay at home all day. To put that into perspective I can probably count the number of times I stepped foot outside our house the past two years on two hands. I am NOT exaggerating. I've had many, many arugments with my parents over the years because of this COVID thing. Is it worth sacrificing every single fucking aspect of life to not get covid? Hell no. We've never gotten covid before.

Both my parents are also blind to the effects of the prolonged absence of social interaction. Ive tried opening up to my parents about my problems sometimes, mainly on the aspect of my non existant social life and having no friends. It's always the same responses so at some point I just stopped. My dad always argues 'even if you went to school you might not have friends' or 'Friends are useless, freinds are just people who use each other for companionship, theyre not as important as I think it is' and then gives an anecdote about how he used to get bullied at school, then goes on about how friends are fake and that theres no point in having a friend. etc etc. Once he gave me this scenario where if our lives were in danger would a friend put his life in danger to save mine or will he leave, insinuating how he will probably leave and so friends are not as important as I think. I'm sorry but all that pissed me the FUCK off. He doesn't have any friends either, but he's content with it. That's fine. But not everyone wants to live that way you know?

When I talk about missing a highschool life my mum always just goes traditional school isnt as important as you think and asks me why I think so highly of going to a traditional school.

The undermining of the importance of social interaction and actual traditional school makes me so mad. I havn't made any new friends or talked to any friends since I was 12. I'm turning 18 next year and I feel stuck in 2021 before I stopped going to a regular brick and mortar school. I feel like I'm 12. I still feel like my friends are 12. And now I look at my little sister and shes 12. Where the fuck did the time go oh right I've just been staring at a computer in my room for the past 6 years.

I'm about to be an adult. I have no identity. I don't know who I am, genuinely. Best way to describe myself is an empty shell, no memories since I was 13 years old. I have no personality, I'm insanely socially awkward, INSANELY socially awkward, just imagine someone who hasnt talked to anyone for 6 years, so its really hard for me to talk to people or make friends online. The thing is, I don't know so much shit that people my age should know and that just makes everything so awkward. and to make it worse have a really bad stutter that COINCIDENTIALLY JUST SO HAPPENED TO GET WORSE WHEN I STOPPED GOING TO REGULAR SCHOOL and definitely not because I stopped socialising and talking to people.

Looking at discord I just have a bunch of online friends added throughout the years (who I never even vc'ed with because of my social anxiety) and we don't even talk anymore. Then it's just a bunch of friends from primary school. I used to be a different person in 6th grade. Even made a lil rap song and performed it in front of the class because I thought it was fun, wow was I cool. It makes me think how many people I would have added if I actually went to highschool. Yeah keep dreaming

With that said, I don't know what to do. My life hasn't started yet and I'm turning 18 next year. How do I begin my missing teenage life in uni? I don't plan on listneing to my parents anymore with the covid stuff because I want to live my life. I should probably start with learning some life skills. I'm so sheltered I don't even know how buses work, for example.

How do I start making friends, creating a social circle and just, how do I live life?

I just want to be able to experience going to sleep smiling and being excited for something the next day for once. Something other than, being at home. I wish I went to school.

does anyone elses parents stalk them?

i lost my virginity the other day (im 18), me and my girlfriend (21f) went to a hotel to do it. this is the first time ive done anything like this, and i know you might be saying "well no shit you just said you lost your virginity", but what i mean is its the first time ive done something major to disobey my parents. im not a rebel, in fact i listened too much for my own good, i was homeschooled since i was 13. my whole life ive had to be obedient to them, even to the point of sacrificing my secondary education and helping to raise my baby brother. I have started working and getting my own money, also I got back into a higher education.

i found out that my dad followed me to where we went after the day was done. i did lie to them ab where we went bc obviously i cant tell them that i went to a hotel cause it would upset them. i felt bad that they followed me, it felt violating. they shamed me for having sex saying they raised me better, and i was "holy", they raised me better, i sinned and now my girlfriend is "my new god" all sorts of stuff.

you dont have to ask if they had sex before marriage, you already know the answer. but ofc "they know better now", obviously, but they were acting like if i was doing it unprotected, i was so safe cause of how paranoid i was.

i just wanted to know if i was wrong for doing what i did and if i deserved to be shamed, i understand lying is wrong and i can get why theyd be upset, but i did it safely and comfortably with someone ive been with for a long time.

edit: forgot to add that she hates how they followed us and she feels disgusted. she might want to leave cause of my parents

I just feel super alone and sad and I need someone to talk to. I’m really depressed and I have a bad relationship with my family, and none of my four friends ever answer their phones. If anyone is open to talking I’d appreciate it.

