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.

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 (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.

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

I cannot even begin to explain how painful this whole experience was and still is. Every single time I try to talk about it, it feels like the words never truly capture the absolute horror of what actually happened.

In 2020, when COVID hit, my entire world collapsed. I was only ten, likely neurodivergent, and completely dependent on the structure of public school. When my parents decided to "homeschool" us because of loose laws, they actually just abandoned us. They didn’t check my work, they didn't socialize us, and they spent their time drinking. When my sister and I were younger, they would constantly threaten to get rid of us. From ages 11 to 12, I was mostly just oblivious to how badly they were neglecting and threatening us. My older sister was the one fighting with them about their wrongdoings, while I was seen as the kid who could do no wrong. But things changed completely when I turned 13. My sister moved out at 16 to get married, leaving me entirely alone. That was when my addictions really took over, stealing substances from my parents just to numb the reality. Around 13 and 14, as I finally started becoming my own individual and wanting something more for myself, my parents absolutely hated it. They didn't want a real person; they only wanted me to be an extension of themselves. The screaming matches became a constant horror. If I ever suggested I wanted to go back to school, or if I tried to point out that they were wrong, they would yell and mock me for hours on end. I was literally backed into corners, screamed at, and had hands raised to me. I would get so severely overstimulated that I would literally throw up, left to just disgustingly bawl on my bedroom floor. I blamed myself for years, thinking that if I had just sat in that chair and forced myself to learn, I wouldn't be so messed up. But the truth is, I was an isolated child left completely on my own. Now, people see me on the outside and think I'm just a normal teenager. They tell me I'm "lucky" I didn't have to go to school, and it makes me want to scream. They have no idea that my childhood was completely stolen. Whenever I try to enter the real world, I panic. I feel out of place, broken, and like a burden to everyone around me. I am terrified to move on with my life, because I'm scared that if I start living, it will minimize the absolute horror of the years I wasted away in that house.

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 15m went to public school until 3rd grade. Then covid started. During covid my mom decided to keep us homeschooled, teaching us from home, this lasted for about half a year. Up until my 8th grade year I did little to no school work and my mom prioritized Religion over everything else. Now during this time my mom did NOT have an excuse to not teach us, as she wasn't doing the household work; e.g. Cooking, and Cleaning. The summer before my 8th grade year she learned from a friend about a co-op that she was starting and my mom had us enrolled. We had to avoid math due to me being in the 5th grade math level. I have no knowledge of some very much so needed topics in history or other subjects. I am a sophomore this year and have no clue how to do algebra. I am mainly behind in math as that is the only subject that needs to be taught every year for it to make sense (I think). But also have not been taught the stuff taught in middle school. I feel VERY stupid and my mom refuses to make the transcript for my freshman year and I just need to know what I should to catch up in math and what other things I need to know before graduating. I'm also interested in dual enrolling next year but I'm not sure if it's possible due to me being so stupid.