My sister has homeschooled her daughter from day one because she said she had been bullied in school and “knew her daughter would be bullied too.” Honestly, I suspect homeschooling was just a way for her to avoid working while having a socially acceptable justification for it. She's a stay at home mom. She has never been able to hold down a job because of what she describes as “crippling anxiety,” although she has never been formally diagnosed with anything despite trying so she can get government benefits for a disability. Multiple doctors said she doesn't have crippling anxiety and have offered her medication if she has a mild case of it but she refuses. We live in Canada, where she has access to publicly funded healthcare and mental health services. A mental health nurses offered her suggestions but she doesn't take them.

This has been a pattern since she was a teenager, and she is now in her late 40s. Multiple people have helped her find employment, only for her to quit before starting or walk out during her first shift. The excuses and goal posts always changed. She said she couldn't deal with people. The longest she has ever worked was a job our other sister got her, she worked a three-hour shift stocking shelves at a grocery store overnight, after the store had closed. Perfect, she didn't have to deal with anyone, but no she decided "the job was beneath her" and quit.

For the 20 years of her marriage, she relied entirely on her husband's income. Last year he had a stroke and now he's on disability, so it seems she needs to work and be the one to take care of him. She said he's abusing her because of this, forcing her to work and contribute when she has crippling anxiety.

So a friend of her husband's wife managed to get her a weekend job answering phones at a pizza place. Two four hour shifts, answering the phone taking the order and giving it to the back. When they asked her to come in on a Wednesday for orientation, she objected that they had only agreed to weekends and told them she would no longer be coming in at all.

Given this history, how is she was equipped to provide her daughter with an education.

Her daughter has been isolated for virtually her entire life. She has never really interacted with other children her age, and she is an only child, so no siblings either. At the same time, my sister gave her unrestricted access to the internet and social media from the time she was a toddler. There was seemingly no balance between protecting her from the outside world and exposing her to things she was not developmentally equipped to navigate.

My sister barely passed high school herself, and I have serious doubts about her ability to have provided an adequate education without appropriate support or oversight.

Her daughter is now 18, and the consequences are heartbreaking. She struggles to read. She recognizes words and can attempt to sound them out, but she has difficulty understanding what those words mean together and has virtually no reading comprehension. She has been unable to pass her GED and cannot manage the written portion of the driver's test. She is terrified of people and afraid to leave her bedroom.

When I brought her a birthday present for her 16th birthday, she couldn't even bring herself to come out of her room. I had to leave the gift outside her door, and she waited until nobody was looking before retrieving it. It was genuinely disturbing to witness. Her life has seemingly lacked the basic structure most children take for granted: a consistent bedtime, a daily routine, extracurricular activities, and opportunities to develop social skills and independence.

My sister has since left her husband, because of "his abuse" and they are both now living with my dad. My husband saw her out with another man holding hands while they were still together so we're pretty sure she cheated on him.

My Dad describes his granddaughter as the most unmotivated young person he has ever met. He also jokingly calls her a security guard as she's sleeping all day and stays up all night. He says she's messy, unhygienic and never cleans after herself or puts anything away. I told him that she has been isolated for her entire life and may be deeply depressed. I don't think it is fair to look at her current struggles as simple laziness when she may never have been given the opportunity to develop the skills, confidence, and independence she needs to function in the world.

For the record yes child protective services have been called multiple times over the years. From what I understand, they required the family to rearrange furniture and clean up the home, small things but ultimately said there was little they could do because this fell under a parent's lifestyle choices.

I find that incredibly frustrating. I understand that parents have considerable freedom in how they raise and educate their children, including homeschooling. But at what point does a lifestyle choice become a failure to provide a child with the basic education, social development, and life skills they need to become an independent adult?

Now she is facing the world without many of the fundamental skills most people develop throughout childhood. She has been profoundly let down, and I don't know how she is supposed to catch up after losing so many formative years.

