Because I was the only deaf kid in my school- a lot of people didn't think I would amount to a whole lot. I often thought I would never be gainfully employed. Even my parents thought I wouldn't amount to the same as my hearing brother by trying to get me to enroll in to a 2 community college rather than a 4 year university. I guess they thought I wouldn't be able to finish a 4 year degree.
In the mainstream setting the only successful deaf person I ever learned about was Helen Keller and very little was said of her. The GT class was allowed to learn to fingerspell - they were ALL hearing students. Me being the deaf student and not in the Gifted/Talented program I wasn't allowed to learn to fingerspell. So I went to the county library across the street and checked out a book on signs and learned how to fingerspell on my own in the 4th grade.
For a while fingerspelling was considered 'cool' as they could 'talk' back and forth to each other w/o getting caught - until I caught them talking about me. I intercepted the conversation and said something like - "your just as much of a retard for putting another person down". Their eyes got big and they put their hands away. 
I knew I acted different from the hearing kids - the hearing kids knew I was different from them so we rarely interacted. I once had a hearing friend and we were best friends for a year then we stopped being friends - I think its because she might have found out I was deaf and from then on saw me as different.
Because I rarely socialized with anyone at my school, I have no intentions of attending a class reunion.
It was lonely and I felt like I was shortchanged on my education a bit because I wasn't provided the proper accommodations and support to ensure my success.
