I didn't talk to my parents for years. I needed my life to myself to recover for a little while, because I felt that I couldn't trust my parents/anyone and needed freedom to figure myself out. Having zero support and struggling as hard as I did didn't help improve the situation, it made me angry I was abandoned and reenforced the distrust.

The best thing they could have done was given me a place to Do My Thing, food, and electricity, and some warnings about bad habits and explicit and detailed examples of why they are bad. Instead I struggled and scraped and fell behind (and picked up some bad habits as a response to the harshness) just trying to get a room where I could sit and use my computer to make money, and I hated the world for it. Because the trust wasn't there and I couldn't express myself, everything they told me was in an angry and authoritative tone and my brain just blocked it out and made me more introverted.

I knew what I wanted to do and I couldn't understand how they didn't know that and support it. (I didn't express myself well and I was too weird and high tech and clever, like I get the impression this kid is.)

Also: At that age a year of school feels like a decade. The people in this thread saying "what's the big deal about another couple years" are possibly (if anything like my situation) sentencing this kid to life in hell in his eyes.

Double addendum: I get along great with my parents now and they support me entirely.