Has anyone else had trouble finishing high school?

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I posted this in another forum on here the other day, but I got no replies, so I deleted it and I'm reposting it here.

Anyway, I really should have finished high school about two years ago, but I've been having trouble finishing for various reasons. For most of my high school career, I took a lighter course load than most of my peers since I had a hard time focusing on more than a couple courses at once, and I also dropped a bunch of courses I didn't enjoy, so I kind of knew from the get-go that I'd be taking an extra year. When that extra year rolled around though, I kind of suffered a mental breakdown resulting in severe OCD and anxiety, and I effectively dropped out. Since then, I've been making a half-hearted attempt at finishing by doing correspondence courses, but it's just hard to find the motivation to do so. The worst part is now my dad wants me to move out and find a job, and while I'd really like to get away from my stepmother and her family (whom I cannot stand), I have no idea how to "be" an adult and take ownership of my own life.

Has anyone else here had an experience like this?

Hi, I kind of crashed when I was sixteen and a half in 11th grade, including with OCD.

Is there another relative, perhaps even a somewhat distant relative, you might ask, Things aren't working well at home. Do they think you could live with them for a while? Perhaps even suggest a one or two week trial period which would also give you a break from home. I think Temple Grandin lived part of the time with her Aunt which turned out to be a positive thing.

You might want to check out ASAN on the outside chance they could help.
http://autisticadvocacy.org/chapters/ <--There's only one chapter listed for all of Canada, but they might be able to give you a lead for someone else.
I want us to have Autism Spectrum networks for self-advocacy and volunteer coordination where we can provide direct assistance to people, but we are generally just not there yet.

Your dad probably believes the widespread cultural beliefs about jobs. People want to believe like a Protestant work ethic or a pioneer model, that if a person is out there trying, there's a one-to-one correspondence between effort and results. And really, it's more the exception when this turns out to be the case than the rule. But people want to believe in a just world hypothesis, they really do.

Right now, I'm working at a place I'll call MegaMart*, which is fair to middling as far as the work, but does not pay near enough to live on my own. And it was hard to get this job.

I have walked into places with a frozen salesman's smile to apply for a job, and that doesn't work. And plus, it's exhausting which they takes away my ability to try at more places. Now, it's more Internet job applications, which they ask so many questions, it literally takes an hour or more to apply at the place.

Okay, when I'm looking for a job, in a good week, I can apply at ten places. I would not recommend telling your dad this, because people also have a bunch of unrealistic beliefs about how much someone can do on the job hunting front.

And how about this possibility, pre-studying for this coming Spring semester, go back to live high school and maybe knock out three or four classes, and maybe also think about your GED and then community college?

And for a right now project, how about exploring some topics and contributing to wikipedia? That might give you some immediate open fields and intellectual projects. Now, be warned, I have generally been disappointed with wikipedia, at least as far as a community working together. For example, I've taken a source and have done a good job pulling out the main points and summarizing them. And generally, it's totally ignored. Occasionally, you get a nasty-gram, not that I've done a poor job summarizing, but that it doesn't sound enough like an encyclopedia. That is, the primary focus does not seem to be on the accuracy of the information. And only very, very occasionally do I get a thank you. But, even with all this, I feel like I'm in the main flow contributing to something.

About OCD when I was age 9, I worried about dying in my sleep. Age 11, the act of swallowing food became a big deal,

Age 16 and a half, our house got flooded, there was all this conflict between my mom and dad. I banged my head pulling the beginning of a good prank at boy scouts. Put off going to the doctor, then worried tremendously. Same with getting rubbing alcohol in my eye.

Then I started worrying about both germs and chemicals. I would use a reddish disinfectant on my hair. Hour long showers, my hands would get chapped.

Then I would do second generation things to avoid the worry. That's a trap. The one level removed of fearing the fear, or worrying about the worry, starts a spiral in the wrong direction.

Studying zen, and in a thoroughly half-assed way at that, has helped me. Also finding out that I'm not the only one with OCD.

Something you have a right to know about is the whole PANDAS hypothesis, which is controversial. This is the idea that antibodies to strep can attack and damage and inflame the brain's basal ganglia, and people are exposed to strep all the time including subclinical infections. Ouch. Might be worth a blood test for strep, especially if the OCD came on relatively abruptly or seems to cycle/oscillate. Or maybe even if it doesn't, since the remedy of prophylactic antibiotics to prevent future strep infections is so easy. But it is thought that PANDAS is somewhat uncommon, and you should know that, too. The good news is that, like in many ways the brain being more plastic and self-healing than previously thought, much of this damage can be healed.

Anyway, think you have a right to know, and will include a link.
https://mghocd.org/ocd_pandas/ <--- and so far they mainly just talk about children and teenagers, because that's who they've looked at. A lot like autism spectrum itself in the early days.

I can relate to a certain extent. I would have dropped out of high school for sure if I hadn't been able to qualify for the homebound program with my old (incorrect) diagnoses. Getting out of the school environment was enough to let me finish school and graduate, but that doesn't seem to be the case for you since you're still having a hard time with the correspondence courses.

I would suggest looking into the GED test. Another person said it is easy to pass, but I've heard from people who have gone that route that it's actually pretty tough (but definitely passable if you read up on the test and/or attend the prep classes that they offer). Keep in mind that once you finish school or get your GED, your father will probably push you even harder to move out and get a job. Do you have someone you can talk to or see about the problems you are dealing with right now? If not, maybe you could try to find someone. Anyway, I hope you find something that works for you so you can finish your education.

I've heard that the GED can be kind of tough, too. And, to lay it on the table, here in the United States, it is less prestigious than a high school diploma. But, it's always your last degree which matters most. So, if someone gets a Ph.D in microbiology from Stanford, it hardly matters at all what their previous degrees are in or where they got them. Or, if someone gets a two-year associates degree in accounting from a community college, the fact that a person has a GED instead of a diploma hardly matters at all. Or, most people will look at it in a low-key way as favorable, as it shows perseverance on the person's part. Same with a four-year degree in geology, or history. Now, you do know that liberal arts is less of a guaranteed career path.

Nope, not really... I've never finished my credits for Physics, though. But I still graduated...

Hi, that sounds good your grandparents and uncle helping out. People networking on the job front is the best method. Now, with today's economy, you still want to run multi- track.

And getting a crummy job or a parttime job takes just as much work as a good job, because there's more applicants, the managers of these kind of businesses tend to be disengaged, etc.

Okay, one thing to think about is a commission sales job. I did professional sales for a company which ran a chain of boutique mattress stores, and I did okay. The topic based style of communication, I actually did pretty good at. Now, some sales jobs are out and out rip-offs, as I'm sure you've heard, especially if they ask you to buy any kind of sales kit, or they pay only commission not even backed up by minimum wage.

I loved the idea of a trade like air conditioning repair, where I have a skill and no one could give me any crap. But I did not go this route.

If I had to do it all over again, I might have taken 9 semester hours at college and then worked parttime about 20 hours.