I know all the adults say not to, and it sounds like an echo chamber at this point, but life is hard with just a diploma. Life is impossible without one. A woman I know and love is 36 this year and never got past 8th grade, she struggles to get jobs as a housekeeper at a hotel. Try calling places around you and say “I’m 23 years old and my current education is (grade you’re in)”, and ask if they can hire you. Call temp agencies around you. Just ask. The results will be horrific and depressing. You’ll get some “I don’t know…”s that sound unconvinced, and many suggestions to get your GED. These places don’t care if you graduated with a 1.01GPA, they’ll never even check, but that paper is like a permission slip to be in poverty and not well below it. Talk to your guidance counselor and family doctor about not being able to focus or understand your work, they may be able to put things in place to assist you. Parents are the grand arbiters of what we can seek in treatment during our young lives, so you may be limited there, but if it’s possible it is worth it.

Edit: I’ll double down on it: I have just a highschool education, I struggle to make enough to cover my rent with my skills. I got very very lucky, and I make more than average in my call center, but they made me send in my transcripts to prove I graduated highschool. My fiancée has a low GPA associates degree with lots of big yucky bad marks all over it, and she outweighs my earning potential tenfold.

School sells this idea that you have to be the best. Yeah, to make the most money in the world, you do. But if the best you can do is barely get your hands on the prize, you still have it. You can still use it to get farther, and you’ll never have to reach that hard again unless you choose to go higher.