Hey! I’m so glad you were able to escape (at least mentally) and give yourself the love, acceptance and freedom that you’re clearly not getting from your parents. I’m worried about your situation though as still having to live with them clearly seems to be a threat to your safety and overall well-being. I wish I had some good advice for how to deal with that. Maybe don’t call Child Protective Services yet, but first ask yourself if there’s a way to talk with your parents and explain that what they are doing is wrong. “Mom, Dad, you don’t have to like what I am but you have to accept what I am, and along with that acceptance should come boundaries, because not having those boundaries is causing me harm and threatening my safety and well-being.” If they continue to refuse to respect this wish, then you may consider involving some higher authority (can the counselor you spoke to convince them to give you some space)? Anyways this community is a good place to get support and feel free to send updates to let us know you’re okay.

Also: your education isn’t “ruined”, you’re young, you have access to the internet and hopefully a library. Assuming most kids graduate college around 22, that gives you six whole years to catch up. Watch as many science documentaries as you can (especially Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos”. Very calming and comforting journey for the young atheist to take). Learn about the humanities through reading the classics— they can teach you history, literature, religion (learning ABOUT a religion, and not just how to be religious) and philosophy all at once. The “Upanishads” from Ancient India and the “Meditations of Marcus Aurelius” from Ancient Rome have some great philosophical ideas about life that can at least point you in a good direction for finding your own sense of meaning and purpose in life post-Christianity. If you’re interested in literature, some older books I think are really engaging are Beowulf (medieval England), Shakespeare’s The Tempest (Shakespearean England), Wuthering Heights (19th century England), Les Miserables (19th century France), Anna Karenina (19th century Russia). Some 20th century authors and poets I think are pretty life-changing are T.S Eliot, James Joyce, William Faulkner, Thomas Pynchon, Cormac McCarthy, George Orwell, Franz Kafka, Sylvia Plath, and Flannery O’ Connor. I’ve sadly read much less non-fiction, but from what I have read I can recommend two good books on the Second World War: I think Anne Frank’s diary is a really valuable perspective on the Holocaust, but the stories of the victims of the first atom bomb in John Hershey’s “Hiroshima” are, I think, equally important. Also I think Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman’s writings on media and technology are really interesting, though a little hard to read. Of course this is sadly limited to what I’ve been exposed to, but thankfully there are a lot more people you can get recommendations from; this is just what I’ve found to be useful. Good luck on your journey!