I'm home educated now. It wasn't exactly a planned decision — it came off the back of a situation with school that got pretty bad (I wrote about that separately if you want the full story). But here I am, and honestly? It's fine. More than fine, actually.
What it's actually like day to day
It's quieter. That's the main thing. No forced schedule that doesn't fit how my brain works, no environments that are overwhelming, no having to mask all day and arrive home completely depleted. I can actually get things done.
A lot of my day ends up being coding — building things for the server host I work at, working on personal projects, learning new stuff because I want to, not because someone told me to. That's not nothing. That's actually a lot.
The social thing
This is the bit people always ask about. "Don't you miss socialising?" The honest answer is — I talk to people online pretty much constantly. Discord, messages, whatever. The number of people I actually talk to hasn't really changed, just the format. And the format that actually works for me has always been text anyway.
In person I'm down to a pretty small circle right now — my mum, Claws, and three friends. That's it. That's not ideal and I know it's a result of everything that happened, but it's where things are at and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
Is it better?
For me, right now, yes. I'm not going to universally recommend it because it depends entirely on the person and the situation. But for an autistic kid whose school situation actively made things worse — getting out of that environment and having space to actually breathe has made a real difference.
I'm still figuring out what comes next. But at least I'm figuring it out from a place that isn't making everything harder.