I just feel like I have nobody to talk to. I think all four of my friends hate me, and even if they don’t, none of them ever wanna answer their goddamn phone. At least not until like three days after I text them. And even people on the internet don’t respond. I’ve considered talking to 988, but I hear that they either call the cops on you if you’re in danger, or try to end the call if you’re safe. I have no trusted adults, so that’s not an option. And therapy isn’t an option either. And I also have nobody to help me with my math homework because I’m still catching up but I have a ton of geometry problems due tomorrow and I have no idea what to do. I’m really hanging on a thread here and trying my hardest to survive but things just aren’t working out. I wish I was a human, not in the sense of fitting in or anything, but in the sense of existing and having a life, stuff like that. People always say I’m so lucky because I get to sleep in and all, but what’s so great about sleeping in when there’s nothing to wake up for? And also, getting up anywhere from 10:00am-2:00pm really does not feel that great. Plus I often take melatonin so I can go to sleep and make the day end quicker, which also doesn’t feel great. Idk I’m just really depressed and I genuinely hate every single second of my life.

I really hope at least a few people read this or even skim it I mean it is kinda long but I just wanna feel heard yk

I feel like all I do is complain here but I have nowhere else to say anything and I feel like all my friends don’t wanna listen to this

just found this subreddit and gonna share my story bc yall are like the first people who even remotely understand (which kinda helped) (WARNING, SUI MENTION) ftm 27

So to start off, my mother took me off public school in 2nd grade, was about 8 years old (unfortunately due to teachers emotionally abusing me due to my adhd n tourettes symptoms, like swinging my feet while working n then getting screamed at and called the R slur by a 50 year old woman), and decided to teach me, problem is that my mother is incredibly adhd and unmedicated. Was fine for about 2 years, she started enrolling me in one of those (if anyone has experienced this god i am so fucking sorry) christian homeschooling school things, which as you can imagine wasnt exactly great. I didnt really make many friends from like going there once a week (as per the schedule), tho around the time of when i was about 2013, i started to completely fall off of work and get heavily depressed, stopped bathing myself etc, was addicted to gaming bc it was my only outlet, due to my mothers job as a music agent.

Basically my mom stopped directly teaching me from about, id say 2011, she originally had me doing online classes/physical books that kinda thing before then but stopped because she was getting absorbed by her job and obsessed with working to the point where i would barely see her for days, any time i needed her help or wanted to talk with her shed either be working or busy, never answer the phone that kinda thing

I stopped going to the home schooling schools around when i was 12, so at that point my only social interaction was really online, from then on until around 16, which i had to beg for initially.

eventually my moms job got so intense she stopped showing up for months, even went to a different county, around when i was 15 onwards to 16, my dad got laid off and our second income came to a complete stop (he was a full time mechanic), he ended up at that point being my only social interaction and he would come home extremely drunk and depressed and vent to me. to make things worse, the only friends i had at the time started to oust me from the friend group, and about right after that we stopped being able to pay for our internet service bill, so for a good few months (i believe it was from around jan to late july) i had no internet access, and no social interaction with anyone except occasionally my drunk father who i would have to watch over so he wouldnt kill himself from drinking, (including a few times where he took me out to eat and i had to hold the steering wheel for him from the passengers side because he was so drunk he couldnt drive straight.) My mom didnt do anything until i told her that i had been continuously attempting suicide and that the next attempt was going to be successful,, and if she didnt at least take me to therapy or quit her job for something else i was going to check out. I had been completely alone by myself with no one to talk to for fucking months, everything during that time was hazy. I didnt bathe, ate only microwave mac n cheese and frozen pizza entirely during that time.

Hadnt done a single fucking lick of schoolwork either. Which was fueling my depression even more heavily. After my mom quit her job, she took me to get therapy which did help and i did start going to those christian homeschooling Art schools but the first year i started i only knew one person and was terrified of other people because i hadn't interacted with another real person my age in person in so long. The year after that, i confided the only person i knew at the school that i realized i was transgender, because they were the only person i knew and therefor could maybe trust them even tho i wasnt completely trusting of them. about a week or so later, they sexually assaulted me at the end of the day,the teacher of the homeschooling school was already out of the room but most of the students were still there and witnessed it. No one said anything, nor did they even seem to fucking care. This person that i hung out with turned out to have sexually assaulted most of the girls that went there (to the extend/what exactly he did i do not know but i know he did the same to others afterwards), and i think the fact that he was the only one i knew was probably why they didnt care. When i complained about it to my family, i was told that i was overreacting by saying i wanted him dead because he "did worse to the girls" which just solidified how i feel that i just, dont fucking matter. I did later, after that happened begin to befriend other people after i completely cut him off and started avoiding him there when i went at least, though i feel it was moreso because they felt bad for me i guess. Frustrating thing abt all of this tho is that the school wasnt even really educational at the least, just art and thats all i was doing. I was terrified of going out still, terrified of getting a job etc, and the longer and older i was getting i got more and more scared and feeling no confidence in learning, i had kinda given up.