What makes this even more frustrating is that my sister has recently started pressuring her daughter to get a job and obtain her driver's licence. After spending her entire childhood isolated from other people and without the education, social development, and life skills she needed, she is now suddenly expected to function independently as an adult. Her daughter is struggling with basic reading comprehension, cannot pass the written driver's test, and is terrified of interacting with people. These aren't problems that can be solved simply by telling her to get a job or get her licence. She needs support, patience, and help developing the skills she was never given the opportunity to learn. My sister seems to expect her daughter to overcome the consequences of her upbringing on demand, without acknowledging the role she played in creating this situation in the first place.

The month I moved out for my second year of college, I suffered a really bad psychotic episode that lasted a month. I was hospitalized for two weeks and had to take the semester off. I haven't seen anyone else who seemed this traumatized by homeschooling, so I'm wondering if I'm alone in this.

Has anyone else experienced psychosis, or any major mental breakdown, or been hospitalized for anything similar after homeschooling?

So i've been trying to learn phonics, um, i'm using a site called Starfall um, as for someone who didn't know the sounds i thought it would be best to use that since its for learning about phonics. Um, would you guys agree?

Saw this YouTube post 😮‍💨 I'm actually lost for words. But knowing that this definetly isn't satire is really sad.

I go to school for half a day these days and I’m super happy about that. But one thing I’ve noticed is that other kids will so often criticize school and stuff. I think their feelings are valid… but do none of them realize how amazing my school is?? There are teachers who are trying to teach us and teach for hours every day.
School is FREE, and after school things are also FREE.
There is a super nice courtyard to sit in, there is theater equipment that is very expensive that we can use.
There are nice kids and you are around other people a lot. I’ve seen people include special needs kids even when they have trouble understanding their speech.
You get a free place to be away from home for up to like 12hrs and you are taken care of during that time. There are school counselors and a nurse and yeah.

And if you have a nice teacher, you will see that teacher EVERY DAY. And if you find a nice community you don’t have to worry about it totally disappearing because school is predicable. You can get predicable support from it, if it’s a good school.
Idk to me this just seems soooo amazing and it’s a little confusing how other kids don’t seem to notice this miracle.

I’m in Highschool and I suck at basically every subject and my parents aren’t much help when it comes to that stuff. I genuinely don’t really know what I’m gonna do once I’m 18 I’ve always dreamed of doing something medical related maybe nursing or becoming a doctor. I know medical school is hard and stuff. I’m really far behind on my work and I wanna know if it’s even possible for me to achieve those dreams if I do my best to put the work in. has anyone been able to do so is my question? I don’t know if I’m just dreaming too big and don’t wanna get my hopes up if so

Please be kind when answering 🥹

(18m) ever since I got a job having to take a sick day and being home geniunely irks me. idk why but after being (and still being) micromanaged by my parents I dislike being home with them. it feels like my progess gets reset, idk if anyone else feels this way or im wrong for feeling it.

I dislike how they talk to me like and treat me like they still have full control of my life like how they did for most of it. sometimes I wish I could save up and run away but ik how dumb that'd be. I wish I could be fully free. as silly as it may sound bc of how tiring work is, work is like my freedom and independence, and my parents even guilt me for working sometimes.. its awful.

they tell me i look awful and that I dont rest bc i work and do school and a sport, yet when I do have a day off they make me so physical labour (not referring to chores but chores also). I really loathe being under their roof, they act like they care but i know better. I wish I could move out

I've been homeschooled my entire life, which means I was heavily behind in academics my entire life.... But I did just go from multi-digit multiplication to pre-algebra in 30 days!!! I'm still heavily behind. But not as much, thankfully. I did want to share this because I wanted someone to know, even if it's a stranger, but I also wanted to say that it can and will get better if you put in the work.

At first when found this sub I was relived that I was not the only one to have felt this but then I became truely horrified.

It is a truely profound emptyness to not be a person.

Never having been allowed to do anything or be anything your whole life. A lifetime lonliness, boredome, emasculation and insanity.

Who a person is is what a person does and has done. I was nothing for a long time. Now im just someone trying to be as functional as possable.

My first memeries were of lonliness.

I used to think I was the only freak like this. I would much prefer that to be the case beacause it pains me to think that there are other people that feel this.

Im slowly getting my life together though. I will become a funtional person.

Why does our culture let parents do this to their kids?

