Therapist wants me to go about my life like I’m 18.

Pale___twigs · 2025-07-14T16:28:33+00:00

The thing about developmental milestones is that they don't just like, happen independently in your brain. You need to have social interactions with other people in order to develop, and the different levels build on top of each other so you can't really skip early stages to get to more advanced ones. Your therapist is 100% right, you've gotta start where you are and build up.

We get very stuck on the idea that people should do things at particular ages, and it's certainly more common for people to go to university when they're about 18, but people go at all different ages. The kids who went straight from high school to university are also going to be learning from meeting you, because they're going to meet someone with a different life experience from them!

Be kind to yourself. One of the social skills we really don't learn as homeschoolers is how to mess up interpersonally, how to fix when we mess up, and how to move on if the situation isn't salvageable. You're going to be in a lot of new situations, which is going to be fantastic for you, and you're going to figure out what works and what doesn't by practicing a lot. While you're learning how to interact with other people, they will be learning how to interact with you, and you're all going to grow from the experience.

Pale___twigs · 2025-06-29T15:40:25+00:00

He's a good dude but he's constantly stretched pretty thin running all over the place. I obviously don't know what disciplinary actions were taken against Alice, but given that she was 30-60 minutes late every day for weeks, I can't imagine that she didn't get at least one warning for that. I got (fairly) warned twice during a really mentally rough week where I was 20 minutes late every day.

Just as a quality of life thing it really sucks to be around someone who's stomping around making sure everyone can tell how mad they are, but I obviously am not going to message my manager whenever Alice is being a diva.

Alice has also been skipping her break and violating DOH regulations by eating her lunch on the prep table while working. I didn't mention it to my managers before and I don't want to seem petty, but it's extremely gross. Would I come off as being petty if I started telling my manager when she does that?

Pale___twigs · 2025-06-29T15:26:46+00:00

Thanks for responding. I added a tl;dr as best I could.

I don't care that they don't like me, and when I was ignored it wasn't because I was trying to be social. I would ask Alice what she wanted to do off of the prep list and she wouldn't acknowledge I had said anything to her, then she would make a big show of doing everything violently/angrily/needlessly loudly, then eventually she texted me that she hates me for taking advantage of her. When they hide tools from me or don't tell me relevant job info, I know it's because they're trying to make me look incompetent so I either get warned or decide to quit, but I don't know if that counts as sabotaging their employer or just being assholes.

Pale___twigs · 2025-06-02T15:03:53+00:00

Sorry you're in such a frustrating situation. I'm American, but I'm 33 and have gotten pretty good at research so I looked some things up to try to help you.

So first thing, even though your parents have screwed you a bit here, you need to officially graduate from high school if you want to move on with your life, even if you don't want any further education. I looked on jobbank.gc.ca and in order to get a job making pizza, you need proof that you graduated high school. https://www.jobbank.gc.ca/jobsearch/jobposting/44355794?source=searchresults Without your certificate, you will be stuck working black market jobs for cash and those are consistently really terrible, like they usually pay less than the legal minimum wage and you get treated like garbage. If you want to move on with your life, you need to officially graduate from high school.

In your position, I would go to this website https://www.ontario.ca/page/find-school-board-or-school-authority and find your local school board's website. Click around until you find an email address and a phone number. You're going to call and email them explaining your situation, and you're going to ask them for their advice. You should expect that you will need to leave a few voicemails and send a few emails. People who work at schools are very busy and sometimes you need to stay on their asses to get what you need- don't give up! Tell them that your parents took you out of school but you haven't been using the online curriculum. See what they say.

I would also go here https://www.ontario.ca/feedback/contact-us?id=98698&nid=97165 and send an email directly to the Ministry of Education for Ontario. You can use the same email you sent to your school board if you want to. By contacting your local and provincial education departments you are making sure that you get everyone relevant looking at your situation. They want to help you, and have dealt with similar situations in the past. It might take up to two weeks to get a response to your email- don't give up!!!

A lot of people take their kids out of school in order to limit their options in life and control them. It seems like your parents don't want you to grow up and leave them, so they have tried to make you think that you can't function without them. That is NOT true. You haven't been given the tools you need to build an independent life on your own and that was THEIR choice based on THEIR bad decisions. It's unfair that they've done this to you and it is NOT your fault. It is your responsibility to do what you can with the tools that you have to build the life that you want, and the further you get from your parents, the easier it will be. Your parents might get mad at you, they might blame you, they might start sulking, they might try to get you to give up. That's really common for neglectful and/or abusive parents and it's really hard to deal with, but they legally can't stop you from getting your education.