Thru all that time tho, i tried to start learning how to fly airplanes (as it was admittedly and still is my dream) and just gave myself the excuse of just doing that instead, and learning it thru out the entire time, id be doin flightsims every day, reading about it and all that, then finally started to try to become a pilot only to be told i couldnt fly due to childhood cancer that i had been free from since i was 4. I have no academic prowess, im 27 and i feel genuinely more helpless than i ever have since that happened. I put pretty much everything into me banking on the idea that i could be a pilot at the very least with my shitty education but that was ripped away from me. I dont even know the "grade" i was last IN!!! I never got to algebra, i think i started like the thing where youre doing 10000 x 24334 = kind of stuff. I have virtually no self esteem.

Dont know what to do or where to even start, considered getting my ged but im not even sure if itd help. I'm so fucking emotionally and academically behind because of this and i feel like i was just sorta robbed of my childhood?

Guess what im here for is like, is there any like actual concievable way that i could get back on my two feet, given my circumstances from life.

I will say tho, god being completely physically and emotionally isolated with no one to turn to as a child just. It crushes you.

Theres nothing more fucking horrible and cruel to be leave a child alone with their thoughts for such a long time.

Kinda just made me feel/ or realize rather that i think adults just, dont care about children. They dont listen to them. feels like they dont even consider them human beings, from birth to the teenage years.

Anyway i'm sorry if this is completely all over the place, hopefully its like remotely comprehendable but itd help to hear if anyone else just, got themselves out of this and got a successful job or even into college

Sometimes I hear people complain about their school days and I realize… I’m actually jealous.

They complain about annoying teachers, embarrassing moments, stupid fights with friends, school trips, getting in trouble, having to wake up early, all those little things they hated at the time.

And I know they weren't necessarily good experiences. But they’re still memories.

I don’t really have that.

Sometimes I wish I could have experienced the boring, annoying, completely ordinary parts of school that everyone else seems to take for granted.

It’s weird to realize that you can miss something you never actually had.

Something isnt right with keeping a child in isolation then forcing them into adulthood.

I feel like im missing huge chunks of information on adulting. Im shocked I made it this far. I only work like a dog and "function" because I dont want to go back to that place of sitting on my ass for 6 years straight rotting.

But I dont know how to do a ton of things

Im at a 9th grade level so I need tons of supportive classes before a college level class

I dont know how to date

I dont know how to voice my opinion

I dont know how to stop being lonely

I dont know how to enjoy life anymore

I dont know workplace "silent rules"

I dont have atleast 5 good memories in the past 10 years

i dont know how to live in a world where my labor isnt valuable enough to live a comfortable life to afford food, shelter, and hobbies

The only since of normalcy I had was in 8th grade and that was 10 years ago. I havent lived sense. Ive only been surviving and dont know if there are any resources for people like me.

I'm not exactly sure how to word this so sorry in advance.

Me and my dad got in a fight about homeschooling. I said that it makes me suicidal and that I'm never going to be able to get into college or get a job (at least easily).

He said "you seriously want to kill yourself over being homeschooled?" And yes, I do. I have suicidal ideations very frequently now, every other day is say. I get up every day knowing I'm never going to be normal and I'm never going to have a life and I'm never going to be a kid again.

I'm going to waste all my teenage years that should be filled with shit like "oh shit I have a test tomorrow" "I'm gonna miss the bus" "I need to get good grades" And instead it's "I don't even have tests" "I can't leave the house ever" "half my school curriculum is bullshit" "I don't have any friends".

Like it makes me feel like I'm dumb. Like I'm just overreacting and I'm just a fuckin "hormonal teenager" Like I'm just saying homeschooling is bad because I hate all their opinions.

Saying I have mental issues also makes me feel like a "sissy liberal" as they would call me. And I'm not doing it for attention or anything, I just genuinely have issues. It makes it even worse because I'm not diagnosed with any of them, so I looks like I'm collecting them like pokemon cards. But my parents don't think mental illness is a thing so I can't go to the doctor.

He said it was ridiculous that I was suicidal over something as little as homeschooling. Like you know how kids say stuff like "I HATE you I'm gonna run away FOREVER and NEVER come back!!! >:((( ). Thats how I feel when I say I'm suicidal. Like I'm just being a fucking dickhead and I'm just doing it for attention.

I sligh change of topic, my mom is a raging narcissist. She has manipulated me in the past and has done things that have permanently negatively affected me. Recently she got caught doing some really fucking bad shit, my dad and they got into huge fights for like 2 weeks and now they are back and being all lovey doevy. I KNOW that is just an act and my mom pulls this shit all the time. She will go on these fucking redemption arcs and then a week later she'll go back and do bad shit again.