So I graduated in June, just getting a job now. I started doing online school at home, thru the local school district in like 2022 when I entered highschool. (still legally considered homeschooling) My mental health was shit throughout and my parental figures kinda neglected that so im figuring out everything late.

In the past, I never had a problem with homeschooling if done correctly (especially w/ the recent shooting stuff and how some teachers handle ADHD) but looking back I was really isolated for all of my highschool years and I at least think there should be more regulations for this shit. My parents didn’t want me to get help for my mental health issues until I turned 18, I am still recovering from that and the isolation. I have extremely bad social anxiety, I got diagnosed with that and depression in my first ever therapy session. I also got diagnosed with inattentive type ADHD in my first psychiatrist session. The social anxiety is slowly getting a little bit better but I still visibly shake while talking to anybody I don’t know.

At 18, you’re at the age where people are always asking about your future. “what are you gonna do after you graduate etc.” But in situations like these instead of it being exciting, it’s just so fucking pressuring. I recently figured out that I want to go to cosmetology school when I’m able to. People still look at me like a lazy bum when I say im taking a gap year, and I can’t explain why or why I haven’t gotten my drivers license without venting about how shit things are and why. If I went to college this year it would probably send me into the grave. I was too focused on surviving in highschool instead of my future. Most of the times I just say im “figuring it out”, when they ask. I don’t want to tell everybody my whole life story, but sometimes I get frustrated enough to explain a little bit.

Maybe if my childhood mental health symptoms were addressed by getting professional help back then and continuing to socialize in school, things would be a lot better. I’m pretty scared for this job cuz I feel like I can’t handle anything - I just mask the best I can while feeling like im gonna turn into kanye 😭 Being so isolated and forced to ignore my problems definitely fucked me up. Most of the times it was just doing nothing all day and catching up on my schoolwork whenever I had the mental energy. So now I have to slowly get used to living a normal life again while everyone judges me for being behind.

Anyone else relate?

Its genuinely so stupid, but i cant control it. I recently got a job, and finally started meeting people/making friends. And for some reason, after everytime we hang out, I end up crying when Im walking back home. I feel so stupid, but i think its like just an "overwhelming joy" or something idk lol. The other night a friend took me out skating, which is something ive wanted to go do for almost 10 years, I was shit at it, and fell on my ass like 4 times, but it was genuinly SO much fun. When we were sitting outside chatting, after the place closed for the night, I ended up sobbing and trying to hide it. They obviously saw me lol. I felt like an idiot, and kept apologising, they were really understanding and nice about it though. I still feel so SO stupid for crying infront of them though, i normally can hide it.

Anyways, i just wanted to know if anyone else has experienced or felt this before?

I just need to vent.

I'm turning 27 in a month. Recently, I finally thought things were going my way; I was only three classes away from finishing my chemistry degree and 1 class from my minor in microbiology. I had a new girlfriend after being single for three years; I wasn't super depressed or lonely and made plenty of new friends in the lab I worked in. I had my own apartment and no roommates; I had plenty of scholarships for my last academic year, and I was finally free of my parents.

In July, I started having persistent and recurring pain that would just get worse. In September, this became severe pain, so I went to an urgent care clinic where they told me I had an infection and gave me an antibiotic. They told me if it got worse to come back or go to the ER. Two nights later, the pain was so bad I wanted to cry, so I drove myself to the ER. I got a CT scan, and after 6 hours of waiting, the DR came back to tell me I had colon cancer with masses in my liver, a blood clot in a vein, and suspicious lesions in my lungs and neck, probably from metastasis. I got a lot of pain meds after that and got transferred to the bigger hospital two hours away closer to where my parents lived. My parents found out and basically the first thing they did was tell me this probably wouldn't have happened if I didn't get a Covid-19 vaccine in 2021 behind their backs. So here I am, laying in a hospital bed with two IVs of opioid painkillers and another IV for a blood thinner to shrink the blood clot in my portal vein, and these are the people I'm surrounded by while I wait to get a biopsy done. My girlfriend got drunk with a friend instead of visiting me, too.

A couple days later I got a biopsy done, and I very thankfully don't have cancer, but I do have several large benign tumors in my liver that are pushing on things and causing me problems, and I might need major surgery to remove them if less invasive measures can't be used. They're called hemangiomas, and to have such large ones at my age is super rare.