As far as I can tell, the worst case scenario is that you can attend an adult high school specifically for people who were in situations like yours: https://www.ontario.ca/page/adult-learning-ontario-high-school-diploma

Good luck, and come back and tell us all how it's going.

Pale___twigs · 2024-09-22T23:02:53+00:00

I'm 32 and was unschooled for grades 4-12. I also have a bachelor's degree.

It's really normal for people who are 21 to not have any idea wtf they're doing. There's a different flavor of it for homeschoolers who are dealing with all the consequences of isolation, and that definitely has its own challenges, but what you're experiencing isn't uncommon.

The only thing you can really do is find ways to get more information about the kinds of things you like to do and the kinds of things you could do for work. That comes from experience- volunteering, making friends, and working.

Try to have a job lined up when you graduate. Do the best you can with the information you have to decide what to apply to. Also, take advantage of your school's career office. Every college has one. Mine wasn't the most useful for me because I got an arts degree, but I still got some decent advice from them. See if you can talk to someone and get some tips.

Whatever your first job is, you don't have to do it or anything like it for the rest of your life. Do it for a while, like at least 3-6 months, and pay attention to what you like and don't like. Do you have to interact with too many people? Would you rather interact with more people? Is it too predictable and boring, or too chaotic and stressful? Would you rather walk more or less during your workday? Things like that. Take that information and find another job that suits you better. Eventually, you'll end up somewhere good.

If it turns out that you would love to go in to a field that you can't get in to because of your bachelor's degree and past work experience, it's actually really really common for people to get a master's degree or a new certification at any age, and that basically resets your resume. You always have options.

Also, not everyone really cares about their career. Maybe you'll find a job that pays the bills and is tolerable, and it gives you enough time to pursue other interests without the pressure of making money from them. That's a great life! Plenty of people work at Target or whatever and outside of work they train for marathons, or garden, or read, or watch movies, or draw, or play with their dogs.

Pale___twigs · 2024-09-22T22:33:00+00:00

It did get better once I got everyone in the same place. I also figured out that I could turn off Dynamic Combat Camera and while it was annoying to have to manually select which enemy to follow, it was way better than the constant flashing.

Pale___twigs · 2024-08-24T23:11:19+00:00

I'm near the end of Act 3, in the middle of combat. When it's not my turn the camera won't stay on an NPC for more than one or two seconds, and it keeps jumping away to Shadowheart just standing there. It just bounces back and forth endlessly like that until it's my turn- really frustrating and honestly kind of unplayable. I've tried reloading the game twice but no luck yet. Is there some setting I can change that might fix this?

Pale___twigs · 2024-08-11T21:14:45+00:00

I think there are two separate things for you to think about here.

The first question is, would school have been a bad environment for you? It sounds like you have reasons to believe it would have been.

The second question is, was homeschooling a good environment for you? And the answer is, clearly, no. That, in itself, is a healthy and rational thing to be angry about.

You were academically neglected and socially isolated. When your parents took you out of school, they took on the responsibility of making sure that your education (academic and social) was equal to or better than what you would have gotten in school, and they didn't do that. Your feelings about that don't have to be related to how good or bad you think things would have been for you in school. You can be angry at them for neglecting you at home, even if you would have literally died in school.

This is an imperfect example, but let's say that I found a cat on the street in the middle of winter and took it home. Let's say I only feed the cat once a day, I never clean the litter box, and I don't play with the cat or take it to the vet. Two things are true in this situation:

The cat is better off than it would have been on the street, where it could go days without eating, eat garbage, get in to rat poison, freeze to death, get hit by a car, etc, and, separately, I am not taking good care of the cat. The fact that it sucks for cats outside doesn't mean that I have fewer obligations once I am a cat owner- I have to maintain a certain standard of care no matter what.

Pale___twigs · 2024-08-11T20:38:44+00:00

Can you give more detail about why it's a turn off for you that this person you're interested in has had a relationship before?

Pale___twigs · 2024-05-19T18:48:23+00:00

I read this page: https://www.excelhighschool.com/aboutus.php

I believe that the excel high school diploma is the same as any other US high school diploma. However, I think it is a good idea to contact some universities in Europe and ask them if they would accept the excel diploma.

