Quantum_is_Broken said:
My educational level has little value in this discussion
Your educational level matters only because a fair amount of math is needed to understand what quantum mechanics is about. You mention having taken two years of college, so that may be enough to get started: A semester of single-variable differential calculus, a semester of single-variable integral calculus, a semester of multi-variable and vector calculus, a semester of elementary differential equations; and then you're ready to start elementary quantum mechanics while doing a semester of linear algebra and another of complex analysis in parallel with the elementary QM course.
While you're picking up that math you'll also need some background from the standard physics curriculum: a semester of classical physics at the level of Kleppner and Kolenkow, a semester of classical E&M, a semester on waves, and abstract classical mechanics at the level of Goldstein (which can be done in parallel with the elementary QM semester). This will also fit into your first two years of college, assuming that you did the single-variable calculus in your last year of high school.
That will get you up to where you can read the papers that were being written in the 1930s and follow along with the developments of the 75+ years since then.
At first this sounds seriously discouraging, but it's not. A few years of hard work to understand and appreciate something built over centuries by some of the smartest people who ever lived? That is a deliriously excitingly good bargain.
From here, it's all on you. You can take the easy route of reading the pop-sci treatments which are written for people who are fascinated by the subject but won't/can't learn the real thing, or you can do the work needed to learn the real thing. It's the difference between looking at a photograph of a delicious meal in a cooking magazine on the one hand; and watching the chef prepare the meal and then sitting down and eating it on the other hand. There's nothing wrong with looking at photographs in cooking magazines, just don't kid yourself that looking at the photograph gives you any insight into how food is prepared or what it tastes like.