I've read a lot of your posts Cash.
I think people may start to take you seriously if you show that you are a consistent profitable day trader like Steve T. I would work fulltime, and trade the morning until I was consistently profitable. Also, getting a degree may help, just be sure its something you like and you can use it for your career. You know from experience, as do many others, that all it takes is a couple of bad days to wipe out a month of gains. Consider a job that you can rely on at making money.
After a while you may start to feel like a big fat slug sitting in front of your computer that is mediocre at trading and never got a real job in his life. If you can break through that transition in trading, and you know what you are doing and why you are initiating trades, then congratulations. Until you prove that you are consistently profitable, you will continue to get advice to get a real job and an education.( It is only logical, isn't?)
How about you find 3 stocks that are set for breakouts tommorow, and we can see how well you do? Up for the challenge?
Do you scan for stocks premarket? Do you watch the futures or overseas markets? How many charts do you have running during the day? Do you watch earnings announcements? Do you listen to conference calls? How many stock charts do you study per night?
This is a question for anyone:
How many stock symbols do you think you can write down from memory?
Or how about how many stocks do you know that start with the letter A?
Think about how much more time you need to put in to gain the experience needed to be successful at trading.