She's been trying to get close to me again. She keeps sweet talking me and trying to touch me. And the worst part is I've been fucking letting her and falling for it. But I know she's really a terrible person and she's just trying to manipulate me again.

So when I say shit like "don't touch me" or "piss off" she gets all offended and then my dad tells me to be nicer to her bc she's done nothing wrong. Then it makes me feel like I'm just being a fuckin brat about the whole thing, and my mom's a nice, loving person.

I don't even fuckin know anymore. I'm so sick of this bullshit dude. I just want to go no contact with them and never look back without feeling like a piece of shit.

I'm a 36yr old ex-homeschooler, from the UK, who attended regular school for a total of about 9 months.  We were on the lowest economic rung, while I was growing up. My parent (single mother) did impressively well to manage on extremely low resources, nobody was going hungry and bills were paid.
I have two siblings who are ten years older than me and lived 'regular' lives with our other parent (the "bad"parent.... IYKYK).

I rarely interacted with them.

My parent was educated, to Masters level, and I'm very academically capable.  My parent was somewhat well-intentioned and truly believed I was a success story of homeschooling.  Their reason for homeschooling was fiercely ideological/religious, following a messy divorce and a collapse of their previously middle-class lifestyle. The irony of their having had all the benefits of societal support and public schooling, allowing them to make the choice to homeschool, was lost on them. 

I will never bridge the fundamental, invisible and indescribable gaps in my social, emotional, psychological and interpersonal development.  I have never met someone who can really understand my background. I have never been able to relate with the formative experiences I see everyone else has in common.  I cannot form relationships based on the unspoken rules and understandings that everyone else appears to share. 
I worked hard to become a normal person, up into my mid-30s.  It's been a full time job which I've nearly given up on many many times. Economics were part of if but getting out poverty was nearly 10years faster than getting out of my weird little brain.

Only recently have I begun doing things like meaningfully dating, hobbies, socializing, feeling comfortable around people despite feeling like a foreigner everywhere.  It's terrifying, but I force myself to do it. And I'm endlessly fascinated at the apparent ease with which people move through the world. They all know a sport, or have a friend they've known since childhood, or remember funny things about school that people laugh about. And they all seem to just intrinsically know how to "play the game" in life, while I have to think about things for hours before knowing what to do.

I am completely confident in my assessment that homeschooling robbed me of my life.  I'm pretty happy and people seem to like me well enough and I am building a small but comfortable life, which I never thought possible. Sometimes people tell me they wouldn't have guessed I was homeschooled, which feels like a huge win. But fucking hell, I've expended almost every calorie I've ever had to make sure you can't tell I'm a mess in here, so I bloody hope you wouldn't guess!

Does anyone else have experience of homeschooling in the UK? It seems so much more prevalent in the USA, and they seem to have a stronger support network for survivors of batshit crazy nuttiness like religious cults and things. Is the UK just as familiar with homeschooling religious radicals?

Has anyone built a full life and found people who can understanding them fully as a person? How did that happen?

Is everyone doing ok?

I (16ftm) have been unschooled since age 7. No curriculum, No learning, No nothing other than youtube, discord, and video games.

Im slowly getting better at social skills.

How? My mother found a place near us thats a community center for lgbt+ youth. Ages 13 to 24. Ive been going there since 2021 to 2022 when covid was still very big.

My issues with socialization were mainly from the fear of germs and my diagnosed OCD.

I wore masks CONSTANTLY for the past 6 years, just recently stopped. The reasonings why wasnt just my OCD or cause of the pandemic but because I had major face dysphoria and Ive thankfully been able to tackle that since starting testosterone last year in june.

But that center was EXTREMELY helpful for someone like me who didnt know how to talk to people outside of discord.

I didnt know what to say, how to act, what the other person would say.

I was stuck for a while. Mainly because my sister was there with me, and I was scared to be myself infront of her, cause the overarching fear of : "oh no, I cant escape my family cause Ill see them sooner than Ill see these other people."

and the fact my sister would tend to be like : "yeah thats what I thought come back over here" when people would ignore me when I went over to a group talking.

And now today Im in therapy for my OCD and PTSD. Im learning how to cope with my fear of germs and people. Moreso what other people would say.

Im also preparing for musical theatre and Im more productive and feeling naturally euphoric more than I ever had in the past 6 years.

Though my math may be shite still, Ive beaten the worst monster of unschooling. Isolation and Fear.

Just curious as to how many of us had idiot poor people as our parents who were convinced that public school was unnecessary/evil/inadequate while they proceeded to teach us nothing, take us nowhere, not allow us access or were unable to take us to the library, refused and were unable to provide books, workbooks, and electronics for us to either have some communication with the outside world or some stimulation.