This post isn't meant to be advice, it's just my personal experience with school.
I was always shy in school, and always one of the top five students in my class. The shyness never really hurt my social status in school until about 10th grade. I was actually one of the "cool" kids all through school. I even dated the hottest girl in the class ahead of mine when I was a freshman in high school. I'm mentioning all of this to show you that it doesn't matter who you are, social phobia can affect anybody.
When I entered the tenth grade, I noticed something was different. I still had all of my friends and I didn't have any enemies either. I would walk to school in the morning and feel the anxiety rise inside me until I got the front doors, where a lump would rise to the top of my throat as I got closer. I would see my friends and the anxiety would force a quick conversation and I would find the quickest way out. Sitting in my first class, my teeth would clench, my muscles would tense, and I would constantly either tap my foot or pencil. By the time second period rolled around, my armpits would have sweat marks and that only made the anxiety increase. One week of this caused me to make an appointment with my guidance counselor, but I'd already made up my mind that I wasn't going to go through that for three more years plus college. I met with her the next day and the decision was made without her consent.
I chose to finish high school through homeschool, in an environment that I was comfortable with. By the end of that school year, I had completed my last three years of school and I enrolled in a community college about two hours away from where I lived.
College was even worse than high school (since I knew nobody there except my brother, who I moved in with), but I decided to try to fight through it because I didn't I didn't really have another option at that time. The first semester passed, and I ended up with a great a GPA of 3.75. However, I was mentally and physically drained by my panic disorder, not to mention the constant arguments that my brother and I would have over the issues that I was battling (I never had the ambition to go out and socialize, just because that simple task of going to class would tire me out so much). I decided to enroll in a private college so that I'd have more time away from the house and more work to do when I was at home so I wouldn't have to deal with my party animal brother. Low and behold and developed a severe opiate abuse habit and he became violent, not caring about my feelings at all, bringing people into the house at all hours of the night. Luckily our landlord lived downstairs and watched/heard the situation unfold and my brother got taken off the lease and evicted. By that point I had stopped going to class because of the stress at home added to the anxiety / panic disorder during classes and social situations.
That's when agoraphobia struck. I left my house only for food or to pay bills for the rest of that semester, and then one final time to withdraw from college due to illness so I wouldn't get any zeros on my record. Then I broke the news to my parents that my anxiety had taken over again and I needed to go back to the shrink. The psychiatrist just put me on some more SSRI's , which did nothing for me. I finally was prescribed clonazepam and propanolol, and together with the counseling I'd had I was doing fairly well at handling my anxiety. Therefore, I decided to make a final attempt at college and enrolled in a state university that was located about an hour and a half from my home town.
I lived there in an apartment by myself, which, in retrospect, was a horrible choice because it made it so easy for me to withdraw from the world. My final year of school with panic disorder was just like the beginning of my sophomore year in high school. I went for a week, knew I wouldn't be able to handle it without completely losing my mind, and started looking for other career options.
I'm now studying at home to be a medical transcriptionist. I've actually already received a job offer from my own psychiatrist once I graduate. The school that I'm studying with also hooks its graduates up with jobs upon graduation in many cases. I'll be able to work from home too. Who knows if this is what I'm going to spend my life doing, but at least I'll be able to earn some money without the social stresses that traditional schools/jobs put on people like us.
I'm only 19 too, so I have a lot of time ahead of me to figure everything out. I only shared this story to show you that high school isn't as important as people make it out to be. As long as you can do good on your SATs (in the u.s.), then you're fine. When I was in tenth grade I got an 1170 on my SATs and the colleges I applied to didn't even care about my crazy high school to home school decision.
I wish you the best of luck in your journey, and I hope you can make more than I did of the chance that you're given to obtain a college degree.
It's so important in today's world.
Peace