It's an interesting set of questions and as you point out, it's hard for me to narrow down to a single thing. I'm certain my social circle saved me, but my clos

It's an interesting set of questions and as you point out, it's hard for me to narrow down to a single thing. I'm certain my social circle saved me, but my closest friends in high school were mostly from similar, or less fortunate financial circumstances. For me, I don't think it was the curriculum or the socioeconomic background of the kids so much as the little sliver of hope it gave me/us. It was the remote possibility that I just might be able to build a life that did not look like the adult lives I could see. A life that wouldn't be a decades long, living nightmare of hypocrisy, low-wage slavery, overwhelming debt and silent desperation, which is what I could see in most adults I had ever met, even (maybe especially?) the "wealthy" ones. I'm not sure regular public schools generally offer that kind of possibility or outlet to basically hopeless, misguided (but creative) kids like I was. My previous schools only offered extra discipline in the form of regular beatings [1] which mainly just triggered and reinforced my lifelong distrust of authority figures. [1]: I (wrongly) assumed corporal punishment had long ago been outlawed or at least effectively banned in Florida's public schools decades ago, but alas our government officials will never permit anyone to besmirch our earned reputation as an ignorant backwater. Corporal punishment is apparently still permitted to this day: https://www.the74million.org/article/kids-keep-getting-hit-at-school-even-where-corporal-punishment-is-banned/ https://www.the74million.org/article/kids-keep-getting-hit-a...