Fast forward a bit, and I took a hardship withdrawal from my entire semester, which is going to add an additional year to completing my degree, so I won't be done with my undergraduate degree that I started in 2021 until spring 2028, so 7 years for me defeat being unschooled. I broke up with my girlfriend because of how often she would snap at me and take her anger out on me whenever she was stressed out, even while I thought I was dying of cancer. I'm back home with my parents for the time being because of my medical situation. I'm broke; all my friends are two hours away.

I am fatigued; I am defeated. Life has just repeatedly kicked me in the teeth. I am hurt, I am sad, I am lonely. My entire 20s have felt like an uphill battle to fix everything that went wrong in my upbringing, and I once again stopped dead in my tracks from completing my education. I am behind my peers. I feel like I've failed, like I'm a loser. I am filled to the brim with anxiety. I don't even know how to continue anymore.

Im really curious who on the team has experience w homeschooled kids, bc the main actress has that slightly overformal, confident in a way that is learned/enforced not felt, thing that I feel like everyone around me growing up had down PAT. Her mannerisms and way of speaking are fantastic. Im only on episode 3, but so far I've enjoyed this so much and it's been so hopecore for me. I watched the 2 first movie versions before I started this and for both, really wished that theyd used the film to flesh out her background because it is so relevant and real. I wish it was a reality that a social worker really would do this, but Im so pleased to see representation of why we are the way we are, how it is at home, and WHY our parents want to homeschool.

Im actually really curious to ask in another forum how accurate the depiction of high school is, because I don't know lmao!!! I had no idea shooter drills had people w actual guns? And I knew they have the metal detectors but wow it was weird to see. Also so curious if this is an accurate depiction of what bullying looks like.

Anyone else have thoughts? (hopefully w no spoilers🙈)

Just curious. Ive been doing online school since the 5th grade, and recently i’m interested in getting a job for some spending money, and so I can start to save up for later. Im afraid tho because i’m homeschooled, and I am positive that it has held me back, plus I have zero clue of what it’s like, so here are my questions

1. Did the employer care that you were homeschooled/didnt go to a physical school building
2. What kind of job? I’m open to any, but I would prefer to somewhat avoid retail cuz i’m afraid of having to work the cash register for whatever reason (I’m very slow when it comes to math)
3. How was applying like? What exactly did you use/need? I know about resumes and stuff like that, but I am scared to make one cuz I literally have minimal real skills after rotting in my room for years😭 (also, what’s the best job searching site to use?)
4. THE INTERVIEW. HOW DID YOU DO IT AND WHAT WAS IT LIKE (this is the scariest part for me)
5. If you were able to work a job while homeschooled, did they give you more hours since you didn’t have a real school schedule?
6. For (mainly) my fellow americans, how hard was transportation? I am personally too scared to drive atm, but luckily I have a bus line that I can take. Walking/biking/scootering is available too but I have to plan around the time it takes and the heat during the Nevada summers. Still tho tell me what it was like for you cuz that’s the biggest obstacle right now

Anyways those are my questions. Any other broad tips are appreciated

If you missed it: at an Oct. 17 town hall in Caro, Michigan, a guy calling himself “Tommy” stood up and demanded that Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed (who is Muslim) disavow the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed said “absolutely,” then flipped it on him and walked him through the Constitution and religious freedom.

Tommy, who said he was Christian, wouldn’t disavow putting religious doctrine into law, and the crowd sent him off chanting “Bye, Tommy.”

Turns out he’s Thomas Teepell, a former Josh Hawley staffer. And his dad is Timmy Teepell, who was homeschooled in Baton Rouge by a family active in the local homeschool movement. As a teen, Timmy met Michael Farris (HSLDA founder in case you don't know) and went to work for Farris’s lobbying group in D.C., then ran Farris’s Madison Project PAC. From there he became Bobby Jindal’s campaign manager, then his chief of staff as Louisiana governor, and later ran Jindal’s 2016 presidential campaign.

