Homework help: What is the Autumnal Equinox?

Homework burnout? Please help!?

• Hi, I'm fifteen years old, and I am home schooled. Since my parent's divorce several years ago, I have been forced to teach myself completely, which includes finding homework for myself, scheduling my homework, and learning everything on my own. I have always been very driven, and to cope with the stress of my life (my mom is gone, so I have to do all kinds of chores ect) I studied really hard and next year I am going to get my GED (it is equivalant to a high school diploma). I had been doing really well for the past two years I had been studying for it, I was getting really good scores on the practice tests, and I felt really motivated, until a few months ago when I started getting extreme anxiety over my homework performance. My grades started plummeting and I kept doing more and more school to compensate. Eventually I burned out and took ten days off completely. I returned back to homework just last week, but my grades are still terrible and I cannot seem to get them back to as good of grades as they used to be. I have fallen into an extreme depression, I think about suicide all the time, and I feel like I am stupid and worthless. I am also injured physically (I hurt my legs while I was hiking) and so I cannot walk and get outside and do anything, so I just sit inside all day and cry. My sister and my pop (who both live with me) seem to think I am crazy, and it really hurts because they do not understand that I am messed up from the divorce and I have all kinds of strange anxiety obsessive thoughts. I tryed so hard with my homework today, but I got the worst score I have gotten in about three years, and I feel completely hopeless.I really need advice as to what I should do, I really do not want to take another week off because I already took so many days off last week and I was just getting back into homework, but my grades are just terrible, I miss when I used to be good at school... Please answer my question and give whatever advice you think could help me, because I am almost completely alone in this world and have no one :'(

• Answer:

  First of all if you’re parents have abandoned their teaching responsibilities that’s a problem. You shouldn’t have to teach yourself, in fact, you should be in school. This is too much of a burden for someone your age, please tell your mother you want to go to school. Being left on your own doesn’t provide the structure kids require. You’re slacking off and there’s no one to enforce or encourage you to do your work. Quite frankly, I don’t know how anyone can do this to their kids, they are setting you up to do the minimal amount of work. Please go to school. By the way a GED isn’t anything these days, it’s really not the same.