Can I repeat TY at age 18 due to my unique circumstances

Firstly im sorry to hear about your tough childhood and adolescence

Just to get clarification, "around 3 years behind, want to know from a doctor or physchologist" - are you saying you want to go to a gp or get assessed by a psychologist or have you already went to these practitioners? Did they confirm developmental and emotional delays?

Have you been diagnosed with ASD and ADHD?

I question why staying in school is synonymous with staying in adolescence. I find it interesting you want to hold onto your childhood/adolescence as long as possible (I can see why based on your explanation). I do think you can still delay adulthood and enjoy being a teen to a point without adding more years to secondary school. Who says you're immature for your age?

I guess on the other hand with developmental delays you may need more time and opportunities to develop skills

If you feel you're not benefiting academically..let's look at why that is.. "struggle with the higher difficulty and I barely study". Well as you may already know with ADHD there can come executive functioning problems like planning, organising etc which may make it harder to execute homework tasks. Also medication can help ADHD,not sure if you need this/ are taking meds. It sounds like you need to focus and may need support in getting into a helpful homework/study routine, especially if it's getting you into trouble, do you have access to supports like SNA?

Not good if the school councillor isn't quite avaliable.

I personally think you should express your concerns with your mother and/or principal or some school professional that you trust

If you're not able for the more challenging work of fifth year at 18, taking an extra year won't make a difference. It'll all still be there in Sept 2025. You should really consider doing LCA, as somebody suggested. Smaller classes, more manageable workload.

The question of an eighteen-year-old who wants to mix with fifteen-year-olds, prolong childhood and appear younger, is probably a completely separate one. Most likely one for a psychologist.

OP, I've looked at a few of your reddit posts and it's clear that nobody here will give you the guidance you need. This is not a question of which path to take through education. You have developed a fixation on age and adulthood and a fear of reaching adulthood. Your self-identity is somehow bound up in adolescence. Your points about covid etc are possibly an attempt to rationalise that.

Prepare a short list of the things that are bothering you and make an appointment with your school counsellor or a GP, preferably both.

The list might be something like this:

You do not want to undergo the physical changes associated with reaching adulthood.

You want to be legally recognised as a child by changing your birth cert.

You feel you aren't prepared for the realities of growing up and you need support.

I hope things improve for you.

OP - repeating years is very difficult in and of itself so generally isn't encouraged unless there are clear reasons for it. These would have to be assessed by an educational psychologist through the Department of Education (my understanding of it).

As for the issue of losing part of your adolescence due to bullying and then covid, these are not unusual circumstances unfortunately. I feel like I lost the last couple of years of my primary school due to bullying issues, but unfortunately the world doesn't stop turning and you do have to keep going. Going back to repeat TY is not going to help any issue that you have with the idea of reaching adulthood but rather just delay it. A close family member of mine is diagnosed ADHD, ASD and did his leaving cert during Covid. It was tough, he really didn't enjoy most of school & didn't feel happy about it all. He didn't go straight into college but went into a shorter course that would then lead into the degree he wanted. He is a different person since starting it, much happier, much more confident in himself. He still has all of the issues his ADHD & ASD bring but the environment has suited him much better than school. If he had stayed in the school & repeated even one year, it wouldn't have helped half as much as the change.

I get it - adulthood is scary & no one really wants to be one. Even as an adult for a long time, I still miss my teenage years where I had less responsibility & more time to "be". However instead of avoiding it, I think it sounds like you need to understand what it is about it that you are so resistant to and work on coping strategies for those things. As for feeling your age - I'm in my late 30s & most of the time I feel in my late-20's. Nobody ever feels their age. So without a full diagnosis from GP or other professional, you really are a lot like a lot of people.

Honestly I don't think you can say you were more affected. Everyone was affected differently. I was just back at work from maternity leave & had to suddenly work from home, look after a baby & ended up with post natal anxiety. Those times were incredibly tough on everyone. There is no "average" for it. Yes you had unfortunate circumstances that may have led you to being a bit more isolated than maybe some but a lot of people who lived by themselves were very isolated during Covid. I felt completely cut off at one point because I couldn't see any of my family or friends, one of whom was dying at the time. I'm not saying this to get a sympathy card or anything but just to show that everyone struggled during those times & all in different ways. It was groundhog day for most people as we were all sitting in limbo.

What is it about adulthood that you feel you need more experience in order to face? I mean I don't think I was really an adult at 20. Technically I was but realistically I was doing the same thing as I was a couple of years earlier when I was 17. I don't think I really felt like an adult until I was living completely by myself & responsible for food, rent, bills etc at 25.

What I'm saying is you may feel you require that but without the clinical diagnosis & the educational diagnosis to support it, you're going to struggle to get a school to agree to holding you back. And the argument could be made that if you're cognitively astute enough to express all these things, then you are cognitively an adult. It's a bit like asking them to treat you like an adult to make this decision for yourself to not become an adult & leave school. Which is a contradiction.

I feel old & sad sometimes when I see younger people having fun, that is natural & normal. You miss your youth or wish you could regain it. You're 17, you're not that much older than those ages & you can still have plenty of fun.

You keep saying that you'd be ready to transition to adulthood at a later age but if you don't look at the reasons why you're reluctant to become an adult, you'll never be ready. And putting it off won't help with that. It's not like a switch where you become an adult & all fun ceases & it's all about responsibility. That takes a fair while. Also there is no "transition to adulthood" it just kinda happens. One day I was 17 & legally considered a child, the next I was 18 & legally considered an adult. Nothing changed on that day. The actual transition is a long, slow process where you grow & evolve & learn how to be responsible & pay your way, you get a job. It is not something that just happens one day & your youth is over.

I never joined a youth club & honestly, after being bullied psychologically at 11/12 years old, it took me till I was about 16 to really make more than 1 or 2 friends. Even in a small school environment where everyone was pretty nice. I don't think I started going out & really having fun till I was 17/18. And TY was a right off for me as I missed about 75% due to being quite sick throughout the year. Do I feel like I missed out a bit? Course! I don't have half the funny stories from it that my friends do. But I never thought of trying to go back to it because that is life. Sometimes we miss out on experiences for varying reasons. And that will always happen. And you can't always go back & try again. That is the nature of life. And if the maximum age for the youth club is 24 that alone should tell you a couple of things - 1 is that they don't expect people to be fully formed adults until then & the other is that you have 7 years left of being involved in it.

Now I will say again, if a medical professional & an educational psychologist assess you as needing to be held back for your best interests, that's a different thing. But until you get that confirmation from them, you won't be granted a request to stay back in school & focusing solely on that as being a means to be happy, will only further serve to make you unhappy. Genuinely you need to start looking at why you don't want to move past school and deal with those issues, creating coping mechanisms so that you can live a full life.

An 18 year old who wants to pass for 15 and get a girlfriend is a cause for concern. Surely you can see why that is.

Well that depends on what your definition of adolescence is, what does it look like to you? No job? Living under parent(s) roof? Gaming?