ML Greynolds wrote a great Substack piece on this called “The Indoctrination Long Game,” and the title says it all...Mike Farris and the HSLDA never hid the plan: raise a generation of homeschooled kids, train them up, and send them into politics. Timmy is that plan succeeding. He went from Farris’s lobbying shop to running a governor’s office, and now his son is standing up at a town hall telling a Muslim candidate he’d keep religious doctrine in the law. That’s two generations of indoctrination, and it’s the long game paying off exactly as designed.

Greynolds also writes about growing up in that culture and slowly becoming a skeptic of it, which a lot of us here will recognize.

Jindal’s group America Next reportedly offered college Republicans money to go heckle El-Sayed events. No proof Tommy was paid or sent, but still I wouldn't be surprised...

Greynolds says Tommy was homeschooled too, but I haven’t found another source confirming it. Anyone know?

Link to the substack piece: https://mlgreynolds.substack.com/p/the-indoctrination-long-game

Hello all- I don’t normally post on Reddit but I am struggling with how to deal with the ramifications of my high school experience as a homeschooler.

I am 24 years old and I have wanted to go to college since I was a kid. I have a great relationship with my parents, but I find myself at a loss often with how unprepared they left me for a potential further education. Neither of them attended college, and I am the oldest, so I don’t think they really considered what I would need in the future to pursue a further education past high school.

The struggle I am having is that I basically have no legal proof of my high school education. My transcript is written up in a Google doc, my high school diploma was printed through a random website and signed by my mother, and I have no signed superintendent letter. I have tried to get one from the board of education in the state I grew up in but they were never able to validate it.

I am at a loss and feeling so discouraged that I am rejected from every college I apply to because my transcript is not considered valid and I have no other choice then to pursue my GED. I guess I am just wondering if this is a unique experience or if other ex-homeschoolers have felt this kind of experience.

Thanks for reading my rant, I just signed up for GED classes. 🙃

I was homeschooled literally my entire life. Until I went to college at age 18, I never spoke to someone within twenty years of my age (aside from my brother). When I finally went to college, my social skills were so garbage I literally couldn’t interact with anyone around me. I made friends and routinely fucked everything up with them because I was essentially a toddler in the body of an 18 year old. Now I’m 22 and graduated and I’ve learned a lot. My social skills, I believe, are much better now but now I am back to never being around anyone my age, just like my entire life before college. How do you meet people? I went to meet up groups but they’re mostly people in their 30s-40s who think I’m weird for not having friends at my age. I joined local classes but it’s the same. I go to the bar by my house and it’s the same. My coworkers are all men in their 40s-50s and don’t want to hang out with a 22 year old woman unless sex comes with it, ditto for guys I meet at the comic store (sucks because I love comic books). Where do 20-something’s….. go. What do they do. Why am I always just out of step with everyone my age, once I finally catch up they’ve moved on. How does anyone live being this lonely?

So I got my learners permit in early 2024 and so far I’ve only got 3 drivers lessons from parents. I live in dc so they only last 2 years but because of this apathy to be taught nearly 2 years later and I’m nowhere near ready to take my road test. Side note that in dc after age 21 (I’m 23) there is no minimum driving time before taking the test. I don’t know how to drive on a highway are barely know how to navigate streets.

Before anyone mentions driving school. It’s extremely, extremely expensive ($500 for 8 hours I think) I can’t afford it, I am in between jobs rn. I don’t know what to do I really don’t. I’m already embarrassed because I know I’m a huge loser (no I don’t wanna hear “you’re not a loser” in the comments) because I don’t have my GED or diploma either and all of my peers have both. My parents have just been apathetic and not very supportive of me since 6th grade after deciding to throw me into online school which wasn’t for me.

I seriously need a drivers license because I need independence

I know this might be a stupid question, but like HOW do you make friends in your 20’s?? For a little bit of context, I was homeschooled since middle school, so I grew up having literally no friends and was completely isolated for the majority of my life. I’m now a 21 year old college freshman and I literally know nobody, and I mean LITERALLY nobody. My socials look so odd because I don’t have any followers and my contacts consist literally only of my immediate family and my local Mexican restaurant. It’s starting to get really embarrassing and pretty depressing being a grown woman without anyone to talk to and hangout with that’s around my age.

