I hated high school because of all of the fake people, the bullies and the rumors and my parents are forcing me to go college where I’ll probably find all those awful people and become even more depressed than I already am remembering how everyone secretly hated me and I won’t fit in EVER in school or in society. I know I need at least an Associates or Bachelors degree to get anywhere in life but I just need a break. I just graduated high school in June. I REALLY don’t want to start at the same Community College as half of my graduating class and deal with their crap all over again. They’ve broken me enough. I hate school. I don’t want to go to college this year! Maybe next year but not now…I need help. How can I convince my stubborn/strict parents that I need a break? What will make them understand that school, the people in school and the stress of it all is too much for me and one of the underlying causes of my depression? How can I make them see that I’m not ready to go back yet?
How about an online school?
How exactly are they forcing you to go to college? Did they fill out your application for you, take your placement tests, and sign you up for classes? You could not go to the registrars office and drop all your classes?
Is your question really, “how can I say no to my parents without consequences?” The answer is you can’t. But if there is maturity and open communication on both sides, the consequences can be managed.
Are you in counseling of some sort for your depression? You could discuss this there.
Do you have a plan for what you would like to do with your time off? Are you thinking about working for a year? I would suggest you have a plan and try to talk to your parents. As a parent, I wouldn’t be opposed to a semester off if that semester was going to be spent productively. If they are difficult to talk to, please seek the help of a counselor to assist you.
Please also remember that even a CC is large enough for you to start a new circle of friends. Try getting involved in some activities and meeting some new people. It is time to leave HS behind if it wasn’t a good experience for you.
You know, you could take just a couple of classes to begin with. College is much different that high school. You aren’t’ spending all day with the same people. In college, you spend a lot less time in class - If you just started taking a couple of classes so you might only be in school for 6 hours/week vs 6 hours/per day with those people. And I’m sure that there will be lots of new people that you’ve never met in your classes - so it will be a much different experience. Think about that.
If you really feel you’re just not ready and the plan all along was for you to attend community you should just try to calmly have a mature talk with your parents and try to reach a compromise. Just present your case in a reasonable manner and tell them you need time to think about your options and unwind for a bit, but you do plan to start school in a semester or two. Maybe skip one semester and get a part-time job to keep busy and see how that goes. Then talk about it again in a couple of months to see if you’re ready to start in the spring. If not take the whole year. Tell them that you feel it will be a waste of their money if you start school now half-heartedly. That you’d like to go in with a fresh new attitude ready to dedicate yourself to doing well, but you just don’t feel that way right now. Hopefully they will be open to listening to you.
BTW,did you make decent grades in high school? Do you feel up to the academic challenge but just need a break? Does you CC offer automatic admission to 4 year schools in your state if you meet a certain GPA and fulfill a gen ed curriculum? If that’s the case, then it would be in your and your parents best interest to give you a little while to unwind so that you will have the motivation to do well in your classes and be able to transfer to a 4 year school easily. Going to school only to make bad grades will serve no purpose.
There really is no rule that says you have to graduate in 4 years, in fact it’s normal not to. It took me 6 years because I was like you for the first three years in my hometown college - this was a LONG time ago, but many of my friends got married right after they graduated. I was commuting from home so I just went to class and then back home so I didn’t have much of a chance to meet new people or get involved in college life. I hated it. I went for two years taking gen ed classes and random fun classes, and then took off for a semester to work full time, then went back again for a semester - THEN decided I just wasn’t happy and transferred to another school which had a major I was interested in. (I did make decent grades though all that time I was just kind of aimlessly drifting. But at my new school I had to live in the dorm and that made SUCH a difference. I met so many new people and found that college in a new environment at a bigger school was much less cliquey and there were lots of people who were nice and friendly. I was shy and introverted but I still made a lot of friends. I only ran into people from my hometown once or twice the whole three years that I was there - and not one from my high school.
I do agree with your parents. It will be very difficult to become independent without some sort of plan for the future. The kinds of jobs that you can get with no certificate, vocational training, Associates, or BA/BS will not give you the opportunity to earn a good income and eventually be on your own. But you have to have a healthy mind and attitude to do your best.
Hope some of that helps. Good luck and let us know how it goes.
You can move out and support yourself. There probably isn’t much stopping you. I’d try to stay on good terms with your parents, though (for example, they might keep you on their health insurance if you do).
Have you spoken to your parents, calmly and logically, about why you don’t want to go?
If you were to take, say, a gap year, what would you do? Do you currently have a part time job? Do you have any prospects for one?
If you opted out of CC, is there a State University/college nearby that you could attend? Do you have the grades/ money to go away to a state school?
Being “broken” sounds serious to me. Have you spoken to a therapist of some sort?
College is much bigger than high school. Everyone has different majors. I doubt you are going to have classes with the same high school students. You will get a chance to meet new students and start fresh in college where everyone is new and no one knows about your high school experiences. You may see some high school classmates once in awhile on campus but you don’t have to mingle with them since there will be so many other new students you can be friends with.
One thing that will help you be successful in life is learning to get along with people and building communication skills. College is a great time to do that. At work you may not like all your coworkers but you need to have team spirit and be able to get along with them and work with them.
Some people are just very immature in high school but as they get older they grow up and their personalities change.
What are your high school stats?
Are there 4-year colleges you could attend beside the community college near your home, if you take a gap year and retake tests?
If you take a gap year, what will you do?
Yo convince your parents, you must show that the gap year 1) will have a clear outcome 2) will be productive 3) that the expected end result will be better than the current one.
Are you not over 18? Couldn’t you just get a retail job for the next couple months and pretend you are still planning to go until you get enough money to move out? After that, they won’t have any control over whether you go to college or not.
Attending the same local CC as many of your current HS class…makes a lots of students cringe. This was a major issue for my niece. And she also wanted to “go away” to school like her sister and cousins. Solution: She is going to a community college 7 hrs away. In your case, with the added depression, you could also meet with a therapist near your home then continue treatment via scheduled phone conversations. Hope this helps 
Apply for jobs. Once you get a stable job, move out and get an apartment or live with other family.
Go join the military. You will have a job and career far away from your parents and all those former classmates. The military will provide you with training and opportunities for advancement if you stay in. If you decide to go back to college one day, the military might even pay for it, and give you an officer position.
Could you take a gap year and focus on getting a job to become independent of the parents? As for college, you could start with a CC (keeps costs low) but take courses online to start when you are ready.
In my experience and I know this is kind of mean but it was something that observed when I was at my CC. Every fall we would get hordes of HS kids who did not fully understand that college is not like HS. Usually by the end of the first month a lot of them dropped out like flies. They simply could not handle the course load and thought they could goof off, miss class and misbehave. Chances are, after a year these bullies you talk about will have either moved on or grown up just a little.
Honestly, if you hated it that much and foresaw this college obligation, you should’ve tried your best to get into a different college.
Although realistically speaking, in your circumstances rn, what good will not going to college do? Even if you postpone it for a year— you’re still going to be enrolled in the same school. Do you have plans to even change that? Or the means to? If not, then I don’t see the point of post poning it.
From an honest perspective , people will judge and maticulafe you no matter what. It doesn’t matter if you escape hs, or college, in the end you’re still stuck with people. You’ll meet the same people in the workplace and any social setting. So don’t think if you’re out of those two settings you’ll somehow be in a safe haven. Don’t go to college and they’ll make fun of you while you’re working a shift at mcdonalds. Get a reward from it. Don’t run away from the situation. Stick up for yourself. You don’t sound like a kid who doesn’t like learning. So pursue it.
It’s been over a week since you started this thread. Have you spoken to your parents yet?
OP hasn’t been back since July 28th