I never graduated from high school.
By the 11th grade, the years of loneliness, teasing, and frustration had taken its toll. My self-esteem plunged through the floor. I walked around hunched over, hugging my schoolbooks to my chest. Just trying to find someone to eat lunch with was an ordeal. I still remember sitting alone at tables while groups of teenagers would not allow me to join them. My depression and loneliness were upsetting to my family, and they could not really understand what I was going through as a deaf teenager.
I really wanted to fit in. I joined a community service club, the school newspaper, and even a pep squad. I did all that in the hope of making some friends, in addition to doing the things I liked doing. The result was that the others tolerated me, but I did not get any friends out of my efforts. Ironically, I *did* make a friend when I tried out for and failed to make, the volleyball team! For a long time, I thought the students in the community service club were my friends, but one day I discovered they weren't. The school newspaper would not allow me to write anything until one day I got mad and demanded a chance! Even after I had proven myself as a reporter, they would not allow me to become an editor.
The volleyball friend invited me to become a part of her own circle of friends, and I was grateful for that. Every now and then we went out and did teen-age things like rollerskate. But that was only once in a while -- the rest of the time, I was lonely and often depressed.
Then my sister started high school. She was able to see me in the hallways. One night at dinner, she announced, "I saw Jamie at school today. She looked so sad and lonely!" That did it for my family. We had reached a turning point.
Weeks later, I was on my bedroom floor reading my comic books when my mother handed me a magazine. It was a copy of the NTID Focus magazine. She explained, "You will be going there this summer when school lets out. It is a college for the deaf."
College??? I was only sixteen years old! I wanted to stay in high school, where I thought I was happy with the few friends I had. "You don't have a normal social life," my family insisted. "But I want to experience being a senior, getting my picture in the yearbook, the senior prom and all that," I protested.
I was going, and that was that. I think I even looked forward to it. The memories have faded, and I don't remember if my rebellion over going to college came before or after I went to NTID that summer. I just remember fighting because I wanted so much to be a member of the class of 1982! On my last day of high school, I threw my report card at my sister and took off running for the Friendly's restaurant downtown, where she and her friends were going to meet me to celebrate the end of school (I had no one else to celebrate with). I ran so fast that my feet were literally flying in the air. I never looked back.
And so I went to NTID that summer of 1981. I had a good time, which was apparent to my family when they came to pick me up at the end of the summer session. I was not in my dorm room where I was supposed to meet them. I was still in the cafeteria, eating ice cream and chatting away with some new friends I had made. That clinched things...I was not returning to high school in the fall.
Fast-forward to fall 1986. Gallaudet had just become a University, and there was going to be a big dance to celebrate. I was determined to go, as this was my chance to experience something similar to a senior prom. My closest friends who knew I had never graduated from high school, pitched in to help me get ready. I found myself an escort and went. Had a great time -- except I came home with a different guy! So much for "senior proms!"