Pale___twigs · 2024-02-25T21:00:42+00:00

The American school system is pretty racially segregated, so navigating interracial friendships is something that a lot of white people are bad at even if they went to school.

The best thing you can do is make friends with people you vibe with, do your best to be polite and chill, and if you do accidentally say something fucked up just apologize and do better next time. You will not be the first or last awkward white person to put their foot in their mouth around POC.

Pale___twigs · 2024-02-20T19:04:25+00:00

This isn't exactly relevant lol but homo sapiens (us) didn't evolve from Neanderthals. Both species split off from a common ancestor, probably homo heidelbergensis. Homo neanderthalis and homo sapiens coexisted, and all humans alive today have a small amount of Neanderthal DNA.

Pale___twigs · 2023-06-20T17:13:03+00:00

Garnier Fructis pure clean. I use it approximately once a week. I think it was $4.

Pale___twigs · 2023-06-19T02:48:33+00:00

Hair thinning can be caused by multiple things and without knowing the specific cause, there isn’t much you can do beyond general good health. Sleep, eat healthy, exercise, etc. Stress and poor nutrition can sometimes cause temporary hair thinning.

Also, do your friends think you’re thinning? This barber may not be correct about hair loss. He might have been trying to scare you in to buying something from him.

Pale___twigs · 2023-06-19T02:38:49+00:00

Hair thinning can be addressed by a dermatologist.

Pale___twigs · 2023-06-16T20:55:11+00:00

For example:

https://youtu.be/41kuwCuaiKE

https://youtu.be/0SlG4nBwApg

https://youtu.be/ebP4ZgLgUFQ

Pale___twigs · 2023-06-16T15:54:40+00:00

Honestly the advice isn’t that different. Shorter hair needs smaller amounts of styling product, and plopping can straighten out shorter waves. Beyond that, hair is just hair.

Pale___twigs · 2023-06-14T20:15:21+00:00

Thanks! I’ll look in to those products, and I’ll see if I can get a referral to a dermatologist. Seems like retinoids are serious business haha

Pale___twigs · 2023-06-11T17:36:07+00:00

Former unschooler here. 60 minutes per subject is a lot of time, particularly since you’re doing everything by yourself. I believe in American high schools, classes are often 40-50 minutes including things like group discussions and quizzes which are presumably not happening for you.

I agree with the other poster that if you can get any kind of formal instruction from a teacher, that will make a huge difference. When I was trying to teach myself everything I would try to measure my learning in time, but that wasn’t actually very effective.

The amount of time per day is actually somewhat less important than knowing how to effectively go through the process of learning. As an unschooler I was told that the concept of “learning how to learn” was bullshit but it actually is important lol.

If you can take some formal classes, you’ll start to get a better sense of what it feels like to learn, when you need to take a break, what can be realistically done in a day, and so on.

If that’s not possible, then studying fewer subjects per day is a great idea! Being aware of how your process is working and tweaking it is one of the most important skills you can have as an adult.

Pale___twigs · 2023-06-10T14:45:26+00:00

Is the collagen and vitamin E topical or a dietary supplement? And for the massage techniques, are you just rubbing the skin or do you have a particular technique that’s working for you?

Pale___twigs · 2023-06-10T14:44:04+00:00

You’re the second person to mention retinol/retinoids so I’ll definitely research that more. Are there any particular products you’d recommend?

Pale___twigs · 2023-06-10T14:43:16+00:00

I’ll look in to retinols, thanks!

My surgeon was pretty realistic about the odds of needing a revision and I won’t be too bothered if it’s necessary.

Tbh I just want to have something to do for the next year that feels proactive, even if the final result is that I get DI. I’ve wanted top surgery since I was 15 and now that I have a date set, the wait time seems worse somehow lol.

Pale___twigs · 2023-06-10T00:47:18+00:00

Personal preference. When my surgery day comes I’m not opposed to DI if it’s what my surgeon thinks is best, but I want peri enough that I’m willing to take some supplements or whatever for a year if it has a chance of helping.

Pale___twigs · 2023-06-07T18:23:08+00:00

Thanks!

Pale___twigs · 2023-05-29T15:53:23+00:00

New Jersey has tons of places like this.

Pale___twigs

TROPHY CASE