HOURS late, like 12, but whatever. I have never seen an askreddit that I could respond to.

When I was about ten years old, I woke up one morning to the smell of bacon and my mother walking into the room. She informed me that it was time to wake up, and that if I ran downstairs quickly enough my father might have some bacon and pancakes left for me. She then went down the hall to the bathroom. I decided I'd wait for her to finish, then head downstairs with her. Then I heard a massive bang. She had a brain aneurysm. The next two weeks she was in the hospital, my father and sister were by her side but I was deemed to young to deal with a lot of it so was living with my Aunt and Uncle and still attending school. She died exactly two weeks after she fell at home.

After this point I grew incredibly angry. Everything set me off, small things, big things. My father, the school, family, and friends all tried their best for me. But nothing really helped. I ended up with a dislike of school, because I constantly got myself into trouble, and when I felt like not going, I just wouldn't. This resulted in me being held back in grade 8, after barely making my way to grade 8.

Highschool was much the same. I spent two years in highschool, and looking back it was actually a pretty happy time. I had a great group of friends, mind you they were the stoner/counterstrike playing friends. My father was always pushing me, and putting lots of time into my hobbies. He would spend hours on weekends reading in ski lodges (he never really skied) so my friends and I could go snowboarding. He would take my friend and I on a big week long snowboard trip once a year. He would drive us to the local hill every night I asked him to. He purchased a computer for the house with an updated graphics card because he knew I was getting into gaming with my friends. Things were going pretty decently, other than I was still not very interested in being in school. My grades reflected this, mostly a 60's student, with standout grades in the 80s for courses I really enjoyed.

Then things tumbled again. I was threatened by a friends friend, pretty strongly threatened. And I decided to lay low for a bit to let things pass. The issue was, I never got out of the laying low. This caused a bit of a riff with my friends, as they never really saw me other than at school. Speaking with them now, they even comment on the fact that I was a miserable person at school. So they never even got the best of me.

Then my father had a heart attack. This terrified me, and I withdrew from everything even more. I dropped out of school in the eleventh grade. I spent my time online playing counterstrike to escape the day to day life I had. I hid in my room when my friends came to the door to see what was up. I was depressed, deeply.

A year later, my father contracted lung cancer. This would have been my last year of school, my friends were all in grade 12. He was doing well with treatment for awhile, and then took a turn for the worst one eve. He had a bad reaction with some drugs, and had hallucinated quite badly. He was incredibly terrified of not having people around he could trust to talk him through those hallucinations, so my sister and I started spending the day/night with him on rotation. I spent close to two months, every other night, driving to a hospital around an hour and a half away from our house to sleep in a chair beside his bed just in case.

When he was discharged from the hospital after his chemo and radiation were done, he came home. He had a home care nurse, but I was the only family member living with him. He kept pushing me to go back to school, and this was around March, so I said yes and registered at a school that was known as being for the 'bad' kids. It was one of those schools they send the worst kids in a district to. I would start in September.

In late August, we were told he didn't have much time to live. 3 days later, he died.

I stuck with the plan though. I went to school, but I couldn't deal with it. I was now living alone in my parent's house at the age of 18 with no one else, no friends, and I was incredibly depressed. My family tried, but none of them had experience in dealing with what I was going through.

I eventually left that school and moved to a different city. I then went to another school, very similar to this one but private. And completed a few courses here and there over the next two years. My heart was never in it. I failed courses, and maybe completed coursework for 2 or 3 courses per term over the time I was there. I am sure the teachers and other students at this school would classify me as an incredibly poor student.

Then I fell into another deep depression and just wasted away for a few years.

Until I received a phone call that my grandmother was dying. She was my only living grandparent, and the only one I ever really knew. I immediately went back to my home town to be with her. The way my family rallied around her was amazing. It was a really special time. She was in hospice, and her room was always a happy one. I never really got to see her awake while I was there, but we always talked about the past and shared great memories with each other until she died.

I started thinking about how many other family members, or people I cared about, would only know me as the sad kid. I wanted to make sure that would change. I didn't want people worrying about me, and it was evident over the time I spent with my family by my grandmothers bed that everyone was worried.

I moved again, to a new city where a large portion of my family lived. I moved there because it had a highschool for adults that was just like a normal highschool. Not a correspondence in the classroom kinda place, but a real school. I excelled. I received some of the highest marks given in the classes I was in, I ended up graduating with some pretty high honours close to two years later. I even ended up going to summer school with actual 11th graders for one course while I was in my mid 20s. I was extremely dedicated. I bussed for almost an hour and a half each direction every day to get to and from school.

That basically leads me to where I am now. I am enrolled at one of the best universities in my country, and without question the best school for my major in this country. I am in my third year, and I've done very well academically here. There have been hiccups, and things are a little difficult as I have had three jobs while going to school. But I've been having a wonderful time.

I've made loads of friends, I learned a massive amount. I am engaged with the university community, and volunteer with different organizations. I love it here. I've never been more actively engaged in living my own life than I have been these past few years.

I know this was quite long, but I wanted to show the roadblocks I had and still have. It isn't easy being the old guy in class sometimes. I've been made fun of for it, and some people don't want anything to do with me when they figure it out. But I still go, I am still loving it. You just need to find your reason. Once you have a reason to do something, you really can break through any wall in front of you.

tl;dr lost interest in school due to family deaths and the depression which followed. Went back to school because of the support of family, am now doing well at a great university.