I totally get where you are coming from. When strength fails, it fails and those who can't understand have to be forgiven for their failure also. I remember when I went back to college more than 10 years after dropping out. When I told my father that I was returning, he said, "Well, I don't know why you didn't finish it back when you started." I got upset and we didn't speak for months. I went in and out of 4 colleges before I finally went to a 5th, where I managed to hang in their till graduation - magna cum laude. There was years after coming to think that I didn't really have any ability. (Of course, I was lucky to have been a student at a time and a place where school didn't cost anything like it des today.)

You may benefit from taking a course here and there, as I did, just to keep the mental tools from completely rusting - even if you end up going to some low-priced voc-tech school to take something that's an easy win, before eventually tackling a real academic challenge again. It's so easy for family to say, "Gee, you had real ability. Such a shame that you are totally wasting that." Turn a deaf ear. When you get to where you can't do it, you just can't do it - and that's that.

Rest while you need to, then find something you can do - if it's playing tiddly winks. I tried a mail order course on stenography, before deciding that even that was way too beyond me. I ended up working for minimum wage. Sometimes, I didn't work at all. Life actually does give you more chances than you would believe at age 20. I went to one business, asking if they had any openings, to be told "No" and to overhear, as I walked toward the door, one person there say to another, "Her? Oh just another drop out."

Those things sting and seem to keep reverberating off the walls of your mind in never-ending echos. TBH, NewLyfe, I'ld forgotten how bad those things felt. They've since been buried under a ton of later experiences - some positive and some miserably negative . . . and some quite wonderful.

I need a new layer of positive experience. Guess, I've got to realize that it won't come ringing my doorbell to meet me. I've got to make some kind of a move. Thinking on the past sure reminds me how me making a series of seemingly fruitless attempts eventually got rewarded . . . more than I would have expected. We just have to keep relearning that lesson. You will too.

So you did some "bad" things. Well, so did everyone else around you, including everyone in your family. Trust me - your parents haven't told you all they could about themselves. Some things they haven't told each other. (Who would have believed Bill Cosby could have done what it sounds like he done.) It is the worst people who have the easiest time forgiving themselves.

Cut yourself some slack. Your worst mistakes in life probably have yet to be made. Not a comforting thought, but save some guilt for when you may really need to embrace some. I have found that people who have screwed up and forgiven themselves tend to be more humane and forgiving toward others. Your failures may be what goes the furthest in making you a decent human being.