Rachel, I'm sorry that the responses you have received have upset you, and yes, some, though not all, of them have been harsh and disrespectful.
Please try to understand our reluctance in simply providing "cold hard facts" is that many of us are neither cold nor hard people. If you really want them, though, the cold hard facts are that your goal, to find a company that will act as your legal guardian so that you can attend an international high school in Japan while living off-campus, is impossible. I say this not as a judgement of whether or not I think your goal is a good one, but simply as an observation of those cold hard facts you are seeking. It's not possible.
At the same time, those of us who are not cold, hard people, such as LIZ and those other posters who have offered advice in good faith, would feel remiss if we simply said "Nope, your goal is impossible" and left it at that. While your exact goal is impossible, there are ways to achieve parts of it. Living in a dormitory while going to high school in Japan is an option, though it would mean giving up on living off-campus. Living off-campus while attending language school or university is another, though that means having to finish high school somewhere other than Japan.
So to more completely state the cold, hard facts: Your plan is impossible, but there are other plans which will at least allow you to achieve some of your goals. Perhaps it was presumptuous of us to assume you would want to know more about those plans, but for those of us who are not cold, hard people, we feel a responsibility to share the alternatives that are also connected to the topic of discussion.
u I so badly didnft want to talk about this stuff because people would only think I am mentally ill and that I should just get therapy and then everything will be fine.v
I apologize if the suggestion to speak to a psychologist made by myself and others made you feel as though we were implying that your are mentally ill, or that therapy would be a quick and easy way to resolve your issues. That was not my intent, nor do I have any desire to pry into information you do not wish to reveal about yourself.
As mentioned above, in cold, hard facts, your current goal is impossible. Also, as cold hard facts, there are alternatives that will allow some aspects of your goal. Each of those alternatives, however, comes with its own set of compromises. So right now, your options are to either give up on studying in Japan entirely, or to accept a certain set of compromises. My concern is not which course of action will be "best" for you based on my own personal preferences of societal standards, but which course of action is most likely to make you, based on your personal preferences, happy.
However, which course of action is most likely to make you happy is strongly connected to the emotional and academic issues that are making you unhappy in your current environment. Again, I do not want to pry or invade your privacy, and truth be told, since I'm not a trained academic or psychological counselor, I'm not equipped with the skills to help you navigate your specific issues even if you were to tell me what they are. Those are the skills that counsellors have, and I recommend speaking with them not so much to have them make your decisions for you, but to help you equip yourself with more information to make a better choice for yourself - and again, by "better" I mean a decision that is more likely to make you happy.
I think I can speak for just about everyone in this thread, and possibly in the country, who was born somewhere else and then moved to Japan when I say that all of us originally had a plan for how we wanted to move to Japan...and that almost none of us actually arrived here by that method. I also desperately wanted to move to Japan as a high school student, but that was not possible because of my academic and financial situations. I then wanted to move to Japan for all four years of university. Again, this was not possible for me. I then wanted to take a break from university and go work in Japan. Once again, this ended up being not possible for me. Finally, I was able to come to Japan as part of a university exchange program, which eventually led to me finding a job in Japan, where I've lived happily for the last 20 years.
My experiences are by no means unique in this matter, and again I think many others will agree that ultimately, coming to Japan after making compromises has made us happier, and that we would have been less happy if we had simply given up when the cold, hard facts were that our initial plan was not possible.
So please forgive those of us who are genuinely trying to help for not stopping at just the cold, hard facts. It's because we're not cold, hard people, and so we feel compelled to also share the warm, soft information too.
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