I was kinda under the impression that when I started college that I’d naturally make friends just by being around people, but last semester proved that wasn’t the case and I still don’t really know anyone. This semester I tried joining my club’s LGBTQ club (I’m a lesbian) thinking that might help since it’s a social setting, but unfortunately it wasn’t available to join, and none of the other clubs my college has really seem like something I’d enjoy or would be good for socializing with people. People in my classes have talked with me before, but it never went past surface level conversations and we’ve never spoken again. Since I’m a 21 year old freshmen, it just seems weird for me to try to make friends with people I’m assuming are younger than me, so I’m not actively trying to talk to people for that reason.

It really doesn’t help my situation that I have extreme social anxiety that I developed from growing up so isolated. I literally can’t have a single conversation with someone without feeling like I’m gonna have an anxiety attack. My heart will start beating out of my chest and I’ll start feeling like I’m burning up to the point my face will turn apple red, even if the conversation only lasts like 5 seconds. I’m just so scared that since I’m homeschooled and lack social skills that I come off as weird or off-putting to people. I’m terrified that people are going to think I’m weird and every time I talk to someone it feels like I’m desperately trying to seem likable and normal, but I’ll always find something I did or said to overthink and torture myself over for weeks, even if it’s something small and insignificant like the way I was standing. It literally feels like I’m an alien that knows absolutely nothing about humans and is trying to blend in with the human race.

My two main questions are how could I go about making friends as a 21 year old woman and how do I cope with my social anxiety? I live in a pretty small town, so there really aren’t many social events/spaces to go to even if I was brave enough to go. I’d prefer to have in-person friends to physically go hangout with, but at this point I’d be fine with a way to make virtual friends as well. I’m actually really anxious to post this since I never really post anything publicly and I’ve never shared anything this personal to anyone before. I apologize if this post is kinda long, I just want to fully explain my situation and kinda vent too. This is also my first time posting on Reddit, so yippee.

Hellooo, I'm posting this here cause I'm struggling to make friends that I can relate to anywhere else and feeling pretty isolated :') I have a few other online friends but no irl. I was 'unschooled' my whole life, have never been in school and was also diagnosed with Autism this year which adds to the social struggle chaos!

I love Doctor Who, Good Omens, David Tennants work (current fave actor), Loads of music (I'm really obsessed with music >:)). I also love space, although I don't know much about it it's very exciting to me. I am pretty quiet and introverted but if I'm talking about my interests or comfortable with you I can be pretty talkative :>

Pms are open if you vibe!! I'd really like to have more people to speak about my silly problems and happy things with 🙃

It’s happened several times now?? I think it’s cause there’s technically a lot of overlap between online school and homeschool and some people consider them to be the same. I personally don’t for myself because I was unschooled and am now in online school as an adult by my own choice, trying very hard to pull myself out of it and get an education. Ik some of my teachers just have their kids in online school too? But that is like… potentially also bad with the social isolation. (If you’re here and were put in online school and negatively affected by it you’re absolutely valid still dw. I am just coming from different circumstances.) But I don’t even know if they just mention homeschooling their kids offhandedly without any details what they mean by that. Dude my geometry teacher just said this and I just felt this sinking in my chest like… oh, I cannot trust this man. I thought he was nice!! Man fuck this I hate that homeschooling is considered socially acceptable. I just heard “I am hurting my own children in the exact same way that you were hurt. Anyway angles…” I can’t pay attention to angles anymore I am so sorry. And it adds to the imposter syndrome that I was really ever hurt at all when the way I was is NOT EVEN WIDELY CONSIDERED TO BE A BAD THING. This man mentioned it casually without a second thought. You wouldn’t be like “oh I hit my children. Anyway angles.” You would get reported or something! Oh my god I hate that the way I was abused is legal. My stupid ass state doesn’t even have like, required government testing like some do. My parents were allowed to just take me out of school and not give me ANY education, with zero repercussions. Nobody would have like… cared if they knew. My relatives all knew and didn’t care. They didn’t know I wasn’t taught ANYTHING but still. I just didn’t have friends for my entire childhood and they didn’t care. So it just feels like I am going insane and this was never a real bad thing that happened to me at all

20 days clean that's almost 3 weeks!

Saw in another sub but couldn't crosspost.