I had set off for home, never to return to school again. Hundreds of scenarios were racing through my mind. I knew damn well they would try to force me back, but I kept repeating the promise I made to myself:
“This is my life, my will, my decisions. I swear to myself: I will never go back on this decision.”

Finally I got home. I went straight to my room and started working; I didn’t want to fight with everyone right away, so I waited until evening. And eventually evening came. Everyone in the house already knew I was back.

My father was furious. The first thing he said was:
“Get ready, tomorrow you’re going back to school.”

I stubbornly told him I wasn’t going, that I had different plans. Everyone kept giving me the same advice: “You can still follow your plans while staying in school.” To me that was the dumbest advice I’d ever heard in my life, because I knew school would never give me the freedom I actually wanted.

Think about it like this:
If I had stayed in school, my family would have pressured me to study for the university entrance exam. I would have been psychologically crushed by that exam stress, and the time I could devote to my own projects would have been almost zero, because teachers were constantly forcing study sessions.

Being at home has its own hardships, of course, very different ones. House chores, and because of my allergies I suffer non-stop. I’m allergic to dust, pollen, strong grass smells… and the problem is that almost every job around here involves exactly those things: mowing grass in summer, taking care of animals, etc.

On top of all that, the biggest issue was the constant feeling of loneliness at home. The friend circle would never be like it was at school ever again. And that part, honestly, was the hardest on my soul.

There are many, many more things, but in the end I thought about it for a very long time and decided that coming home was the best decision.

The next morning my father kept stubbornly trying to send me back. The principal of the school I had originally won (the best school in the city) even called my father and gave him suggestions about getting me to return. I knew exactly how disappointed my father was, so I rejected his demands respectfully.

That’s how my first day at home ended. My father was still extremely angry with me. He just sat there and kept telling all the men in the house, “None of you will ever amount to anything.”

I come from a big family. I’m the youngest male, I have four older brothers. Each of them had different opinions about my decision, but the one who always gave me the greatest psychological support was my oldest brother. He opened a door so I could see my own inner strength, and I walked through it myself.

Everyone in the house blamed my oldest brother for me leaving school, but he had absolutely nothing to do with it. I told everyone over and over: this was my decision.

Within 2-3 days the entire neighborhood was gossiping about me dropping out. Most of them came to our house just to piss my father off and talk about it.

I had made a promise to myself. The power that promise gave me kept me going. I was constantly subjected to psychological bullying.

That first year after leaving school was so incredibly hard that every single day was spent just working in my room. I had already made a blacklist in my mind; everyone who hurt my soul was going to pay for it one day.

At the same time, I started ventures in many different areas and began taking huge steps in what I was doing. The pressure to go back to school was still there, but for me it wasn’t even an option anymore.

By the end of the first year, everyone at home had finally accepted it. My own work started progressing even more, and then new problems appeared, above all: loneliness.

That feeling is the most active emotion in my life. Every moment, everywhere, I am alone. I miss the friend circle I had at school. I have no friends now. All of this is so hard, believe me, incredibly hard. I’m dealing with very tough things, and on top of that the weight of loneliness is crushing.
I knew it was going to be like this, but I never imagined it would be this hard. I always tell myself the same thing: “Even if I were still in school today, I would do exactly the same thing again.”